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China Inland Waterways
Inland navigation is China's oldest form of transportation
(see
fig. 17). Despite the potential advantages of water transportation,
it was often mismanaged or neglected in the past. Beginning in 1960
the network of navigable inland waterways decreased further because
of the construction of dams and irrigation works and the increasing
sedimentation. But by the early 1980s, as the railroads became
increasingly congested, the authorities came to see water
transportation as a much less expensive alternative to new road and
railroad construction. The central government set out to overhaul
the inefficient inland waterway system and called upon localities
to play major roles in managing and financing most of the projects.
By 1984 China's longest river, the Chang Jiang, with a total of
70,000 kilometers of waterways open to shipping on its main stream
and 3,600 kilometers on its tributaries, became the nation's
busiest shipping lane, carrying 72 percent of China's total
waterborne traffic. An estimated 340,000 people and 170,000 boats
were engaged in the water transportation business. More than 800
shipping enterprises and 60 shipping companies transported over 259
million tons of cargo on the Chang Jiang and its tributaries in
1984. Nationally, in 1985 the inland waterways carried some 434
million tons of cargo. In 1986 there were approximately 138,600
kilometers of inland waterways, 79 percent of which were navigable.
The Cihuai Canal in northern Anhui Province opened to
navigation in 1984. This 134-kilometer canal linking the Ying He,
a major tributary of the Huai He, with the Huai He's main course,
had an annual capacity of 600,000 tons of cargo. The canal promoted
the flow of goods between Anhui and neighboring provinces and
helped to develop the Huai He Plain, one of China's major grainproducing areas.
Data as of July 1987
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