4 ms·

Big items in the United States are incredibly expensive to build. Nuclear reactors, high-speed rail, etc. China, for example, has almost 18,000 miles of high-

Big items in the United States are incredibly expensive to build. Nuclear reactors, high-speed rail, etc. China, for example, has almost 18,000 miles of high-speed rail, and they're on target 23,000 miles by 2025. They are going to finish another 2000 miles in 2018: http://www.scmp.com/news/china/economy/article/2126548/full-speed-ahead-chinas-fast-rail-network-us112-billion http://www.scmp.com/news/china/economy/article/2126548/full-... China has hit been hit with delays in nuclear power, but they are nearing completion of their first AP1000 reactors: http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/UF-Chinese-plant-produces-AP1000-reload-assemblies-0801175.html http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/UF-Chinese-plant-produces-...

gok 9y ago
It's easy to build infrastructure when labor costs are around $3/hour, eminent domain payment can't be litigated, and environmental impact studies are effectively not required.
- pishpash 9y ago
  What you say is true, but there is also this: political certainty to get something done once decided.
  - kelnos 9y ago
    Sure, when you only have one political party and your government is authoritarian, that's pretty much a given.
- mstaoru 9y ago
  Labor costs on these projects are closer to $10/hour these days. The workers get paid reasonably well because their job is in shifts and seasonal. They're also usually provided some basic housing and food, health insurance and transport. Eminent domain compensation also tends to be very high for this kind of projects. People intentionally seek farmland that might be in the way of construction to get paid. Since it's all technically long-term "rent" in the communist regime, they usually get compensated on a yearly basis for as long as the rent stands, which may be as long as 5-15 years. And for the environmental impact studies, if Western media and people can't read Chinese, it doesn't mean these studies do not exist. China is very serious about ecology in the last years, it's not there yet, but it's moving in the right direction.
seanmcdirmid 9y ago
China’s HSR lines didn’t come cheap, even if labor is cheaper there. They incurred a lot of debt to do this (much of it private via public SOEs), and it isn’t clear if it will pay off (only SH BJ is operating in the black ATM).
- melling 9y ago
  "didn't come cheap" Is that $500 billion? $1 trillion? $2 trillion? I imagine $1 trillion in infrastructure, for example, will pay future dividends. Simply saying something wasn't cheap doesn't help us compare. For example, the US spent $1 trillion in the Iraq War and another $1 trillion in Afghanistan. If China can build infrastructure at a fraction of the cost, and their economy passes the US by 2032, as predicted, it doesn't bode well for the United States.
  - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
    The world bank estimates between 17-21m$/km. 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... https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2017/04/chinas-high-speed-rail-is-one-third-us-price-and-half-of-europe-price-but-still-too-expensive-for-other-countries.html https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2017/04/chinas-high-speed-rail... So a little math - china has 22km of HSR ATM - well, that is a big number, $418 billion. If you are a private investor and your bonds paid for this, whether it can make a profit is important. Unless the government is going to bail them out (and being SOEs, everyone expects they will!), then it is important to move that debt from private to public. China's debt numbers ATM assume that much of the SOE debt is private, which is dubious at best. China Railway's $6 trillion yuan debt is 6% of China's GDP. I've ridden the Beijing-Guangzhou HSR a couple of times (my wife's hometown is on the route and it lacks an airpot), and the car we were traveling in was always very empty for much of the 8 hour trip.
    - melling 9y ago
      The claim is at least a billion people a year ride the train each year. http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/chinas-rail-ambitions-run-at-full-speed http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/chinas-rail-ambitions-run-a... Where is the volume?

gok 9y ago

It's easy to build infrastructure when labor costs are around $3/hour, eminent domain payment can't be litigated, and environmental impact studies are effectively not required.

pishpash 9y ago
What you say is true, but there is also this: political certainty to get something done once decided.
- kelnos 9y ago
  Sure, when you only have one political party and your government is authoritarian, that's pretty much a given.
mstaoru 9y ago
Labor costs on these projects are closer to $10/hour these days. The workers get paid reasonably well because their job is in shifts and seasonal. They're also usually provided some basic housing and food, health insurance and transport. Eminent domain compensation also tends to be very high for this kind of projects. People intentionally seek farmland that might be in the way of construction to get paid. Since it's all technically long-term "rent" in the communist regime, they usually get compensated on a yearly basis for as long as the rent stands, which may be as long as 5-15 years. And for the environmental impact studies, if Western media and people can't read Chinese, it doesn't mean these studies do not exist. China is very serious about ecology in the last years, it's not there yet, but it's moving in the right direction.

seanmcdirmid 9y ago

China’s HSR lines didn’t come cheap, even if labor is cheaper there. They incurred a lot of debt to do this (much of it private via public SOEs), and it isn’t clear if it will pay off (only SH BJ is operating in the black ATM).

melling 9y ago
"didn't come cheap" Is that $500 billion? $1 trillion? $2 trillion? I imagine $1 trillion in infrastructure, for example, will pay future dividends. Simply saying something wasn't cheap doesn't help us compare. For example, the US spent $1 trillion in the Iraq War and another $1 trillion in Afghanistan. If China can build infrastructure at a fraction of the cost, and their economy passes the US by 2032, as predicted, it doesn't bode well for the United States.
- seanmcdirmid 9y ago
  The world bank estimates between 17-21m$/km. 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... https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2017/04/chinas-high-speed-rail-is-one-third-us-price-and-half-of-europe-price-but-still-too-expensive-for-other-countries.html https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2017/04/chinas-high-speed-rail... So a little math - china has 22km of HSR ATM - well, that is a big number, $418 billion. If you are a private investor and your bonds paid for this, whether it can make a profit is important. Unless the government is going to bail them out (and being SOEs, everyone expects they will!), then it is important to move that debt from private to public. China's debt numbers ATM assume that much of the SOE debt is private, which is dubious at best. China Railway's $6 trillion yuan debt is 6% of China's GDP. I've ridden the Beijing-Guangzhou HSR a couple of times (my wife's hometown is on the route and it lacks an airpot), and the car we were traveling in was always very empty for much of the 8 hour trip.
  - melling 9y ago
    The claim is at least a billion people a year ride the train each year. http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/chinas-rail-ambitions-run-at-full-speed http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/chinas-rail-ambitions-run-a... Where is the volume?