Even as China prepares to open bullet-train service from Beijing to Shanghai by July 1, the nation's steadily expanding high-speed-rail network is being pilloried on a scale rare among Chinese citizens and news media.
Complaints include the high costs and pricey fares, the quality of construction and the allegation of self-dealing by a rail minister fired this year on corruption grounds.
Often overlooked amid all the controversy are the real economic benefits that the world's most advanced fast-rail system is bringing to China — and the competitive challenges it poses for the United States and Europe.
Just as building the interstate-highway system a half-century ago made modern, national commerce more feasible in the United States, China's ambitious rail rollout is helping integrate the economy of the sprawling, populous nation — on a much faster construction timetable and at significantly higher speeds than anything envisioned by the Eisenhower administration.
Work crews of up to 100,000 people per line have built about half of the 10,000-mile network in six years, in many cases ahead of schedule, including the Beijing-Shanghai line that was not expected to open until next year. The entire system is on course to be completed by 2020.
For the West, the implications go beyond marveling at the pace of communist-style civil engineering. China's manufacturing might and global-export machine are likely to grow more powerful, as 200 mph trains link cities and provinces previously as much as 24 hours by road or rail from the entrepreneurial seacoast.
Zhen Qinan, a founder of the stock exchange in coastal Shenzhen and the recently retired chief executive of ZK Energy, a wind-turbine producer in Changsha, said high-speed trains were making it more convenient to base businesses in Hunan province. Populous Hunan long has provided labor to the factories of the east, but its mountains have isolated it from the economic mainstream.
Zhen ticked off Hunan's attributes: "Land is much cheaper. Electricity is cheaper. Labor is cheaper."
Across China, real-estate prices and investment have surged in the more than 200 inland cities already connected by high-speed rail in the past three years. Businesses are flocking to these cities, now only hours by bullet train
from China's busiest and most international metropolises.
from China's busiest and most international metropolises.
Boon for freight traffic
Meanwhile, a shift in passenger traffic to the new high-speed-rail routes has freed up congested older rail lines for freight. That has allowed coal mines and shippers to switch to cheaper rail transport from costly trucks for heavy cargos.
Because of this shift, plus construction of additional freight lines, the tonnage hauled by China's rail system increased in 2010 by an amount equaling the entire freight carried last year by the combined rail systems of Britain, France, Germany and Poland, according to the World Bank.
The bullet-train bonanza, and the competitive challenge it poses for the West, is likely to increase with the opening of the 820-mile Beijing-Shanghai line, which will create a business corridor between China's two most dynamic cities. The railway ministry plans 90 bullet trains a day in each direction.
Trains will barrel along at initial speeds of 190 mph, with plans to accelerate to 220 mph by summer 2012, if the first year of operation goes smoothly. Even at slower speeds, they will take less than five hours to cover a distance comparable to New York to Atlanta, which requires nearly 18 hours on Amtrak.
China's huge investment in high-speed rail may be instructive to the United States, whether for proponents of federal rail investments or critics who consider bullet trains a boondoggle.
President Obama, who has proposed spending $53 billion on high-speed rail over six years, faced a setback in his budget deal in April with congressional Republicans, who eliminated money for that plan this year. Newly elected Republican governors in Florida, Ohio and Wisconsin last fall turned down federal money their Democratic predecessors had won for new rail routes, worrying their states could cover most of the costs for trains that would draw few riders.
Financial costs
High-speed rail is not universally acclaimed in China, either.
Financial regulators in Beijing have cautioned banks to monitor their rising exposure from hefty loans to the rail ministry. To pay for rapid deployment of the system, the ministry has borrowed more than $300 billion. It plans to invest an additional $115 billion this year, despite running losses on existing operations that it attributes mainly to rising diesel fuel costs for older lines, and rising interest payments.
Among the biggest beneficiaries are companies that contribute nothing to defray the rail system's costs. Those would be freight shippers, which have more exclusive use of the older rail lines, with fewer delays.
On older tracks, the rail ministry long dictated that freight rates would subsidize passenger trains because the ministry owns those older tracks outright. The new, high-speed lines — passenger trains only — are owned by joint ventures between the rail ministry and provincial governments. That has prevented the ministry from forcing freight shippers to cross-subsidize the new high-speed services. As a result, passengers must pay much higher fares.
The lack of freight subsidies also is causing concern that the debt agreements of some joint ventures might need to be revised to extend repayment.
For ordinary citizens, the prices for high-speed train tickets have touched China's raw nerve regarding rising income inequality. "The government is just abusing the money of the common people," said one posting on an Internet discussion forum.
From Changsha to Guangzhou, the one-way fare in economy class for the two-hour journey, at speeds of up to 210 mph, is 333 renminbi ($51). That is comparable to a deeply discounted airfare, but expensive for a migrant worker.
The same trip takes nine hours on an older, diesel train. But it costs only 99 renminbi ($15).
Safety questions
Chinese and foreign engineers have questioned the long-term strength of the concrete used in bridges and viaducts under contracts awarded during the term of the disgraced former rail minister, Liu Zhijun.
The rail ministry's new leaders contend safety concerns are misplaced. But they have responded to public anger over fares by announcing plans to lower the top speed on many routes July 1 — which will address safety questions and sharply reduce the amount of electricity consumed — and pass on the savings through reduced fares.
When the Beijing-Shanghai line opens, a north-to-south artery will be created with links to east-to-west rail lines at two dozen stations. "It's the network together that makes it work ... ," said John Scales, a World Bank expert who has advised China.
Already, the longer routes elsewhere appear to draw much heavier ridership. The trains, which typically carry 600 passengers, sometimes sell out despite departures every 10-15 minutes, particularly on Fridays.
Speed is relative. First, a passenger must get a seat. Zhou Junde, a migrant construction worker, stood in line at the Changsha station on a recent Friday to buy a high-speed ticket to Guangzhou. But the next high-speed train was sold out, as was the next 10 minutes later. He would have to wait 30 minutes to board a train with a seat.
"Sometimes," he said, "I come several hours early to get the departure I want."
No comments:
Post a Comment