For anyone who doubts the rivalry that exists between Beijing and Shanghai, it’s illustrative to look at the case of the Shanghai Center, the immense tower project that just broke ground.

The high-rise will be enormous, dwarfing the landmark 1,380-foot tall Jinmao Tower completed in 1999, and even the Shanghai World Financial Center that was inaugurated in August. It is 1,615 feet high.

At a whopping 2,074 feet, the 121-story Shanghai Center will be the tallest building in China, and one of the tallest in the world. Construction should be complete by 2014. An artist's prototype is seen in the drawing. Some wags say the building will look like a bottle opener.

The ground breaking was barely over Saturday when Beijing started to gripe.

Even the China Daily, the English-language mouthpiece of the national government, railed this morning against the $2.2-billion project in an editorial, calling it a waste of money, an eyesore, a cause of urban subsidence, a source of “urban heat island effect,” and even potentially dangerous.

“It will be a milestone in turning Shanghai into a less pleasant concrete jungle, considering the 4,000 high-rise buildings built in Shanghai in the last three decades, more than any other city in the world,” the editorial said.

And in case any Chinese office workers have jitters about being more than 100 floors above ground, the editorial added this: “Of course, there is always the safety issue regarding skyscrapers. They are much more vulnerable to various attacks, disasters, and evacuation would usually take too much time.”

Geez, it kind of gives you the feeling they may not even bother to try to save anyone. So what if there are tens of thousands of people inside?

In case anyone didn’t get the point, China Daily slammed the project as symbolizing that “blind worship and race for skyscrapers has reached a new high.”

And did we mention that Beijing is lagging behind in skyscrapers? Tallest building here is still under construction. It’s the China World Trade Center Tower 3, which stands at 1,083 feet (74 stories).