Opinion is divided on China’s massive infrastructure projects

CHINA is proud of its infrastructure: its cavernous airports, snaking bridges, wide roads, speedy railways and great wall. This national backbone (minus the wall) bears the weight of the world’s second-largest economy and its biggest human migration, as hundreds of millions of people move around the country during the lunar new-year holidays—the rush officially begins on January 13th.

Western leaders often shake their heads in disbelief at the sums China spends on its huge projects. And some analysts question how much of it has been wisely spent. In a widely circulated study published last autumn, Atif Ansar of Oxford University’s Saïd Business School and his co-authors say the world’s “awe and envy” is misplaced. More than half of China’s infrastructure projects have “destroyed economic value”, they reckon. Their verdict is based on 65 road and rail projects backed by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) or the World Bank since the mid-1980s. Thanks to the banks’ involvement, these projects are well documented.

One example is a 147-km, four-lane toll road in southern Yunnan province, which was built with the help of an ADB loan...