The completion of one of the world's longest bridges stands as the biggest monument to China's success in reuniting its colonial-era concessions.
Overcoming the political divide may prove much harder.
The 55-km (34-mile) span — eerily deserted as crews prepared for a ribbon-cutting expected later this year — connects the former European outposts of Hong Kong and Macau for the first time and ties them both to southern China. It's tipped to carry some 29,000 cars and trucks daily over blue tropical waters formerly patrolled by three navies, and across borders that the People's Liberation Army once guarded mostly to keep defectors from leaving.