South China's Shenzhen-Zhongshan Link boosts regional tourism with enhanced travel options

The operation of the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Link, a mega cross-sea passage in southern China, has not only made travel more convenient for local residents but has also sparked a regional tourism boom, as evidenced by the surge in summer holiday travel among different parts of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) city cluster in the vicinity.

Spanning 24 km and featuring two bridges, two artificial islands, and an underwater tunnel, the link has drastically reduced travel time between the city of Zhongshan and the technology hub of Shenzhen, which sit on opposite sides of the Pearl River Estuary leading to the South China Sea. The journey between the two destinations now takes around 30 minutes, down from two hours previously.

This enhanced connectivity has made it easier for tourists, both local and from surrounding areas, to visit the landmark Shenzhen-Zhongshan Link, spurring cultural and tourism exchanges.

One of the most popular destinations benefiting from the link is the Tourism Area of Sun Yat-sen Hometown in Zhongshan City.

By 09:00 on Tuesday, a long queue of tourists had already formed outside the entrance, with many visitors arriving by car.

Born in 1866 in Zhongshan City, Sun is known for his leading role during the 1911 Revolution, which overthrew the imperial Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) and ended more than 2,000 years of feudal rule in China.

"It's convenient for us as we can make a round trip [through the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Link] in a single day. It's my first time experiencing the culture of Zhongshan up close," said Mr. Wang, a tourist from Shenzhen.

In addition to self-driving tours and group visits, the Shenzhen-Zhongshan cross-city bus service has become a popular choice for travelers. "There was a large passenger flow over the weekend, with 5,800 passenger trips made from Zhongshan to Shenzhen daily, and we dispatched 60 emergency vehicles," said Huang Wujie, a transportation dispatcher with the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Bus Fleet, Zhongshan Public Transport Group Co., Ltd.

Beyond land travel, sea sightseeing tours along the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Link are also gaining popularity, with the newly opened cruise route seeing over 10,000 passenger trips in its first month of operation.

The four daily cruise sails are often fully booked, especially on weekends, with some tourists even boarding the ships directly from the nearby airport. The proximity of the cruise ship terminal to the airport has made it convenient for travelers, many of whom board the ship directly with their luggage. Sightseeing boat tickets are in high demand, especially on weekends.

"When it first opened, we would operate three cruise sails a day. Now, due to the extraordinary popularity of cruise service, we've increased the operation to four sails a day," said Mai Lanyan, cruise operation manager, Shenzhen Shipping Group under CITIC Urban Development and Operation.

The opening of the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Link has also contributed to increasing air travel options within the Greater Bay Area. Nearly 100 round-trip airport buses operate daily between Shenzhen and the cities of Zhongshan and Jiangmen, reducing travel time from over two hours to about one hour.

"It is more convenient for [us travelers from Jiangmen to Shenzhen]. In the past, we had to go to Guangzhou to take a plane, but now we can go directly to Shenzhen. It takes about an hour to travel from Jiangmen to Shenzhen," said a Jiangmen resident surnamed Wu.

The Greater Bay Area consists of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, the Macao Special Administrative Region, as well as nine cities in Guangdong Province -- Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Foshan, Huizhou, Dongguan, Zhongshan, Jiangmen and Zhaoqing. China plans to vigorously develop the Greater Bay Area into a world-class bay area and a top international city cluster as an important driver for national economic growth.

South China's Shenzhen-Zhongshan Link boosts regional tourism with enhanced travel options

It's impossible to build a system of governance that ensures artificial intelligence (AI) systems always operate and police themselves in alignment with both human and machine well-being without the participation of China, American columnist Thomas L. Friedman said in an article on Tuesday.

Friedman, a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner and the author of "The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century," attended the China Development Forum 2025 held on March 23 and 24 in Beijing.

Based on what he saw and heard during the event, Friedman published an article in the New York Times titled "What I'm Hearing in China This Week About Our Shared Future" on Tuesday.

"There is an earthshaking event coming — the birth of artificial general intelligence (AGI). The United States and China are the two superpowers closing in on AGI — systems that will be as smart or smarter than the smartest human and able to learn and act on their own," the article reads.

Friedman cited an M.I.T. Technology Review report on the "16 humanoid robots" that danced on stage during China's televised Spring Festival gala this year which read: "Clad in vibrant floral print jackets, they took part in a signature ... dance, twirling red handkerchiefs in unison with human dancers."

Friedman wrote in his column that "In their day job, these robots work assembling electric vehicles. Dancing was just their hobby."

"The advances that China has made on AI in just the past year have made it absolutely clear that Beijing and Washington are now the world's two AI superpowers," Friedman wrote.

He mentioned a recent report by Morgan Stanley describing China's dominance over the West in the humanoid robot industry, saying the country is home to a majority of the top-listed companies in this sector.

Noting AI systems and humanoid robots offer so much potential benefit to humanity, Friedman warned they could also be hugely destructive and destabilizing if not embedded with the right values and controls.

He repeatedly stressed the importance of collaboration between the U.S. and China in AI.

"Because what Soviet-American nuclear arms control was to world stability since the 1970s, U.S.-Chinese AI collaboration to make sure we effectively control these rapidly advancing AI systems will be for the stability of tomorrow's world," Friedman wrote.

"China has greatly narrowed the gap with us and surpassed the other democracies. This can't be done without Beijing. So guess who's coming to dinner. It's a table for two now," he said.

Friedman wrote in the article that "Once AGI arrives, if we are not assured that these systems will be embedded with common trust standards, the United States and China will not be able to do anything together."

He pointed out that in this case, neither side will trust anything they trade with the other, because AI will be in everything that is digital and connected, including cars, watches, toasters, chairs, implants, and notepads.

"So if there is no trust between the U.S. and China and each of the two countries has their own AI systems, it will be the TikTok problem on steroids. A lot of trade will just grind to a halt, with only soybeans for soy sauce sold to each other," Friedman wrote, saying "It will be a world of high-tech feudalism."

Friedman said he was taken with a speech by Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari during the conference, who said that "We should build more trust between humans before we develop truly superintelligent AI agents. But we are now doing exactly the opposite. All over the world, trust between humans is collapsing. Too many countries think that to be strong is to trust no one and be completely separated from others. If we forget our shared human legacies and lose trust with everyone outside us, that will leave us easy prey for an out-of-control AI."

Global AI governance cannot happen without China: American columnist