Aerial photo taken on Aug. 25, 2020 shows Pingtan Strait Road-rail Bridge in southeast China's Fujian Province.Photo:Xinhua

Chinese mainland social media users expressed great excitement on Monday after Baidu Maps, an app service, began to show search results for the "Beijing-Taipei high-speed railway (HSR)," showing the route of the railway and its status as "under construction."

The news became one of the most discussed topics on Chinese social media on Monday. On Sina Weibo, the trending topic - "map can show Beijing-Taipei HSR's route" - garnered a total of 160 million views in a matter of hours.

Many social media users said that the island's economy is expected to "get a lift" from a link with the capital Beijing through the HSR and cities along the line. Some suggested buying property in Hsinchu, the connecting point of the HSR.

The trending topic came amid widespread public anger over US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's reckless and provocative visit to the island last week, which has prompted a series of countermeasures from the mainland, including ongoing military drills conducted by the People's Liberation Army.

The search result for the Beijing-Taipei HSR indicated the route of the railway, all the way from the Beijing South Railway Station to Taipei, with a dotted line representing the section across the Taiwan Straits between Fuzhou in East China's Fujian Province and the Hsinchu HSR station before finally reaching Taipei.

Plans for such a railway connection appeared in China's National Comprehensive Transportation Network Plan, which was rolled out in late February 2021 and set the construction goals from 2021 to 2035 with an extended long-term plan. 

After the plan gained widespread attention on social media, Russian Ambassador to China Andrey Denisov also voiced confidence in China's capability to build an HSR between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan and said that he was looking forward to taking the high-speed train to visit Taiwan, according to China Media Group.

Also last year, a song about taking a high-speed train to "visit Taiwan in 2035" went viral on Chinese social media.

Commenting on the song going viral, Zhu Fenglian, a spokesperson for the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, said in November 2021 that the song reflected the beautiful wish of residents across the Straits for such a long-term plan and that she believes "this wish will definitely come true," according to a report on thepaper.cn.

Chinese mainland social media users have long hoped that they could reach Taipei via a bullet train, the standard interprovincial travel mode for most mainland residents. The Chinese mainland has the world's largest high-speed railway network.

The construction work on the mainland section of the Beijing-Taipei HSR has been completed except for the last section, which will link the mainland across the Straits, from Pingtan, Fujian to Taipei.

Global Times