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> I am left with a feeling of awe at China's development, and frustration at the UK's stagnancy. While the UK does feel particularly stagnated on several front

> I am left with a feeling of awe at China's development, and frustration at the UK's stagnancy. While the UK does feel particularly stagnated on several fronts, I'm not sure abandoning the rule of law, protection of private property, labour protections, at least an attempt at the appearance of corruption-free tenders, high safety standards and the principle that people who are affected should be consulted is worthy of much awe.

peteretep 10y ago
I don't see why getting HS2 built quickly needs any of those abandoning, other than perhaps land seized through eminent domain?
- pjc50 10y ago
  The consultations took a long time, and inevitably involved demolishing minor historic buildings. The UK devotes a lot of effort to preservation where China devotes almost none. The price of cities popping up like desert flowers is the sweeping away of entire villages of traditional buildings. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/mar/15/hs2-rail-archaeologists-english-heritage-environment https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/mar/15/hs2-rail-arc...
  - peteretep 10y ago
    I've been to a lot of National Trust and English Heritage houses. The country is lousy with them. I feel sure one or two can be parted with. This isn't America where anything over 100 years is automatically some kind of national monument. We sold them London Bridge, can't we offload a Little Pifflington Stately Home or two?
    - pjc50 10y ago
      This is unlikely to be popular with the voters. Not an issue in China, of course.
bainsfather 10y ago
That's a valid point. And there is always a tendency to see the good points in other countries and the bad points in your own. In this case (and also in e.g. building new power stations, new housing, widening roads, expanding London's airports, etc) the contrast is so stark. For sure the UK needn't abandon rule of law in order to build infrastructure in a timely manner.
- wyuenho 10y ago
  Yes you do. If the rail goes across any freehold, you'll have to negotiate and compensate for the owners loses. This process takes years if not decades. The only reason China is able to build so quickly is because the government tramples on people rights (does private ownership of real estate exist in China?) like there's no tomorrow. I attended a seminar in UCL a few months ago where the panelist shared the number of protests in China in the range of 10s of thousands every year. Salivate all you want about China's rapid development, if you attempt to migrate this model to your own country, don't be surprised when the gov bring a giant bulldozer to your door one morning and wake you up.
  - _delirium 10y ago
    Isn't it possible to have something in between those two extremes? The opposite of showing up one morning unannounced with a bulldozer to take land uncompensated doesn't have to be an eminent-domain and planning-approvals process that is so bureaucratic and slow that it takes decades to complete. The U.S. has some of this problem as well, though more in its environmental legislation. Having environmental legislation is good, but it's currently extremely bureaucratic. For example, Illinois is doing a relatively minor upgrade to the Chicago - St. Louis rail line, to upgrade it from 89 mph to 110 mph top speeds. This isn't a newly built line and involves very little alignment change, mainly rebuilding of crossings and stations and signalling upgrades. One of the parts of the process that has slowed it down the most is the required reporting under the National Environmental Policy Act [1], not because they're worried everything won't ultimately be approved (it eventually was), but because the amount of required documentation and procedures to go through are just so numerous and slow, that it takes a substantial portion of the resources of the entire project just to do the paperwork. [1] http://www.progressiverailroading.com/high_speed_rail/article/The-Chicago-to-St-Louis-higher-speed-rail-project-nears-finish-line--46379 http://www.progressiverailroading.com/high_speed_rail/articl...
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
crdoconnor 10y ago
>I'm not sure abandoning the rule of law, protection of private property, labour protections All 100% unnecessary in order to build a lot of high speed rail. Except possibly the protection of private property (it would require eminent domain). But, since most British homeowners have been subject to one of the largest handouts in history (in the form of house price appreciation directed by the state), I think the a little leeway on that one is affordable Plus, like the Chinese (who don't completely ignore property rights), there's nothing stopping us from building railways on stilts.
- seanmcdirmid 10y ago
  They don't use stilts because of property ownership, but because of terrain and traffic. There are hardly any stilts between Beijing and GZ, for example, because it is easier to just tunnel under hills rather than do both. I assume the U.K. is rather flat and you wouldn't use stilts at all.
  - crdoconnor 10y ago
    Incorrect. http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2014/07/10/cost-of-high-speed-rail-in-china-one-third-lower-than-in-other-countries http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2014/07/10/co... "Laying track on viaducts is often preferred in China to minimize resettlement and the use of fertile land" >There are hardly any stilts between Beijing and GZ I guess land acquisition costs are lower then. I've seen a lot of flat farmland in China with CRH stilts in Western China. Beijing-Tianjin line is pretty much all on stilts.
    - seanmcdirmid 10y ago
      I've seen a lot of stilts being built along the Yangtze River, but that is hardly flat at all, they have to stilt or go low enough to build a really long tunnel, which isn't viable; it definitely wasn't because they were cutting through a farmer's field! The new freeways follow the same pattern. BJ-GZ is a really long line that goes through a big chunk of china, but it is mostly rural, whereas BJ-TJ is a short jaunt between two abutting cities. I've never seen stilts in flat terrain before, outside of SH/GZ elevated ring roads. I'm very surprised BJ-TJ is elevated when almost nothing else in urban Beijing is.
Cthulhu_ 10y ago
That's exactly the reason; people own land, buildings are protected, etc. China has less of this problem (benefits of an oppressive or at least assertive regime that puts economic progress first). I'd compare what China is doing with the high speed trains now with what the US did with the regular train tracks. Look at what it did to the US in terms of economy, and the cost for the native people and nature.
- beojan 10y ago
  Britain had a similar pace of progress in the Victorian era (to present day China), and we still had property rights then.
  - pm90 10y ago
    I don't think British society in Victorian times had the same level of education and basic income/living standards as they do today (my perspective is mostly from Dickens' writing though; I haven't done much research into this area personally).
    - jerf 10y ago
      "Progress" is generally considered to be the first derivative of societal wealth, not the zeroth, and generally measured logarithmically rather than linearly. So, basically, "percentage annual increase in GDP" (or other similar measure, ignoring the questionability of any one of them for now). I don't have proof as to which of modern China and Victorian England is progressing more quickly, but the claim at least passes the smell test. (Personally I wouldn't trust either number I could get, as I think China is probably lying about their growth percentages and Victorian growth percentages would be a historical estimate only, so comparing two numbers I consider unreliable would not produce much information.)
      - pm90 10y ago
        I'm having a hard time understanding this comment. Are you saying that GDP growth of Victorian Britain == GDP growth of present China? If so, that is not the point I'm making at all. Income inequality is what I'm more concerned with: you can have spectacular economic growth and the gains can still be restricted to a small percentage of the population.
twelvechairs 10y ago
As someone who works in the planning and urban design field the real issues are private property and heritage. China doesnt care about either. The UK cares too much. The answer is of course somewhere in the middle. Lets not forget most of the UKs existing infrastructure (including railways, roads, canals) was built on private property and through heritage items too, just in a different environment where this was easier to do. Where there is clear wider community benefit, IMO consultation should be relatively narrow ('we will build this but if small changes can provide major benefit please make sure we know about them and we should be held to account in planning for them') however compensation should be generous. Few heritage items should be sacrosanct however not many will be affected and losses in heritage should be compensated by greater heritage contributions elsewhere (eg money for conserving heritage items on the at risk register). It really shouldnt have to be so controversial if the right systems are in place. We have to plan for the future and this should not be questionable... Rule of law, labour practices and corruption-free practices arent incompatible with these projects.
- tehwalrus 10y ago
  I'm always amazed when I see more detail about the UK's canals. They are individually quite small (e.g. when you go for a walk) but the national network is huge. One day when I can take a sabbatical, I'm going to try and navigate from one end of the country to the other on them.
  - arethuza 10y ago
    I don't know about one end to the other, but you can go from one side to the other fairly easily ;-) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caledonian_Canal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caledonian_Canal
  - nradov 10y ago
    OT, but for a hilarious account of travelling on the UK's canals read "Three Men in a Boat" by Jerome K. Jerome. http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/308 http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/308
- throw2016 10y ago
aminok 10y ago
> I'm not sure abandoning the rule of law, protection of private property, labour protections, at least an attempt at the appearance of corruption-free tenders, high safety standards and the principle that people who are affected should be consulted is worthy of much awe. Two points: 1. The income tax that pays for the UK's lavish welfare system violates private property (and privacy) rights on a massive scale. It just doesn't seem that way to you because it's been normalized in the society you've lived your entire life in. Conversely, the type of property that was not made by man, and thus, should be under greater government purview: land, is treated as nearly absolutely private, with the state having very little power to expropriate it for the public good. 2. Laws prohibiting particular labour arrangements are not "labour protections". As Peter Schiff put it, "mandatory vacations, sick days, and bonuses do not expand worker's right, they restrict them. They do not raise compensation, but rather force workers to accept compensation based on government requirements rather than personal preference." It is only demagoguery and ideological group-think that makes people believe otherwise. The same applies to mandatory "high safety standards", which violate the right of consenting adults to engage in voluntary actions and interactions, and ultimately result in top-down cookie cutter standards created by a small body of bureaucrats replacing a wide assortment of personal standards, that would be based on the localized knowledge diffused throughout the economy.
- arethuza 10y ago
  I always wonder if people who regard safety standards as a terrible imposition by "a small body of bureaucrats" have any experience of work environments that don't just consist of meetings and sitting in front of a computer?
- robotresearcher 10y ago
  All property and privacy rights are societal norms in the first place. Society isn't violating any natural rights by taxing you. On the contrary, modern society actively protects you from having all your stuff taken by anyone strong enough to take it.
  - aminok 10y ago
    Both private property and privacy rights are human rights that no society has a right to violate.
michaelt 10y ago
Some of the UK's problems are not due to the rule of law, but the perverse incentives given to politicians. In particular, the system often rewards politicians who delay making tough (or expensive) decisions. For example, building a new power station using the latest green technology causes more protests and opposition than keeping a decrepit, polluting power station running for an extra five years. At which point, in all probability it'll be someone else's problem. So often, a politician presented with a chance to either approve a power station, or call for more impact assessments/consultations/reviews, will be rewarded for choosing the latter.
- crdoconnor 10y ago
  "For example, building a new power station using the latest green technology causes more protests and opposition than keeping a decrepit, polluting power station running for an extra five years." I saw this happen once in my constituency. The protest was ridiculously meek and likely astroturfed but it had the backing of the local Tory MP. Thus the department of energy and climate change refused permission to build a wind farm.
sfifs 10y ago
first world problems. China is lifting almost a billion people out of poverty with all these projects. Think back to the West in the early to mid 1900s for the right comparison context. I only hope China's rise into modernity is not accompanied by mega wars of the type that happened with the Western nations rise.

peteretep 10y ago

I don't see why getting HS2 built quickly needs any of those abandoning, other than perhaps land seized through eminent domain?

pjc50 10y ago
The consultations took a long time, and inevitably involved demolishing minor historic buildings. The UK devotes a lot of effort to preservation where China devotes almost none. The price of cities popping up like desert flowers is the sweeping away of entire villages of traditional buildings. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/mar/15/hs2-rail-archaeologists-english-heritage-environment https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/mar/15/hs2-rail-arc...
- peteretep 10y ago
  I've been to a lot of National Trust and English Heritage houses. The country is lousy with them. I feel sure one or two can be parted with. This isn't America where anything over 100 years is automatically some kind of national monument. We sold them London Bridge, can't we offload a Little Pifflington Stately Home or two?
  - pjc50 10y ago
    This is unlikely to be popular with the voters. Not an issue in China, of course.

bainsfather 10y ago

That's a valid point. And there is always a tendency to see the good points in other countries and the bad points in your own. In this case (and also in e.g. building new power stations, new housing, widening roads, expanding London's airports, etc) the contrast is so stark. For sure the UK needn't abandon rule of law in order to build infrastructure in a timely manner.

wyuenho 10y ago
Yes you do. If the rail goes across any freehold, you'll have to negotiate and compensate for the owners loses. This process takes years if not decades. The only reason China is able to build so quickly is because the government tramples on people rights (does private ownership of real estate exist in China?) like there's no tomorrow. I attended a seminar in UCL a few months ago where the panelist shared the number of protests in China in the range of 10s of thousands every year. Salivate all you want about China's rapid development, if you attempt to migrate this model to your own country, don't be surprised when the gov bring a giant bulldozer to your door one morning and wake you up.
- _delirium 10y ago
  Isn't it possible to have something in between those two extremes? The opposite of showing up one morning unannounced with a bulldozer to take land uncompensated doesn't have to be an eminent-domain and planning-approvals process that is so bureaucratic and slow that it takes decades to complete. The U.S. has some of this problem as well, though more in its environmental legislation. Having environmental legislation is good, but it's currently extremely bureaucratic. For example, Illinois is doing a relatively minor upgrade to the Chicago - St. Louis rail line, to upgrade it from 89 mph to 110 mph top speeds. This isn't a newly built line and involves very little alignment change, mainly rebuilding of crossings and stations and signalling upgrades. One of the parts of the process that has slowed it down the most is the required reporting under the National Environmental Policy Act [1], not because they're worried everything won't ultimately be approved (it eventually was), but because the amount of required documentation and procedures to go through are just so numerous and slow, that it takes a substantial portion of the resources of the entire project just to do the paperwork. [1] http://www.progressiverailroading.com/high_speed_rail/article/The-Chicago-to-St-Louis-higher-speed-rail-project-nears-finish-line--46379 http://www.progressiverailroading.com/high_speed_rail/articl...

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

crdoconnor 10y ago

>I'm not sure abandoning the rule of law, protection of private property, labour protections All 100% unnecessary in order to build a lot of high speed rail. Except possibly the protection of private property (it would require eminent domain). But, since most British homeowners have been subject to one of the largest handouts in history (in the form of house price appreciation directed by the state), I think the a little leeway on that one is affordable Plus, like the Chinese (who don't completely ignore property rights), there's nothing stopping us from building railways on stilts.

seanmcdirmid 10y ago
They don't use stilts because of property ownership, but because of terrain and traffic. There are hardly any stilts between Beijing and GZ, for example, because it is easier to just tunnel under hills rather than do both. I assume the U.K. is rather flat and you wouldn't use stilts at all.
- crdoconnor 10y ago
  Incorrect. http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2014/07/10/cost-of-high-speed-rail-in-china-one-third-lower-than-in-other-countries http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2014/07/10/co... "Laying track on viaducts is often preferred in China to minimize resettlement and the use of fertile land" >There are hardly any stilts between Beijing and GZ I guess land acquisition costs are lower then. I've seen a lot of flat farmland in China with CRH stilts in Western China. Beijing-Tianjin line is pretty much all on stilts.
  - seanmcdirmid 10y ago
    I've seen a lot of stilts being built along the Yangtze River, but that is hardly flat at all, they have to stilt or go low enough to build a really long tunnel, which isn't viable; it definitely wasn't because they were cutting through a farmer's field! The new freeways follow the same pattern. BJ-GZ is a really long line that goes through a big chunk of china, but it is mostly rural, whereas BJ-TJ is a short jaunt between two abutting cities. I've never seen stilts in flat terrain before, outside of SH/GZ elevated ring roads. I'm very surprised BJ-TJ is elevated when almost nothing else in urban Beijing is.

Cthulhu_ 10y ago

That's exactly the reason; people own land, buildings are protected, etc. China has less of this problem (benefits of an oppressive or at least assertive regime that puts economic progress first). I'd compare what China is doing with the high speed trains now with what the US did with the regular train tracks. Look at what it did to the US in terms of economy, and the cost for the native people and nature.

beojan 10y ago
Britain had a similar pace of progress in the Victorian era (to present day China), and we still had property rights then.
- pm90 10y ago
  I don't think British society in Victorian times had the same level of education and basic income/living standards as they do today (my perspective is mostly from Dickens' writing though; I haven't done much research into this area personally).
  - jerf 10y ago
    "Progress" is generally considered to be the first derivative of societal wealth, not the zeroth, and generally measured logarithmically rather than linearly. So, basically, "percentage annual increase in GDP" (or other similar measure, ignoring the questionability of any one of them for now). I don't have proof as to which of modern China and Victorian England is progressing more quickly, but the claim at least passes the smell test. (Personally I wouldn't trust either number I could get, as I think China is probably lying about their growth percentages and Victorian growth percentages would be a historical estimate only, so comparing two numbers I consider unreliable would not produce much information.)
    - pm90 10y ago
      I'm having a hard time understanding this comment. Are you saying that GDP growth of Victorian Britain == GDP growth of present China? If so, that is not the point I'm making at all. Income inequality is what I'm more concerned with: you can have spectacular economic growth and the gains can still be restricted to a small percentage of the population.

twelvechairs 10y ago

As someone who works in the planning and urban design field the real issues are private property and heritage. China doesnt care about either. The UK cares too much. The answer is of course somewhere in the middle. Lets not forget most of the UKs existing infrastructure (including railways, roads, canals) was built on private property and through heritage items too, just in a different environment where this was easier to do. Where there is clear wider community benefit, IMO consultation should be relatively narrow ('we will build this but if small changes can provide major benefit please make sure we know about them and we should be held to account in planning for them') however compensation should be generous. Few heritage items should be sacrosanct however not many will be affected and losses in heritage should be compensated by greater heritage contributions elsewhere (eg money for conserving heritage items on the at risk register). It really shouldnt have to be so controversial if the right systems are in place. We have to plan for the future and this should not be questionable... Rule of law, labour practices and corruption-free practices arent incompatible with these projects.

tehwalrus 10y ago
I'm always amazed when I see more detail about the UK's canals. They are individually quite small (e.g. when you go for a walk) but the national network is huge. One day when I can take a sabbatical, I'm going to try and navigate from one end of the country to the other on them.
- arethuza 10y ago
  I don't know about one end to the other, but you can go from one side to the other fairly easily ;-) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caledonian_Canal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caledonian_Canal
- nradov 10y ago
  OT, but for a hilarious account of travelling on the UK's canals read "Three Men in a Boat" by Jerome K. Jerome. http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/308 http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/308
throw2016 10y ago

aminok 10y ago

> I'm not sure abandoning the rule of law, protection of private property, labour protections, at least an attempt at the appearance of corruption-free tenders, high safety standards and the principle that people who are affected should be consulted is worthy of much awe. Two points: 1. The income tax that pays for the UK's lavish welfare system violates private property (and privacy) rights on a massive scale. It just doesn't seem that way to you because it's been normalized in the society you've lived your entire life in. Conversely, the type of property that was not made by man, and thus, should be under greater government purview: land, is treated as nearly absolutely private, with the state having very little power to expropriate it for the public good. 2. Laws prohibiting particular labour arrangements are not "labour protections". As Peter Schiff put it, "mandatory vacations, sick days, and bonuses do not expand worker's right, they restrict them. They do not raise compensation, but rather force workers to accept compensation based on government requirements rather than personal preference." It is only demagoguery and ideological group-think that makes people believe otherwise. The same applies to mandatory "high safety standards", which violate the right of consenting adults to engage in voluntary actions and interactions, and ultimately result in top-down cookie cutter standards created by a small body of bureaucrats replacing a wide assortment of personal standards, that would be based on the localized knowledge diffused throughout the economy.

arethuza 10y ago
I always wonder if people who regard safety standards as a terrible imposition by "a small body of bureaucrats" have any experience of work environments that don't just consist of meetings and sitting in front of a computer?
robotresearcher 10y ago
All property and privacy rights are societal norms in the first place. Society isn't violating any natural rights by taxing you. On the contrary, modern society actively protects you from having all your stuff taken by anyone strong enough to take it.
- aminok 10y ago
  Both private property and privacy rights are human rights that no society has a right to violate.

michaelt 10y ago

Some of the UK's problems are not due to the rule of law, but the perverse incentives given to politicians. In particular, the system often rewards politicians who delay making tough (or expensive) decisions. For example, building a new power station using the latest green technology causes more protests and opposition than keeping a decrepit, polluting power station running for an extra five years. At which point, in all probability it'll be someone else's problem. So often, a politician presented with a chance to either approve a power station, or call for more impact assessments/consultations/reviews, will be rewarded for choosing the latter.

crdoconnor 10y ago
"For example, building a new power station using the latest green technology causes more protests and opposition than keeping a decrepit, polluting power station running for an extra five years." I saw this happen once in my constituency. The protest was ridiculously meek and likely astroturfed but it had the backing of the local Tory MP. Thus the department of energy and climate change refused permission to build a wind farm.

sfifs 10y ago

first world problems. China is lifting almost a billion people out of poverty with all these projects. Think back to the West in the early to mid 1900s for the right comparison context. I only hope China's rise into modernity is not accompanied by mega wars of the type that happened with the Western nations rise.