A COMPLETELY NEW PORT
NOT long ago an author renowned for her descriptions of the great cities of the world sought to sum up the impressions conveyed by Victoria Harbour and its immediate surroundings. In Hong Kong-Xianggang (published in 1988) Jan Morris wrote that, for her, the harbour was 'the most thrilling of all metropolitan prospects - the finest sight in Asia'. In the same book, much of which is devoted to depicting human activity in and around the harbour, she referred briefly and in passing to 'visionary plans to create another container terminal on an artificial island off Lantau'.
She was wide of the mark. Even as she wrote, these plans had advanced far from the visionary stage. Barely a year after the book came out the Governor of Hong Kong, Sir David Wilson, announced the government's decision to 'create what amounts to a completely new port on the western side of the territory', in concert with the construction of a new international airport in the same area.
The phrases just quoted illustrate how difficult (if not impossible) it is for any observer, however perceptive, to present a picture of Hong Kong and an account of its development that do not quickly become dated in some vital aspect or another. In this place, almost overnight it seems, vision rapidly turns into blueprint and study becomes strategy.
In portraying the harbour as something inseparable from the creative and productive energies of the people, Miss Morris said things that seem timelessly true, wise and apposite; and her book will no doubt be read with enjoyment and advantage for many years to come. Yet the fact remains that the harbour on which she focussed, the strip of water between Hong Kong Island and Kowloon, is already beginning to become known as the Old Harbour.
What Hong Kong has set its hand to, the greatest undertaking that can be imagined for a harbour-city, is the formation of a new haven and a new port. The new haven or anchorage will be four times larger than the Old (Victoria) Harbour. More importantly, the new container terminals to be built on Lantau will, with other facilities developed elsewhere, quadruple Hong Kong's present cargo capacity.
The words 'power' and 'muscle' are perhaps equally applicable, and convey better the essence of modern port activities: the lifting of large volumes of goods quickly from shore to ship and from ship to shore. By massing new lifting muscle in the west, Hong Kong will become a four times more powerful port over the next twenty years.
The importance of this undertaking can hardly be overstated. The harbour is the chief physical asset of the territory; and the prosperity of the territory and its standing in the
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