DALIAN — The plan here seems far-fetched — a $36 billion tunnel that would run twice the length of the one under the English Channel, and bore deep into one of Asia’s active earthquake zones. When completed, it would be the world’s longest underwater tunnel, creating a rail link between two northern port cities.
大连——这是个太过离奇的规划——在亚洲最活跃的一个地震带上，深挖一条比英吉利海峡海底隧道长出一倍、造价高达360亿美元的隧道。建成后，它将成为世界上最长的水下隧道，用铁路连接中国北方两座港口城市。
Throughout China, equally ambitious projects with multibillion-dollar price tags are already underway. The world’s largest bridge. The biggest airport. The longest gas pipeline. An $80 billion effort to divert water from the south of the country, where it is abundant, to a parched section of the north, along a route that covers more than 1,500 miles.
在中国各地，造价动辄数十、上百亿美元、同样雄心勃勃的项目已经上马，比如世界最长的大桥、世界最大的机场以及世界最长的天然气输送管道。耗资800亿美元的南水北调工程绵延1500英里。

Such enormous infrastructure projects are a Chinese tradition. From the Great Wall to the Grand Canal and the Three Gorges Dam, this nation for centuries has used colossal public-works projects to showcase its engineering prowess and project its economic might.
中国有筑造此类巨型基建工程的传统。从长城到大运河再到三峡大坝，数百年来，这个国家一直用庞大的公共建设项目展示着非凡的工程技能和经济实力。
Now, as doubts emerge about the country’s three-decade boom, China’s leaders are moving even more aggressively, doubling down on mega infrastructure. In November, for instance, the powerful National Development and Reform Commission approved plans to spend nearly $115 billion on 21 supersize infrastructure projects, including new airports and high-speed rail lines
现在，随着人们对中国持续了30年的繁荣心生疑虑，该国领导人的举措反而变得愈发激进，把更多赌注投向了大型基础设施。举例来说，2014年11月，手握重权的国家发改委批复了包括新机场和新高铁在内的21个超大基建项目，总投资额接近1150亿美元。
“China has always had this history of mega projects,” says Huang Yukon, an economist and senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a think tank based in Washington. “It’s part of the blood, the culture, the nature of its society. To have an impact on the country, they’ve got to be big.”
“中国对大型项目的偏好由来已久，”经济学家、卡内基国际和平研究院(Carnegie Endowment for International Peace)高级研究员黄育川(Yukon Huang)说。“它是这个社会的血脉和文化的一部分，是骨子里的东西。工程只有够大，才能对这个国家有影响。”卡内基国际和平研究院是总部设在华盛顿的一家智库。
Whether China really needs this much big infrastructure — or can even afford it — is a contentious issue.
至于中国是否真的需要——或者能否负担得起——这么多大型基础设施，则是一个存在争议的问题。
The infrastructure plans run counter to Beijing’s commitment to reduce its heavy reliance on government-led investment to fuel growth. And some economists worry that the country might eventually be mired in mega debt.
北京方面正致力于扭转过度依赖政府主导型投资推动经济增长的局面，建造大型基础设施的计划与这种努力背道而驰。此外，一些经济学家担心中国最终会为巨额债务所累。
According to China’s National Audit Office, local government debt alone stood at about $3.1 trillion in 2013, more than a third the size of the entire economy. The high level of debt, analysts warn, could stunt growth for a long time.
根据中国国家审计署的数据，2013年，仅是地方政府债务就已经高达3.1万亿美元，占经济总量的的三分之一强。分析人士警告称，高企的债务水平可能会在很长一段时间内妨碍经济的增长。
“People should be concerned because very few of these big projects generate cash,” said Victor Shih, a China specialist who teaches political economy at the University of California, San Diego.
“人们应该感到担心，因为这些大型项目中盈利的寥寥无几，”在加州大学圣地亚哥分校(University of California, San Diego)教授政治经济学的中国问题专家史宗瀚(Victor Shih)说。
And yet China’s leaders are so confident of the value and necessity of building on an epic scale that engineers are mapping out plans for decades to come.
但中国领导人坚信史诗般的大规模工程建设有其价值和必要性，工程师们正制定未来数十年的规划。
Shanghai is considered a model, a spectacularly rich metropolis of 25 million residents. Undergirding the city is a patchwork of supersize infrastructure — huge airports, subway lines, sewage systems and power plants.
上海这个有2500万居民、无比富庶的大都市被视为典范。由大型机场、地铁、污水处理系统、发电厂等超大规模的基础设施构成的网络，为这座城市提供了有力的支撑。
In the city’s thriving financial center, workers are putting finishing touches on the Shanghai Tower, a $2.4 billion cloud-piercer that at 2,073 feet is the world’s second-tallest building. Only the Burj Khalifa in Dubai is taller, at 2,716 feet.
在该市欣欣向荣的金融中心，工人门正对上海中心大厦进行最后的修饰。这座大厦耗资24亿美元，高2073英尺（632米），是世界第二高建筑。排名世界第一的是迪拜的哈利法塔(Burj Khalifa)，高2716英尺。
Further east, the city is building the world’s largest playground, Shanghai Disney Resort, which when it opens around 2016 will be surrounded by a 225-acre Magic Kingdom-style park, a development expected to cost more than $5 billion. A city-owned company is helping finance the project.
再往东看，该市正建造世界最大的游乐场——上海迪士尼乐园。等到2016年前后开业时，它会被面积为225英亩的“魔法王国”主题公园环绕起来。该项目的总投资预计在50亿美元以上。一家上海市属国有企业为其提供了一部分资金。
Shanghai can afford the huge price tags. The fast-growing city is a financial center and a major tourist destination.
上海负担得起上述大手笔的投资。这座快速发展的城市既是金融中心，又是热门旅游胜地。
But other cities don’t necessarily have the means to pay for such huge infrastructure projects.
但其他城市就未必有办法为此类大型基建项目买单了。
In Tianjin, about 70 miles southeast of Beijing, the city has borrowed heavily to create what some have called a replica of New York City, with complexes modeled after Rockefeller Center and Lincoln Center. Today, though, the area is a virtual ghost town. Dozens of office towers and luxury developments sit empty, half completed.
为了打造一些人所说的纽约的翻版，天津市大规模举债，在北京东南约70公里处兴建以洛克菲勒中心(Rockefeller Center)和林肯中心(Lincoln Center)为模板的城市综合体。现如今，这个地方实际已经成为鬼城。数十栋写字楼和豪华的住宅区空空如也，处于烂尾状态。
And here in Dalian, a city of six million in the northeast, the proposed underwater rail tunnel to Yantai is just one piece of a master plan that includes a 163-mile urban transit system. Work is also underway on what the city says will be the world’s largest off-shore airport, a $4.3 billion development on an artificial island created with landfill, covering more than eight square miles.
而在大连这座有600万人口的北方城市，拟议中的通往烟台的水下铁路隧道，只是一个宏大方案的组成部分，该方案中包括一个全长163英里的城市轨道交通系统。此外，大连还在建设号称世界最大的海上机场。机场预计耗资43亿美元，建在填海而成的人工岛屿上，面积超过8平方英里。
“It makes sense to accelerate infrastructure spending during a downturn, when capital and labor are underemployed,” says David Dollar, the former country director in China for the World Bank and now at the Brookings Institution in Washington. But “if the growth rate is propped up through building unnecessary infrastructure, eventually there could be a sharp slowdown that reveals that the infrastructure was really not needed at all.”
“在经济衰退，资金和劳动力利用不充分时，加快基础设施方面的支出合情合理，”目前供职于华盛顿布鲁金斯学会(Brookings Institution)的世界银行(World Bank)前中国局局长杜大伟(David Dollar)说。但“如果支撑增长率的是修建不必要的基础设施，增长率最终会大幅放缓，暴露出相关基础设施真的完全没有必要”。
Many experts say such projects also exact a heavy toll on local communities and the environment, as builders displace people, clear forests, reroute rivers and erect dams.
许多专家表示，随着建筑商让民众搬迁、使河流改道、砍伐森林、修建大坝，这类项目也会严重影响当地的社区和环境。
In the northwest, in the city of Lanzhou, the local government has backed plans to flatten the tops of 700 low-level mountains to make way for a new business district, despite concerns about the damage to the local ecosystem. Dam-building has also wreaked havoc, creating water shortages, environmental damage and may have even helped set off earthquakes in southwest China, according to some scientists.
在地处西北的兰州，尽管有人担心会破坏当地的生态系统，当地政府依然支持了一项削平700座小山修建新商业区的计划。一些科学家表示，修建大坝也会造成严重影响，导致用水短缺，环境破坏，甚至西南地区的地震可能也是它引起的。
“The perilous path is the notion you can control nature,” ” said Paul K. Gellert, a sociologist at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. “There will always be negative social and environmental consequences.”
“当你认为人能控制自然时，就是走上了一条危险的路，”诺克斯维尔田纳西大学(University of Tennessee)的社会学家保罗·K·盖勒特(Paul K. Gellert)说。“对社会和环境势必造成不利影响。”
As a one-party state controlled by the Communist Party, China can easily muster the political will and financial resources to undertake such huge projects. And for now, it is backing — and even encouraging — municipalities to think big.
作为共产党一党执政的国家，中国很容易就能聚集起进行这种大项目所需的政治意志和财政资源。而且目前，中国支持甚至鼓励地方往大了想。
“They have an authoritarian system. And so they can do all this without opposition — this is key,” says Gerardo del Cerro Santamaría, an expert on mega projects at Cooper Union in New York. “In the West, civil society participates, and in many cases, opposes big projects.”
“他们有一个威权主义制度。所以他们这么做不会遭到任何反对，这一点很关键，”纽约库珀联盟学院(Cooper Union)研究大型项目的专家杰拉尔多·德切罗·圣玛丽亚(Gerardo del Cerro Santamaría)说。“在西方，公民社会会参与，并且在很多情况下会反对大型项目。”
Proponents say mega projects can bring greater efficiencies. Big dams and wind farms can cut carbon emissions, while mass transit can help reduce oil consumption, thus delivering greener solutions.
支持者称大型项目会带来更高的效率。大型水坝和风力发电厂能减少碳排放，而大型运输项目能有助于降低石油消耗，进而实现更环保的解决方案。
Other mega projects could bolster China’s position as a manufacturing and trading powerhouse. In November, the government said its freight rail link between eastern China and Spain had opened, allowing factory goods to reach Spain in just over 20 days. It is now the world’s longest rail journey, far surpassing the route of the famed Trans-Siberian Railway.
其他一些大型项目可能会巩固中国作为一个制造业和贸易大国的地位。去年11月，政府宣布已开通了连接中国东部和西班牙的铁路货运线，出厂的商品只需20多天便可抵达西班牙。这是目前世界上最长的铁路线，远远超过了大名鼎鼎的西伯利亚大铁路(Trans-Siberian Railway)的里程。
China also sees hidden benefits in such projects, including the ability to gain new scientific and technical expertise.
中国也看到了这类项目隐藏的利益，包括能获得科技领域新的专业知识。
As a result, bridge-building in China has become something akin to an Olympic event. In 2007, after China completed the longest sea-crossing bridge in Hangzhou, the nation has regularly broken records. China now claims the longest bridge of any kind, the highest bridge and, in 2011, a new successor to the longest sea-crossing bridge, 26.4 miles long, in the eastern city of Qingdao.
桥梁建设因此在中国成了奥运会比赛一般。2007年，杭州建成了当时最长的跨海大桥。此后，记录在这个国家频频被打破。目前各种类型的桥梁的最长记录都由中国保持，还有最高的桥梁，而2011年，东部城市青岛的一座长达36.48公里的大桥，接过了最长跨海大桥的称号。
“For China, a lot of this is about building a national identity. Mega projects are suited for that,” says Bent Flyvbjerg, an authority on mega projects who teaches at Oxford University. “It’s a lighthouse for all to see what the Chinese nation can do.”
“对中国来说，这么做很大程度上和构建民族认同有关。大型项目和这一点是契合的，”在牛津大学(Oxford University)执教的本特·弗吕布耶格(Bent Flyvbjerg)说。弗吕布耶格是大型项目研究领域的权威。“这是一座灯塔，让我们所有人看到中华民族的能力。”
It is the type of engineering expertise the government wants its state-owned enterprises to export — and that is already happening. Boston is buying subway cars from China. Argentina, Pakistan and Russia have asked China to upgrade their infrastructure. Last month, Chinese construction teams began work on an ambitious $50 billion canal across Nicaragua that could some day rival the Panama Canal.
这也是政府希望国有企业能输出的工程领域的专业知识，而这一点已经实现了。波士顿正在从中国购买地铁列车。阿根廷、巴基斯坦和俄罗斯已经请中国升级它们的基础设施。上月，中国的施工队在一条贯穿尼加拉瓜的运河工地开工。这个雄心勃勃的项目投资500亿美元，有一天可能会与巴拿马运河(Panama Canal)相匹敌。
“They have the idea that they’re going to be doing infrastructure for the rest of the world,” says Mr. Huang at the Carnegie Institute.
“他们认为自己将会给全世界其他所有地方修建基础设施，”卡内基国际和平研究院的黄育川说。
In doing so, China is pushing the boundaries of infrastructure-building, with ever bolder proposals. The Dalian tunnel looks small compared to the latest idea to build an “international railway” that would link China to the United States by burrowing under the Bering Strait and creating a tunnel between Russia and Alaska.
中国正在以此扩展基础设施建设的疆土，提出越来越大胆的方案。最近，有人提出修建一条“跨国铁路”，通过在俄罗斯和阿拉斯加之间的白令海峡海底挖一条隧道，将中国和美国连接起来。相比之下，大连这条隧道的规模就很小了。
“The technology is already there,” said Wang Mengshu, a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and an adviser on the Dalian tunnel proposal. “Think about it. If we can build a railway to the North Pole, it would be convenient for us to go to the North Pole.”
“技术已经具备了，”中国工程院院士、大连隧道项目方案的顾问王梦恕说。“想想看，如果能修一条通向北极的铁路，那我们去北极就方便了。”