day.

Hi, welcome to China Uncensored, I'm your host Chris Chappell.

The United States is way behind the rest of the world when it comes to trains. There isn't

a single high-speed rail line in the whole country.

The company XpressWest has been trying to build a high-speed line between Los Angeles

and Las Vegas for years. It would reduce travel time from four hours to 80 minutes. The project

has been stalled because they couldn't get a federal loan.

But now they have a major investor from across the Pacific.

It's called The China Railway Group. It's the second-biggest industrial company in the

world.

Last month China Railway International USA announced that they've signed a joint venture

with XpressWest, and that construction will begin in September 2016.

China Railway International USA is owned by a consortium of five subsidiaries of Chinese

state-owned enterprises, which includes the China Railway Group. (can show on screen:

China Railway Group , CRRC Corp , China State Construction Engineering Corporation and China

Railway Signal & Communication Corporation.)

The 21 Century Business Herald reported the project will take three years and cost nearly

13 billion dollars.

So where's all that money going to come from?

Uh... that's not really clear yet. But China Railway International USA at least promised

to put up the first hundred million.

And if this all works out, China and its consortium of subsidiaries of state-owned enterprises

will have its foot in the door to be a part of other high-speed rail projects. Like that

line between San Francisco and Los Angeles that people have been talking about for 20

years. China Railway International USA recently sent in their proposal for designing, building

and financing it.

And a related Chinese company broke ground last month on a new factory in Massachusetts

where they will be building 284 subway cars for the Boston transit system.

But do we really want the Chinese building American railroads?

What's that, Shelley? Oh.

Um, yeah,sorry about that whole, Chinese Exclusion Act thing.

Ahem. So why does America want China involved in building its transportation this time around?

Like so many things, it comes down to money.

According to this World Bank report, the cost of building high-speed rails in China is up

to 46% lower than it is in Europe.

That's partly because the Chinese government is more efficient at building straight rail

lines through people's neighborhoods.

And of course the cost of labor there is cheaper.

But that doesn't mean those factors will carry over to the United States. It's just that

China is willing to put up a lot of the cash and take big risks.

China has the largest network of high-speed rails in the world and plans to double its

size by 2020. China is also in talks to build or sell high-speed trains in more than 20

countries.

So how did China manage to conduct all this high speed rail development? Simple. They

stole the technology from Japan. In fact, at least one Chinese economist has

praised China's "bandit innovators."

It's like when I steal my neighbor's lawnmower. I'm really giving him value... When I offer

to mow his lawn with it at a reasonable price…and the lawns of all the neighbors down the street.

China sees railways as a way to increase its international prestige. And they do it by

being cheaper than the competition--even if their profit margins are thin at first.

But Chinese railways still have image problems... after that deadly high-speed rail crash in

2011 that the Chinese regime tried to cover up.

The whole system was so corrupt that the Chinese government eventually dissolved the entire

Ministry of Railways, and gave former Railways Minister Liu Zhijun a suspended death sentence

for bribery and abuse of power.

Part of the reason the US has failed to develop its own high-speed rails is that private investors

see it as a big risk, despite the boon to the economy it would bring from having better

transportation, not to mention the joy of commuters. The costs are high and the return

on investment, questionable, if the government doesn't put up enough funding.

The government doesn't put up funding because of opposition on the right. House Majority

Leader Kevin McCarthy, a California representative, has said he would block federal funding for

any high-speed rail in California.

No word on how US lawmakers feel about having another country funding these… boondoggles.

So what do you think about the US's lack of high-speed rail and the idea of China filling

the gap? Leave your comments below and check back next time for more episodes of China

Uncensored. Once again I'm Chris Chappell, see you next time.