The Chinese high-speed-rail scandal appears to be metastasizing. The latest casualty, reported this week by AP, is Zhang Shuguang, an engineer in charge of research and development, under investigation for “severe violation of discipline.”
In February, the head of China’s Ministry of Railways, Liu Zhijun, was removed on corruption charges. No official details, but kickbacks, bribes, illegal contracts, and sexual liaisons are part of the picture. Unless the mess is a big one, some analysts say, the Chinese government would tend to protect such a high-level bureaucrat.
The Chinese rail system has been touted by American rail enthusiasts, including President Obama, as the great wave of the future. In fact, it seems to be fulfilling most of the dire prophecies of HSR opponents in the U.S. Ridership on many of the lines is below projections. Cash-flow problems have pushed the price of financing significantly higher, and may well be unsustainable. Substandard workmanship is widespread, with concrete bases for system tracks deteriorating to the point where trains may have to run below rated speed in the near future. Cost overruns are anyone’s guess, thanks to China’s opaque securities reporting. Foreign firms that have worked on the projects say China is stealing their intellectual property.
And the system is deeply unpopular with working- and middle-class Chinese, who can’t afford the pricey tickets. Part of the rationale for the HSR system was to shift passenger traffic to make room for more freight trains on existing standard-speed lines. But tickets on those lines were a fraction of the price of comparable HSR seats, and those trains are disappearing, leaving million of Chinese without economical transportation options.
It will interesting to see whether the scandal spills over to any of the Chinese companies that are currently angling for contracts to build similar projects in the United States and elsewhere.
The masses without affordable transportation options? Tom Friedman, et al's dream come true!
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"leaving million of Chinese without economical transportation options"
Gosh, that rather isolates a sizable portion of the population. Just a minor, unpredicted anomaly of this progressive transportation project, I'm sure.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI have nothing to add except an anecdote. On Monday, a one hour and ten minute train ride took me 3 hours to get to Boston, and 4 hours to return. Women were literally crying, and some people were clearly starting to lose it. That 7 hours I spent on the train is the reality of public transportation. The only reason to use public transportation is if you must. I guarantee you that neither Thomas Friedman, or China’s leaders are commuting on the trains with the unwashed Plebs.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"Foreign firms that have worked on the projects say China is stealing their intellectual property."
Duh.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWow, kickbacks, bribes, illegal contracts, and sexual favors...it's like a Wednesday at the Democratic National Convention!
It's no wonder Obama, Democrats and the Unions (I know, redundant) are so big on high speed rail. It's like a penny candy store...something for everyone!
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse@JRapp You must be on the Worcester/Framingham line!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseBy contrast, America's interstate highway system was built without any graft, bribery, kickbacks, illegal contract, or corruption of kind
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseRe. corruption, etc. etc. in big-budget projects, a telling story from another industry--Hollywood. When "Easy Rider" became the new all-time boxoffice champion and had only cost about $1 million, beating prior and contemporary films that cost many millions to produce, there was a sort of semi-soul-searching discussion in Hollywood about whether now, spurred by the "small" film's success, major studios would start making movies for "only" $1 million.
The answer, per the wags of the time? Never. Why not? Because, as they put it then: "You can't steal a million FROM a million."
Let's be clear that the main reason why the Obama/PublicUnion/Democrat coalition wants these major boondoggle highspeed rail projects is not due to misguided ecological desire or even for the "we shall go to the Moon" idealism of it all, let alone any of their nonsense "if we spend it now, it'll pay off in the long run" economic excuses.
No, the reason they like them is simply that they cost so very, very much and thus have so very, very much in them to steal from, both in the original budgets and in the inevitable cost overruns that such huge projects are expected to have.
UNlike the Chinese, of course, they can't just shoot the messengers, endlessly inflate the currency, or tell the media to keep quiet....yet.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbusePS to JRapp:
Yesterday I priced/scheduled a potential Amtrak ride on the Coast Starlight for my Mom from L.A.'s downtown Union Station up to Salinas so she could visit friends in Carmel/Monterey.
To drive it from her home (and avoid fighting her way downtown to the station, btw, from Beverly Hills) would take at most 5 hours, as little as 4 or so if one avoided rush hour city traffic. Amtrak will do the job with more hassle, less comfort, and of course only once a day with no schedule flexibility arriving in the middle of the night in only...13 hours.
Cost? Putting aside the extranea (food, drink, to/from station transportation IN said rush-hour traffic, baggage handling/redcap tips, a newspaper, etc. etc.) the train ticket for a plain coach seat is about equal to the cost of gas for the drive, even at the current nearly $4 per gallon here in California.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseChinese companies bidding on US HSR projects? What the h---? Aren't there enough unemployed US workers? Good thing it'll never happen.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse@Hope E Changey is right - HSR would just be another way to fund the dems and their enablers.
I've long suspected the Chinese economic miracle is based on smoke & mirrors (and the backs of millions of slave laborers).
I figure if something like "Enron" can happen in the USA with our rule of law and transparent economic reporting etc., just IMAGINE what kind of things they can get away with in a closed opaque system like red China!!
When that house of cards comes down (and it will, maybe even soon) -- watchout!
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abusekinggeorge:
I've said for a long time that those singing the praises of China like Friedman are delusional. As if the leaders of a communist system have figured out how to avoid the business cycles and consistently achieve 10% growth in provinces across the country.
If China, hardly a paragon of environmental care and protectors of private property, have trouble making HS rail affordable, what chance is there for the U.S.
I want those pundits that claim how intelligent Obama is to explain how he can be so stupid about a simple case of bad economics? There are freshman in high school that are just now learning how to spell Keynes that know more about economics than a former community organizer.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseOh come on. Even Letterman and Trump know China is the way to go. I accidentally saw a snippet where HSR was specifically mentioned by Letterman as the example of leadership. Not sure, though, if Trump took the bait. I changed the channel. I wonder if China is tryinig HSR because they don't have the road system and can't afford to build it. HSR is too limited to do much of anything and killed its predecessor. That part will be true regardless of country of origin.
HSR is government imagining a problem that does not exist and claiming to be the solution when the solution is only another problem.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAs an American working in China, I see examples all the time of poor quality construction, and the HSR system may well have a lot of problems in the future, but: I've taken these trains many times, and they are clean, fast, very well-run and at least on the short runs reasonably priced by comparison to bus fare.
As for not being popular with Chinese people--the HSR train from Guangzhou to Shenzhen runs over 50 times a day, leaving several times every hour, with 8 cars of about 100 seats per car. More often than not when I've been on it, at all times of the day and night, it's full or almost full.
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