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High-speed railways are revolutionizing trade in Eurasia

14 points by johnny99 12y ago

omegaworks 12y ago
>Go west, young Han. One day, if everything happens according to plan (and according to the dreams of China’s leaders), all this will be yours — via high-speed rail, no less. Comparing the opening of a new global trade route to the Manifest Destiny conquest and colonization of the American west is propagandistic and inflammatory. If anything, this will only serve to encourage investment in the rail transport infrastructure we desperately need here in North America.
- johnny99 12y ago
  I agree with both, though they do seem superficially contradictory (inflammatory, but propelling something we desperately need). Would you care to elaborate?
- Turing_Machine 12y ago
  What makes you think that a) all of the (e.g.) 131 ethnicities in Kazakhstan will welcome this and b) that the Chinese would build something like this without being prepared to defend it using military force?
stevengg 12y ago
Pepe Escobar is great he blogs here http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Others/Escobar.html http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Others/Escobar.html
danmaz74 12y ago
This article makes it look like bullet trains will transport goods from China to Spain... which is a very stupid idea, as the cost of transport is so much higher than by sea.
- joe_the_user 12y ago
  Indeed, The article seems a confused mishmash of various possibilities and so paints various absurd possibilities like this. Bullet trains are slower than planes and more expensive than container ships - much of China's bullet train building has been to facilitate internal transport and as make-work infrastructure creation. China building-up overall rail infrastructure might bring more trade with various Asian nations but a number of other factors still have to come together for this. China still isn't a first world nation by any means - China's vast industrial capacity is focused on "final assembly" and so China still is dependent on other nations for things like, say, the chips that go in the iPhones it assembles. The situation doesn't resemble "a new empire flexing its muscles" or similar rot.

14 points by johnny99 12y ago

>Go west, young Han. One day, if everything happens according to plan (and according to the dreams of China’s leaders), all this will be yours — via high-speed rail, no less. Comparing the opening of a new global trade route to the Manifest Destiny conquest and colonization of the American west is propagandistic and inflammatory. If anything, this will only serve to encourage investment in the rail transport infrastructure we desperately need here in North America.

johnny99 12y ago
I agree with both, though they do seem superficially contradictory (inflammatory, but propelling something we desperately need). Would you care to elaborate?
Turing_Machine 12y ago
What makes you think that a) all of the (e.g.) 131 ethnicities in Kazakhstan will welcome this and b) that the Chinese would build something like this without being prepared to defend it using military force?

stevengg 12y ago

Pepe Escobar is great he blogs here http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Others/Escobar.html http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Others/Escobar.html

danmaz74 12y ago

This article makes it look like bullet trains will transport goods from China to Spain... which is a very stupid idea, as the cost of transport is so much higher than by sea.

joe_the_user 12y ago
Indeed, The article seems a confused mishmash of various possibilities and so paints various absurd possibilities like this. Bullet trains are slower than planes and more expensive than container ships - much of China's bullet train building has been to facilitate internal transport and as make-work infrastructure creation. China building-up overall rail infrastructure might bring more trade with various Asian nations but a number of other factors still have to come together for this. China still isn't a first world nation by any means - China's vast industrial capacity is focused on "final assembly" and so China still is dependent on other nations for things like, say, the chips that go in the iPhones it assembles. The situation doesn't resemble "a new empire flexing its muscles" or similar rot.