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  • On this episode of China Uncensored, I've been working on the railroad. All the livelong

  • 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 priceand 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 theseboondoggles.

  • 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.

On this episode of China Uncensored, I've been working on the railroad. All the livelong

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アメリカの交通機関の未来は「メイド・イン・チャイナ」なのか?| 中国無修正版 (Is "Made in China" the Future of US Transportation? | China Uncensored)

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    噹噹 に公開 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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