Wang Zhanyi:The implementation of major policies facilitates highway modernization

An interview with Wang Zhanyi, former Vice Minister of Transport

“This year is the fortieth anniversary of China’s reform and opening up. In the past forty years, China’s highway construction has gone through tremendous changes. As a veteran in the transportation sector, I am extremely happy to see this. This is the result of policies and human effort.”

-- Wang Zhanyi, 88-year old former Vice Minister of Transport

Wang Zhanyi, former Vice Minister of Transport [Photo by Liang Ximing]

Wang clearly described the forty-year of dramatic changes with groups of figures. “Compared with 1978, the highway mileage has increased from 890,000 kilometers to 4.77 million kilometers; expressways have grown out of nothing to reach 136,000 kilometers; the standard and quality for mainline highways have generally improved and rural highways and tourism highways have enjoyed burgeoning development. Highways are accessible to over 99 percent of villages across China and most highways are paved with asphalt or cement.”

Wang threw himself into the world of highways in 1950. Highways have been his lifelong pursuit and dedication. When serving as the Vice Minister of Transport from 1982 to 1992, he participated in and witnessed the formulation and implementation of many major policies on highway construction, which “have played a critical role in the achievement in highway and transportation undertakings.” The tenacity and ingenuity of transportation personnel who can cut paths through mountains and build bridges across rivers are still fresh and vivid in Wang’s memory.

Wang Zhanyi:The backward highways have impeded economic development

Before the founding of the People’s Republic of China, highway infrastructure was poor. Wang vividly compares it to “branches of a withered tree”. After the foundation of new China, to reinforce national defense, explore the frontier and develop the economy, China invested in constructing some mainline highways such as the Sichuan-Tibet Highway and the Qinghai-Tibet Highway. It also assembled highway survey and construction teams of around 100,000 people. Highway construction began to enter the track of healthy development.

“But during the ‘Great Leap Forward’ in 1958, county party secretaries in some counties of plain regions mobilized people to build simple highways of several hundred kilometers long in half a month (no cost for land requisition and no standards. Highways were not paved on the surface and no bridges were built), making some people falsely believe that it was easy to build highways. Therefore, after 1958, national plans no longer included special arrangement on the construction investment in ordinary highways,” Wang recalled.

Later China invested in constructing a few national defense and frontier highways. Various localities also mobilized people to build some rural highways, while transportation departments conducted technical transformation for some highways with road tolls. However, highways developed quite slowly, and the construction of mainline highways was almost at a standstill.

In 1978, China’s highway mileage was only 890,000 kilometers and there were few high-level highways, asphalt roads or bridges on major rivers. At that time, highways were built with low standards and poor quality. At that moment, around 50 nations in the world already possessed expressways, but expressway construction had not even started in China. “Though some arterial highways were paved with residue oil on the surface, the average driving speed was only 30 kilometers per hour due to the low standard,” Wang recalled, “dust all over the body on a sunny day and mud all over the body on a rainy day” was the authentic depiction of driving in those days.

The poor highways and frequent traffic accidents still remain fresh in the Wang’s memory: “Take the Beijing-Tanggu Highway as an example. Though it was reconstructed many times with many road sections as wide 10 meters or more, the 172-kilometer highway crossed 16 villages and had 7 level crossings with railways, 21 level crossings with other highways and over 100 level crossings with rural roads. Moreover, since autos, carriages, bicycles and tractors were all traveling on the same road, leading to mutual interruptions and impediment, the average driving speed was only about 30 kilometers per hour and over 1,300 traffic accidents happened each year with over 1,100 casualties.”

Even for the famous Sichuan-Tibet Highway, some road sections were still a single lane. Worsened by frequent mudslides and landslides, the traffic was closed for several months in a row. Meanwhile, highways still did not access one county, 4,000 small towns (people’s communes), and nearly 200,000 incorporated villages, where transportation continued to rely on manpower and domestic animals.

“Ambulances and cinema teams were unable to enter villages. When some mountainous regions with abundant water resources were earmarked for small hydropower stations, equipment could not be transported into these regions and tractors could not be used. This seriously impeded economic and social development and the public urgently demanded transformation of the backward situation,” Wang said.

Wang Zhanyi:In 1984, the State Council made three major decisions.

In 1978, the Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party was held. Under the favorable atmosphere of reform and thriving national economic development, the conflict between poor highway transportation and economic development became increasingly prominent.

According to Wang, in order to quickly change the backwardness of highways transportation, officials on the one hand publicized the necessity of highway construction by explaining that road transportation could realize “door-to-door” transportation and reduce the loading and unloading at transit stations, and was an important means of travel for staff members of railway stations, water ports, and civil aviation airports as well as for cargo distribution. Meanwhile, they also quoted overseas materials and typical domestic cases to show the great significance of highway construction for national economic development, modernization and the building of a socialist new countryside. On the other hand, transportation departments offered a recommendation to the State Council and the former State Planning Commission (the present NDRC) in hopes that when drafting annual development plans, they could incorporate highway construction into them and allocate some construction capital.

“At that moment, China’s financial resources were limited, and projects already incorporated into national plans all suffered from capital shortage. The cake was already divided, making it difficult to cut any part off and give it to highway construction. The State Council official in charge of transportation at that time asked us to study and propose other ways to raise funds for highway construction,” Wang said. “At that time, I was in charge of highway and road transportation in the Ministry. The Minister asked me to organize people to study and put forward proposals and measures to accelerate highway construction. Therefore, I invited colleagues from the Highway Administration, Planning Department, Financial Department and Economic Research Office of the Road Science Research Institute to put forward a series of measures by referring to overseas practices and domestic practices in Shandong province and Guangdong province.

“After conducting repeated studies and filing reports with the leading party group of the Ministry of Transport for discussion, the Ministry of Transport decided to suggest that the State Council adopt three policy measures including the collection of a vehicle purchase surcharge to cope with national capital shortages for highway construction.

“After reporting to the State Council Vice-premier in charge and negotiating with the State Development Planning Commission and Ministry of Finance, Minister Qian Yongchang and I gave a report on the 54th executive meeting of the State Council in December 1984,” said Wang. He added that after discussion it was agreed at the meeting that accelerating highway construction is of great significance in easing traffic and transportation pressure and speeding up the building of “Four Modernizations”. It was stressed that strict grade standards and quality requirements must be formulated for highway construction. Three points were determined for the capital sources of highway construction. Firstly, the level of road toll collection should be properly increased. Usually, 10% to 12% of the freight was collected, but in individual cases the collection percentage should be higher, but no more than 15% of the freight with variations allowed in different provinces. Secondly, to guarantee long-term and stable revenue sources for highway construction, aside from the collection of road tolls, all entities and individuals having bought vehicles were to be charged a vehicle purchase surcharge, 10% of the price for a domestic vehicle or 15% of the price for an imported vehicle (later changed to 10%). This sum of money was only to be used for highway construction and not for other purposes. Thirdly, road tolls could be collected after the construction of expressways, bridges and tunnels built through fundraising or loans.

“In China’s highway development history, it was a meeting of great historical significance. It created favorable conditions in policies and capital and laid a solid foundation for the rapid development of China’s highway construction and maintenance undertakings in the next several decades.” Details related to this meeting are deeply engraved in Wang’s memory. “When we reported to the State Council, we also cited cases in Guangdong and Shandong.”

Before 1980, you had to pass four ferry crossings when travelling from Guangzhou to Zhuhai. The 120-kilometer journey would usually take over half a day. Sometimes when floods or strong winds came, the road could not be used for several days. In 1981, Guangdong introduced foreign capital and took out loans to build four big bridges at ferry crossings. Fee was collected after construction to pay back loans. “After the construction of these bridges, it took only two hours to travel from Guangzhou to Zhuhai. One vehicle could do the work of two vehicles with their transportation efficiency increased by several times,” Wang said.

“At that time, national regulations stipulated that the collection level of road tolls should usually be 6% to 8% of the freight, but no more than 10%. However, as early as 1972, with the approval of the provincial government, the road toll was collected at 12% of the freight in Shandong province. On the surface, it increased the burden of entities with autos, but Shandong province did a great job in highway construction, thus improving the auto transportation efficiency with the profit of transportation companies in Shandong province ranking first in China.” Wang Zhanyi said that for transportation enterprises in Shandong province, the profit created by each vehicle in a year at that time was enough for purchase of one more vehicle, which actually increased fiscal revenue.

The Measures on the Collection of Vehicle Purchase Surcharge issued by the State Council started to be implemented on May 1, 1985. The former Ministry of Transport, Ministry of Finance, and governments of provinces and municipalities directly under the central government, as well as governments of autonomous regions, issued specific regulations on increasing the amount of road toll and collecting vehicle purchase surcharges and highway tolls in the first half of 1985.

The implementation of the above policies provided long-term, stable capital sources for highway construction, maintenance and transformation so that highway practitioners were greatly encouraged and became enthusiastic about their work in an unprecedented way. Under the leadership of party committees and governments of all levels, transportation departments actively organized and coordinated the work and new highway construction and transformation projects were quickly popularized in China.

According to Wang, in the construction of some expressways, long-span bridges and tunnels, transportation personnel became united and worked hard. Faced with new problems, they constantly studied, explored and created quite a few new designs, new processes and new measures, thus enabling China’s highway design and construction skills to quickly catch up with the advanced standards around the world.

Wang Zhanyi:Earth-shaking changes took place, but tasks were still tough

After leaving his office as Vice Minister of Transport in 1992, Wang was elected as a deputy to the 8th National People’s Congress and a member of the 9th CPPCC National Committee successively and served as President of the China Highway and Transportation Society. Since his retirement in 2004, he has closely followed the development of traffic and transportation undertakings by reading such newspapers as China Transport News, attending seminars, and conducting field trips.

“The construction of highways, bridges and tunnels on a large scale provides a broad market to steel, cement, asphalt and road building machinery while creating many job opportunities. With China’s national economic development and the increase in people’s living standard, many people can afford private cars. As more and better highways are constructed, people’s enthusiasm about purchasing cars has also soared to an unprecedented height. In the past few years, the annual auto sales in China have been over 20 million. In terms of highway transportation, difficulties in public transportation and cargo transportation long troubling Chinese people have basically been ironed out,” Wang said. After General Secretary Xi Jinping put forward the instruction on constructing “Four-Good Rural Roads”, the construction, administration, maintenance and auto operation of rural roads in China have reached a new stage, contributing to the building of a new socialist countryside.

In the past two years, Wang Zhanyi visited some highways in Zhejiang province and Shandong province. In June this year, he also attended a group learning activity for the Party Branch of retired ministers. Retired ministers visited rural highways of mountainous regions in Beijing under a scorching sun and witnessed the improvement in the standard, quality, and services of highways. “Asphalt or cement roads are accessible to all villages and public transportation is also available between villages and between villages and towns. The bus fare is only several yuan,” said Wang, smiling.

“As a veteran, I am very happy to see the earth-shaking changes that have taken place in highways. This is the result of policies and human effort. However, we should also be aware that China’s highway network is still not perfect, many highways are not resistant enough to natural disasters and each year some highways and bridges are damaged by flood, landslides and mudslides, leading to traffic interruptions. Most bridges built before reform and opening up were built with a low load standard and were unable to adapt to the needs of heavy vehicles with some bridges having even become unsafe. The level of management and services still needs to be improved and the task for highway personnel is still high,” Wang said. He added that highway personnel in the new era must recognize both past achievements and current challenges, and continue to work hard.