Comments on: China Promotes Its Transcontinental Ambitions with Massive Rail Plan

By: Leonard

Leonard — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 15:57:58 +0000

Will the network be maintained by the government

By: Nathanael

Nathanael — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 23:45:09 +0000

There are Chinese laborers in Central Asia building public works. You think they’re all going to go home?…..

By: Nathanael

Nathanael — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 23:43:55 +0000

Oh, sorry, I was still thinking Europe-China link.

By: Nathanael

Nathanael — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 23:42:33 +0000

Po-li-tics. China wants a route which doesn’t go through Russia, period. Most traffic would probably end up going through Russia, but they want the alternative in order to have the *power*. They figure they can deal with the mess of little countries, but are subject to blockading and monopoly pricing from Russia.

By: cyril

cyril — Sat, 29 May 2010 12:53:06 +0000

… and transport energy ?
would it be possible to use the lines to develop a large scale energy grid ?

By: Ch B

Ch B — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 21:50:46 +0000

not really a trojan horse

By: looktoeast

looktoeast — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 21:50:53 +0000

China, it seems, has a dual purpose for this planned network — facilitate movement of people, and of goods, particularly raw materials it needs.
And might be using the old trick used by the once-colonial powers like Britain that built infrastructure in their colonies to transport material to help build their empire.

http://blog.looktoeast.com/2010/04/10/chinese-highspeed-train-plans–superpower-ambitions.aspx

By: dejv

dejv — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 17:06:27 +0000

Wien broad gauge agreement signed ^^^ Vienna is a big hub, well connected to mainland european highway & freeway network. Odds of "getting rid of all the odd gauges in the middle of the two" are getting somewhat lower by this move.

By: Tom

Tom — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 16:59:46 +0000

What does Manchuria have to do with anything when you could just head over the Silk Route through Urumqi? serial catowner is exactly right, *IF* this is a proposal for true high-speed rail.

But at the same time, Alon is right to be skeptical — it really does seem like a “pretty freight-oriented” proposal when you look at the routings. Newspaper reporters often make the rookie mistake of confusing conventional rail with high-speed rail. Heck, I’ve even read newspaper articles that described the Qinghai-Tibet railway as HSR. (Since when was 100 km/hr high-speed rail?!). A fast freight connection is just that — a fast conventional railroad.

The SCMP newspaper article did seem to be explicitly talking about actual HSR, rather than conventional rail. But I’m disturbed by the fact that the proposal is described in the article entirely in paraphrase by the reporter. Wang Mengshu is never quoted talking explicitly about HSR. It’s a newspaper article broken in *one* newspaper, relying on information from *one* expert, without any actual direct quotes that seem relevant to HSR.

I think it plausible that this is just a figment of the 24-hour news cycle. The SCMP is usually reliable, but I’ve seen plenty of usually-reliable news sources get rail technology completely wrong. But I can easily be convinced the other way — all it’ll take is a direct quote that directly talks about speeds and travel times, from someone who is not Wang Mengshu, in a newspaper other than the South China Morning Post.

By: Alon Levy

Alon Levy — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 04:14:44 +0000

The proposal seems pretty freight-oriented to begin with. Passengers from Beijing to Europe would probably not want to detour through Manchuria.