How China built the best high-speed rail ever

China built almost 40,000 kilometers of high-speed rails in just over a decade. Meanwhile, dreams for a similar high-speed train systems in the EU and US have been consistently derailed. How did China do it? And at what cost?

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#PlanetA #HighSpeedTrain #China

Read More (Links):

Asia Development Bank Report 2019:

IEA Future of Rails Report:

European Court of Auditors report on EU’s High-Speed rail:

0:00 Intro
0:58 High-speed history
1:55 How China did it
4:44 Human – and creature – costs
6:01 Geopolitical goals
6:54 Airline problems
8:32 Comparison to other countries

Reporter: Beina Xu
Camera: Beina Xu
Video editor: Henning Göll
Supervising editor: Kiyo Dörrer

[DWPlanetA]

How is the high-speed rail system where you live?

[mangguodaren]

The total costs of China high speed rail is 1/4 of the costs of Iraq war. USA has money but never spend on their people.

[ytsai]

The reason why the Chinese government does not consider the loss of operating high-speed rail is that each year, high-speed rail drives more than one billion people across the country, and the economic growth behind this far exceeds the losses incurred by HSR operations. However, foreign railway companies are privately owned, and they will not sacrifice their own interests for the reasons of national economic development. Therefore, the success of China's HSR won't be replicated in terms of both construction scale or ticket prices in western countries easily.

[afunguynamedkawhi]

The US lost the $2T Afghanistan war in utter humiliation.
With less cost China built 38, 000km HSR, 7, 800km subways, and 140, 000km freeways in the same time frame.
Please stop feeling sorry for China not making good profits from building infrastructures.

[RoyFJ]

Travelled over four states starting with Beijing, Xian, Chongqing and finally Shanghai and that too with my ninety-five-year-old aunt. All I can say is one simple word, INCREDIBLE.

[stijnhs]

When I lived in China for a year I can't even recount how many times I've travelled on HSR but all I have to say for it is that it's amazing! Supreme comfort with loads of legroom (me as a 185cm Dutch person could easily stretch my legs and still room to spare in second class carriage). From Beijing to Chengdu (about 1800km) took 7 hours with only 3 stops for 80 euros. It's so efficient, if Europe had this it would be amazing for leisure travel and good for European economies as well.

[wisl]

If Chinese HSR is fully profit driven, then there won’t be any that goes to Tibet or Xinjiang … ever. HSR is like a blood vein that’s provide nutrients to parts of your body. HSR simply will help facilitate development. China thinks long term, that’s so wise .

[shuaige]

I am a foreigner living in China since above 15 years.
When I arrived China trains sucks very hard....
Now China train network is the best in the world... ultra fast, always on time (98% of the time), no strike (I am french... so many strikes in France), comfortable, not expensive... and except one accident at the very beginning of launching the network, no accident causing death in the last many billions people transported.
From Shanghai to Nanjing (300km away) in one day, in one way, there are above 300 trains... more high speed trains frequency than many metro system in many countries.
Congratulation China!
Looking forward there is 70.000km.
And these trains saved a crazy amount of CO2 emission!

[proff]

Why does almost all western media, never give credit to China 🇨🇳 even when it’s doing good 🤔?

[howso]

China did not built the railway for profit but for the benefit of the whole nation

[cleveful]

That girl doesn't really know much except the very superficial part of the network. I've seen a documentary where the Chinese government had to negotiate with local landowners for months to years by giving these landowners 2-3 apartments for a tiny part of their land. Several network railways were changed because the villagers protested when they initially accepted. That means it was more expensive to redirect the network route than the original plan. Some other networks were also redirected because the original harmed the local ecosystem. There were many obstacles, but found ways to solve these problems, not bulldozed their way like this girl claimed.

And high speed trains are not profitable anywhere in the world. It's not supposed to be. It's supposed to be provided for the citizens. The government never thought of profit when it comes to building these network. They were smarter. Laying out these network far benefits the overall economy and the convenience of people that the loss of profit from operation.

[khalidmohamed]

Well the main reason for this is because the Chinese rail companies don’t care whether they make a profit or continuous losses as long as they transport their people easily.

[EnriqueVivancoH]

DW's sh**ty comment on how China made this great project: "cheap labor"... Hey DW, do you know where you can find cheap labor? In India, so why don't they have this too? The contradiction of Western explanations are incredible. Westerners always compare prices between nations in such a light way, but never take into consideration the PPP (Purchasing power parity).

[markuc]

By primarily depending on two China bashers, you are missing the key reason. "To become prosper, first build roads", that's a famous saying in China and one the government abides to. Yes this is political, but not just because they can, but as part of a sophisticated plan to lift people up economically. Seeing China through only ideology and faults will limit your perspective.

[hxy]

First things first, I think DW should be given some credit for this. I do agree with many others who commented that the tone here is still quite negative, but I doubt that the producers themselves feel this way - they probably think they did a pretty good job being objective and neutral. Their baseline about China is negative in the first place and they likely don't even feel it. Not having a true and objective view about your rival/competitor/enemy will come back to bite you one day; Sun Tzu (a Chinese) said that quite plainly in the Art of War.

All that was on par with or even better than many other western-produced reports. Sadly I can live with that now. The part I'm really disappointed is the lack of professionalism in the journalism of this video. Why a country was able to or wasn't able to build high-speed trains is a complicated question; responsible journalism should convey that message. When this report talked about China's advantages, it mentions cheap labor and material, easy land acquisition, less strict environmental law and political will of the government. They're all true but not the whole truth (think about the sworn testimony -- the "whole truth" and "nothing but the truth" are important). Like many have pointed out, it doesn't explain why many countries with all/many of the above couldn't do it. When the report talked about the fact that many lines operate at a loss, it only mentioned Xinjiang and Tibet, which comprises a tiny fraction of the high-speed lines. The Chinese government, central and regional, does care about the ability to mobilize people thereby to vitalize the economy, and high-speed train brings cities much closer to one another due to their capacity, punctuality, and carbon footprint, all of which exceeds the simple calculation of profitability. Due to Asia's high population and population density, airplanes and cars simply aren't the solution. While many western articles have already painted the scary picture of 1.4 billion Chinese owning cars, this report failed to mention than trains are likely the only option available.

Some argued that DW always takes a critical viewpoint towards things. I don't find it a convincing argument. For example, why didn't they criticize about Europe's 10 Euro flights? If Europe cares so much about carbon footprint, why don't the governments tax more on the airlines and compensate the trains. I'm no policy expert and this might sound naive to some folks, but as an average audience, this could be a good topic to educate people like me. Yet, DW failed to do any of that. As an American resident I have more things to rant about trains and public transportation policies in the US but I'm not gonna elaborate.

[-noname-]

4:49 Ruthless? There is a common saying in China that if you got moved you'll get rich for the gov have to pay an apartment with equivalent size of your current one but values way more! ... wait...it's DW...nevermind

[joeyp]

If it came down to "cheap labor" then the best HSR networks would be in Vietnam, the Philippines (my country), India, Nigeria, Ethiopia etc. Developing countries with lower labor costs. No, this comes down to great engineering and good planning. Moreover, China has a millenia-old tradition of building infrastructure for the people. The longest canal still in use, the 1, 100-km Grand Canal, is 1, 400 years old. The oldest irrigation system still in use, the Dongjianwan, is 2, 200 years old. Over the centuries, China's rulers spent relatively little on pleasure palaces and temples, and far more on infrastructure.

[coyote]

I have flown many times in China and never seen the delays like you mentioned. Yes the trains are excellent 😊

[jerryteh]

Congratulations to DW for able to paint a negative picture for China's high-speed railways.
As a Malaysian I am so impressed with western media recent years.
You guys should just rank your railway system no.1 because of lizard-friendly, and most importantly, approved by Greta.

[jon_nomad]

I am puzzled ... I have been flying in China constantly for many years and there were extremely few delays. I had more delays in the US and Europe. China's flight schedules are perhaps as punctual as Japan's, based on my experience. Maybe DW is referring to the notorious Chinese flight delays of the 1990s. For your info, those days are history in China.