"Do you want a boo? Inexpensive." I asked Viti when we were planning our autumn trip to China. It was a rhetorical question. I knew that Vitya never mind shushing, especially inexpensive ones. More specifically, we had to buy a ticket for a high-speed train from to, and I offered to take a ride in business class in order to briefly experience all the delights of Chinese railway luxury.
As I expected, Victor immediately agreed. Fortunately, such a ticket was not very expensive:
The distance between the two cities is about 400 km, which is a good four hours by car, but the high-speed train covers the distance in about one and a half. At the same time, a ticket in the second class costs about $25, in the first class - $40, and in the business class - $80! Yes, in Chinese trains, business class is considered better than the first, unlike most airlines,)!
12. And here is the railway business class seat. There's plenty of legroom, and nice red leather (or some similar synthetic).
13. There are only five seats in the business lounge: there are three seats in the first row, and only two in the second. There are pockets in the backs of the chairs, although it is absolutely impossible to reach them without getting up.
14. So let's go!
15. It's time to explore what the railway company pampers its best passengers with. Each of us is given two pairs of slippers! It seems like another attempt at imitation. Perhaps the Japanese love slippers about the same as the Chinese love all sorts of fences and fences.
16. A table is pulled out of the arm of the chair, and a small tablet lies in the pocket at the feet of the seat. It seems like a TV.
17. True, it immediately turned out that there is also a TV. Both devices were completely in Chinese, and I was never able to do anything useful with them. But we must give them their due, they already provided me with about ten minutes of entertainment.
18. It seems that they are really mowing down for an airline here - at least the conductor is dressed just like flight attendants on airplanes! And the cart also looks like something bought from a Boeing. True, alcohol is not distributed here, I had to be content with tea.
19. Each passenger in the business lounge was given just such a box with gifts.
20. Inside are cookies, candies, and other sweets. As for me, they could pick up something more refined, yet this is BUSINESS CLASS!
21. The most important quality of any seat in the business is the ability to turn into a fully flat bunk. And here, I must say, the Chinese did not disappoint. He pressed the button, and the seat slowly leans back and moves away with a buzzing sound.
22. While I was photographing and checking all this, Vitya had already fallen asleep, and he had a third dream. Lucky for those who can immediately pass out like that! He slept most of the hour and a half on the road.
23. This door leads to the ordinary part of the train, where commoner losers ride. Above it is a board with speed and air temperature. As well as an indicator of whether the toilet is free. Yes, unfortunately the toilet has to be shared with those first class plebs.
This is the railroad business. Of course it's not worth that kind of money. What do you think?
China is gradually becoming the world's leading railway power. It covers with a dense network of high-speed roads not only its territory, but also neighboring countries. In this review, we will talk about phenomenon of Chinese railways, as well as about prospects his influence on Russia China is already announcing plans to build a $242 billion Beijing-Moscow highway.
In fact, the news about China's multibillion-dollar investment in the development of the Beijing-Moscow railway is surprising only to those who do not know about the real current state of affairs in the transport infrastructure of the Middle Kingdom. The fact is that over the past two decades, this country has been investing heavily in the creation of new roads, bridges, interchanges, overpasses, tunnels and other facilities, including those necessary for railway needs. Moreover, it is rail transport that China focuses on in its infrastructure development, because only it allows you to quickly, efficiently and relatively inexpensively connect different regions of a huge state in terms of area and population.
Railways of China
Statistics say that in recent years, more than two thousand kilometers of high-speed railway lines have been built in China every year, along which brand new Chinese trains can travel, capable of accelerating up to 500 kilometers per hour. However, the real average speed of movement on the railways of China is still three times less.
Due to this rapid development of the railway network, convenience and speed of travel, as well as relatively low fares with dynamic pricing policies, trains have become the main passenger mode of transport in China.
The development of the railway network also has a positive effect on the growth of the already powerful economy of the country. After all, it is freight, and not passenger, transportation that is the main income of the railways of any state, as well as the main logistics of goods and resources.
Understanding the great importance of railways, having achieved notable success in their construction and operation on the territory of their country, the Chinese authorities several years ago decided to begin railway expansion to other states. The first and, at the moment, the main direction of this activity was Southeast Asia.
China and Southeast Asia
In 2011, the Ministry of Railways of China announced the launch of the Asian Railway program, which will unite the railway infrastructure of Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Myanmar and Singapore into a single network. The Celestial Empire intends to buy out the lines located in these countries in order to reconstruct them later, as well as create many new routes. In total, this promising network will consist of approximately 40,000 kilometers of new railway lines.
At the same time, the Asian Railway will unite precisely those countries that have been the world's largest producers of consumer goods for the past ten years. And China, through the railway infrastructure, gains control over the production and logistics processes in these states.
But China's transport interests are not limited to Southeast Asia either. This country is working on ideas of a much wider infrastructural expansion to the West and East.
China and America
One of the latest promising rail projects in China is the idea of building a transcontinental high-speed rail line from Beijing to Los Angeles.It may sound like a joke, but China is actually seriously considering connecting Asia and North America with a railroad for the foreseeable future. The 13,000-kilometer line will start in Beijing, pass through Vladivostok, the coast of the Sea of Okhotsk, dive into a 200-kilometer tunnel under the Bering Strait, then again pass by land through the whole of Alaska, the western coast of Canada with Vancouver, and then through the United States of America to Los Angeles. In the future, it could be extended east to New York and south to South America.
High-speed Chinese trains will be able to cover the distance between Beijing and Los Angeles in just 24 hours. This is quite a lot for passenger traffic, but it is unimaginably fast for transporting goods, namely, this road will mainly be used as a freight road.
China and Europe
The Chinese authorities are also looking to the West. On November 18, 2014, a freight train consisting of three dozen wagons with Chinese goods left the city of Yiwu in eastern China. Twenty-one days later, he arrived at the end point of his route, Madrid, having overcome 13 thousand kilometers and eight countries along the way: China, Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, Poland, Germany, France and, in fact, Spain.
Chinese authorities have said that similar freight trains will travel on this route on a regular basis. People are already calling this record-breaking road the "New Silk Road" or the "21st Century Silk Road."
However, in the previous two paragraphs, we are talking exclusively about freight traffic between China and Western countries. But the Celestial Empire is also hatching plans to create high-speed passenger lines that will connect it with Europe. A few years ago, the Chinese authorities announced that they intended to create a new "Orient Express" in the future, which will connect Beijing and London. This will be the main train of the world, which will finally turn Eurasia, stretching for 15 thousand kilometers from west to east, into a single continent.
China and Russia
But the route to London is a matter for the future. In the meantime, China plans to gain a foothold on its immediate frontiers. This is evidenced by the desire of Beijing to build a high-speed railway line to Moscow.It is expected that the total length of the road will be about 7 thousand kilometers. It will start in Beijing, pass through the northwest of China, Kazakhstan and the European part of Russia to Moscow. Trains will cover this route in just 2 days, while the current trains overcome it in more than 7 days.
When announcing its plans to build a railway to Moscow, China actually makes a statement that it considers Russia one of its main partners, that it believes in the further development of the economy of this state, as well as political and economic ties between Russia and China.
Outcome
Based on the above facts, we can conclude that China is turning into the world's largest operator of passenger and freight rail transportation. This country, receiving huge profits, invests them in infrastructure projects around the world. This is a great example for other states, including Russia.The well-known principle "time is money" for business today is more relevant than ever. In order to be in time for everything and not be late anywhere, humanity invents new ways of transportation. One of them was the high-speed rail lines (HSR), which over the past 20 years have won the hearts and wallets of millions of passengers around the world.
In China, Japan and Europe, trains that cover 300-350 km in just an hour successfully compete with airplanes. The Celestial Empire, with fanatical zeal, mastering a new type of transport, has outstripped its closest competitors in terms of the length of the high-speed rail for many years to come.
Only in 2010-2012. The Chinese government and state-owned banks allocated about $355 billion for the development of railways, a significant part of which went to expand the network of high-speed highways. This year, China is investing another $104 billion in railways. In Russia, the creation of a high-speed railway is still only being considered, "accelerating" trains along Soviet-built railway tracks.
Japan and China "stole" the dream of Europeans
Engineers and designers have been trying to create fast trains since the advent of rail transport. The first officially recorded speed record on the railway - 210 km per hour - was set in the suburbs of Berlin in 1903, even before the first plane took to the skies.
However, the long-standing dream of Europeans about super-fast trains was destined to come true 60 years later on the other side of the world. In 1964 Japan launched the world's first public high-speed rail (HSR) Shinkansen between Tokyo and Osaka, which now carries more than 150 million passengers annually. It is curious that for half a century of operation of the line, not a single catastrophe has occurred on it.
Over the past 10 years, China has made a huge breakthrough in the development of high-speed rail (or as they are also called high-speed rail), leaving far behind the closest competitors from Europe and Asia. If in the mid-1990s in the Celestial Empire trains were dragging at an average speed of 50 km / h, then at the beginning of the 2000s it increased to 200 km / h.
By the beginning of 2013 the Chinese have built and upgraded more than 8,500 km of rail tracks for high-speed and high-speed trains. In December last year, China opened the world's longest and one of the "fastest" railway lines from Beijing to Guangzhou. On it, trains cover a distance of almost 2,300 km in just eight hours, accelerating to 350 km/h.
Such projects require considerable financial injections from the state. In 2010 The Chinese authorities allocated a record 800 billion yuan ($129 billion) to the development of the railway network in 2011-2012. another $226 billion was invested. Plan for 2013 - about 104 billion dollars. By 2015. the Chinese expect to increase the total length of the railway network to 120,000 km, including 18,000 km of high-speed lines.
Having "tested" the technology of high-speed lines, China announced its planned expansion into the markets of Southeast Asia and the Middle East. At present, high-speed railway construction projects are being discussed, which will connect China with Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and even the UK (Beijing-London line). The Chinese are ready to build a network of high-speed highways to India and Europe, and at half the price of the Germans, or almost half the price of the Koreans.
High-speed trains outpaced planes
Europe is actively catching up with its Asian neighbors by creating a unified HSR network, coordinating the actions of railway operators and creating real competition for airlines at distances of 600-800 km.
Pioneers in the development of high-speed highways in this part of the world were Italy and France with their famous Pendolino and TGV trains. Since the opening of the first HSR from Paris to Lyon in 1981. TGV trains have repeatedly beaten their own speed records, overcoming a fantastic figure for land transport of 570 km/h.
The example of the French was followed by the Germans and Spaniards, and in 1994. A high-speed line was launched through the Channel Tunnel, connecting the capitals of France and England. After its opening, the number of flights between Paris and London has decreased significantly.
Today, the total length of high-speed railways and the volume of passenger traffic on them around the world are growing at a record pace. According to the forecasts of the International Union of Railways, by 2014. the length of the HSR network will increase from the current 17,000 to 27,000 km.
We'll go the other way
In Russia, the project of high-speed railways was developed back in the 70s of the last century, in the late 1980s a program for the development of high-speed railways was adopted. However, in the 90s, for obvious reasons, they safely forgot about it. It was only at the beginning of the 21st century that the idea of high-speed rail traffic was realized in our country.
They did not build separate railway lines for the high-speed lines as they did abroad, instead, high-speed trains bought from the German Siemens and the French Alstom were launched on the existing infrastructure. In 2009 Between the two capitals - Moscow and St. Petersburg - "Peregrine Falcons" began to run at a speed of up to 200 km / h, they also connected the Mother See with Nizhny Novgorod. High-speed trains "Allegro" carry passengers to Helsinki from the Northern capital of the Russian Federation, and in January 2013. from St. Petersburg to Veliky Novgorod and Bologoye, the Lastochka trains were launched.
0 20px 0 25px;"> "Sapsan" and "Allegro" in 2012 carried 3.5 million passengers. In total, since December 2009, when they were launched, there have been more than 9 million passengers. The average load of these high-speed trains is over 80%. Sapsan and Allegro carry passengers at speeds up to 200 km/h. The average speed of long-distance trains of the Federal Passenger Company today does not exceed 60 km/h.
Today, three main directions for the development of high-speed lines in Russia with speeds up to 350 km/h are considered. This is the already tested route Moscow - Petersburg, as well as the lines Moscow - Nizhny Novgorod - Kazan - Yekaterinburg and Moscow - Rostov-on-Don - Adler.
According to the first vice-president of JSC "" Alexander Misharin (heads the company supervising the project "High-Speed Lines"), Moscow-Kazan will most likely become the pilot direction for the construction of high-speed lines.
"It is more expedient (to build a branch. - Note RBC) to the East, since there is a prospect for development - to extend it to Yekaterinburg with the connection of Perm, Chelyabinsk and Ufa. Geopolitics is already appearing there, access to China," the top manager of Russian Railways explained.
The Institute for Natural Monopoly Problems (IPEM) emphasizes that the rapid development of high-speed rail passenger transportation in France, Germany, Japan and China is supported and subsidized by the government.
"In Russia, as in the United States, for example, there is no clear position of the state regarding the transportation of passengers by high-speed lines. However, in the United States, unlike the Russian Federation, there is no urgent need for rail passenger transportation, since small aviation and bus service are quite developed" , - says IPEM expert Lev Ruzavin.
In his opinion, in our country "regional aviation is in decline, and transportation by buses is carried out by many private companies, over which it is impossible to establish control and provide the required level of security."
Alexander Volobuev, RBC
The holding of the Olympic Games in China in 2007 gave impetus to the development of bullet train traffic in the country. a railway line was opened for high-speed trains at a speed of 330 km per hour.
The line connected the capital Beijing and the port Tiadzhin. And this is not the limit! Benjin and Shanghai are connected by a 350 km/h high-speed train line. To create a high-speed movement, the technologies of the Japanese company Kawasaki were used. Recently, there has been a tendency to use Chinese technology in this direction. Chinese companies sell their trains to North and South America. For comparison: high-speed trains in Europe can reach speeds of up to 270 km per hour, Japanese bullet trains travel at a speed of 234 km per hour.
In 2010, China's high speed train set a new speed record of 486.1 kilometers per hour,
almost 70 kilometers per hour exceeding the previous achievement, the Chinese
MASS MEDIA. The record was set during a test pass of the CRH380A series on the site
between the cities of Zaozhuang and Bengpu on the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway. New record
significantly surpassed the previous figure of 416.6 kilometers per hour, which the train of the Chinese
production reached at the end of September this year.
Chinese specialists began to design a train that will reach speeds over
500 kilometers per hour.
Speed records are set only as part of research tests. At the same time, by
information from the Ministry of Railways of China, at present, the PRC has 337
trains capable of speeds up to 380 kilometers per hour, which
used to carry passengers.
China has 7.55 thousand kilometers of high-speed railways. Work in progress
there are more than 10 thousand kilometers of high-speed railroad tracks.
and Guangzhou. It was built in just four years and now it is the longest high-speed line
railway in the world - 1068 km.
Trains on it develop a speed of 350 km / h. So from Wuhan to Guangzhou you can not get
in ten hours, as usual, but in just 2 hours and 58 minutes. Fare - from 70 to 114
dollars one way. About 13,000 km to be in operation in China in 2012
high-speed railways (200-350 km/h).
By 2012, China will have 42 high-speed rail lines
lines, which will give an even greater impetus to the development of the economy. That distance to overcome
which used to take ten hours, now only three. It's a great alternative
road transport with eternal traffic jams and aircraft with the necessary preliminary
registration. Inside the train is not divided into wagons and represent a single space.
Shaking, vibration, shocks when moving are absent. The trains are equipped with soft
anatomical chairs, TVs, vending machines. Hot
What does it look like? To a giant airport? To the spaceport? A scene from a movie about the future? Not,
Guys, this is the Chinese station. Giant building. Futuristic architecture. elevators, escalators,
dozens and hundreds of information boards, a marble floor polished to a mirror finish,
living palm trees, comfortable temperature, perfect cleanliness. There are several at the same time
thousands of people. But they are all so evenly distributed in a common gigantic space that
there is no feeling of a crowd, which is typical for railway stations.
recreation, and playgrounds for children. At the box office for buying tickets there is a special window for
foreigners. An adult and serious Chinese woman in glasses sells tickets to “laowai” with a look like
as if they were her students and she was an English teacher.
Regular trains do not come to this station. There are high speed trains. The point is that now
China is building a giant web of high-speed rail across the country. This web
already now connects dozens of strategic millionaires. And in the coming
for several years it will literally cover the whole country.
Chinese trains are a great alternative to two modes of transport at once. Firstly,
cars. Previously, to get from one city to another, you had to take a car,
stand in city traffic for a long time, enter the freeway, pay for the road (roads in China
paid), refuel and drive at a speed of 100 kilometers per hour in the neighborhood of insane
Chinese truck drivers. Now on a high-speed train it can be done in three
times faster and three times cheaper. At the same time, you will spend time in comfortable conditions and not
get tired of driving.
And secondly, it is an alternative to aircraft. Because now from almost any major
city to another large city, you can not only fly by plane, but also get here by
such a fast train. This is often much more convenient. And always cheaper. And it works.
the train is served on the platform and it opens its sealed doors, passengers are invited
for landing. The landing system here is the same as at airports. That is why on their own
© AP Photo/Xinhua, Cheng Min // Wuhan depot and some of the fastest trains in the world.
Buying tickets, finding the right exit to the platform, the way from the waiting room to the train - all this
organized so logically and predictably that anyone can figure it out. Even
"laowai". And even "laowai", who flew to China for the first time and just now.
Trains arrive on time. And they leave on time. This is a system. Clear and thoughtful matrix.
After the train has been served, passengers through automatic gates get to one of
platforms, of which there are several dozen. And almost immediately find themselves inside the train.
walk from the end of the train to the beginning without opening or closing a single door. Soft, comfortable to
chairs, information boards (where the names of stops, time and speed are displayed),
LCD TVs, laptop sockets, hot and cold water dispensers…
These trains are served by specially sharpened conductors. cute but strict
Chinese women in blue uniforms. It is to them that you can ask your naive question and get
quite a serious answer to it. They don't flirt at work...
Pay attention to this young man in a red vest. This is a railroad employee.
roads. He delivers meals. Rice with meat. Chicken with meat. And sweet donuts.
Even though these trains run really fast, you don't feel the speed inside them.
at all. They are very stable. There is no shaking or vibration. And understand how fast
a train is moving, it is possible only when an oncoming train is rushing outside the window. Counter
trains over two hundred meters long pass by in less than two seconds. Wherein
the aerowave from them hits the windows with such force that each time you involuntarily shudder.
Feelings are pretty cool. The first few times I didn't understand what it was.
The new generation of trains in China is not “to be” and not “but we also have”, and not
"blah blah blah". This is a thoughtful, convenient and popular project on a federal scale.
Focused not on the capital's elite, but on the people. (By the way, like many things in China).
Despite all its futurism and grandiosity, the prices here are not at all high. And on
a businessman from Shanghai in a suit and tie can easily sit in the neighboring seats, and
a rice farmer who returns from the capital to his village. At the same time they
they will definitely talk loudly, discuss the weather, politics, the Dow Jones index,
agricultural fertilizers and much more...
China needs to move. Move quickly, conveniently and affordable. Movement speed
across the country - this is very important for the economy and business to continue to develop in the same way
insanely fast. Everyone is interested in this. And the state that "creates the conditions." And the people and
business”, which uses these conditions. And I generally understand why such high-speed
to construction)
The railway infrastructure modernization project implemented in China is comparable in scale to the construction of the Great Wall of China. The country's authorities have invested about 300 billion dollars in the creation of high-speed railway lines (HSR). Today, the Chinese high-speed rail network is longer than in Japan and Europe combined. Lenta.ru found out what modern Chinese railways are like, why the PRC government did not spare money on obviously unprofitable projects, and what are the prospects for using Chinese experience and technology on Russian soil.
great china network
By the beginning of the 21st century, Chinese railways were not a locomotive, but rather a brake on the country's economic development. The development of transport did not correspond to the increased level of mobility of the population. Railroads, with an average speed of 48 kilometers per hour, lost competition to autobahns and air transport.
As a result, in 1997, a campaign was launched to increase the speed of railways, the main measures of which were large-scale electrification, the construction of tunnels and bridges to straighten routes, the renewal of the locomotive and wagon fleet, and the improvement of service on trains. By 2007, the average speed of passenger trains reached 70 kilometers per hour, and in some "exemplary" sections of the train, they accelerated to 160 kilometers per hour. However, this was only the beginning.
In the mid-2000s, Beijing launched an ambitious campaign to build a high-speed rail network. The volume of investments in the creation of new lines in 2007 amounted to 26 billion dollars. The global economic crisis, which began soon after, contributed to even greater investments in the construction of high-speed lines. This was done in order to provide employment for the population and stimulate economic growth. As a result, already by 2009, the total volume of capital investments reached 88 billion dollars, continuing to increase. The total investment in the creation of a network of 25-30 thousand kilometers (estimated length for 2020) is estimated at about $300 billion.
It is important to understand that high-speed highways are completely new branches, and not an upgrade of existing ones. Usually they are built in parallel with existing ones, but in some areas they are the only ones, and they do not have “understudies”. In such cases, they can also be used to transport goods. Although VSR mainly specializes in servicing passenger traffic, carrying over three million passengers a day (the largest figure in the world). In order to understand the scale of the market, it should be noted that Chinese railways transport about 47 million people every day.
In ten years of active construction, 19,000 kilometers of high-speed roads have been created, making China's high-speed rail network the largest in the world - more than in Japan and Europe combined. In Russia, there is not yet a single “dedicated” HSR line - high-speed Sapsan trains run on ordinary roads, and for their sake the movement of other trains is blocked.
Initially, the Chinese used foreign technologies: French (Alstom), Canadian (Bombardier) and Japanese (Kawasaki). Chinese manufacturers, who were very creative in dealing with the intellectual rights of foreign partners, in less than a decade not only reached the same technological level, but also took a leading position in the world. And now it is Chinese technologies that are most competitive in the promising markets of India, Brazil and Mexico.
In terms of the volume of investments and importance for the country, the creation of a high-speed railway network is quite comparable with such grandiose infrastructure projects of the past, such as the construction of the Great Wall of China during the time of Emperor Qin Shi Huang (3rd century BC) and the Great Imperial Canal, which connected the basins of the Yellow Rivers in the 6th century and the Yangtze.
How it works
For high-speed highways, as a rule, completely new stations are being built, more like huge airports than railway stations. Such stations become growth points for peripheral "development zones" - often in suburbs or satellite cities. They are surrounded by businesses and services. Connection with urban transport systems turns them into transport hubs. For example, such a hub not only for Shanghai, but also for the surrounding provinces has become the Hongqiao junction - the place where the international airport, railway station and several branches of the Shanghai metro converge.
High-speed trains in China include G trains (called gaote) with a top speed of 310 kilometers per hour, as well as D (dongche) trains that can reach speeds of up to 250 kilometers per hour. "Gaote" move only on special highways, which have a number of features: they have fewer turning angles and use only a ballastless track on a concrete base. Slower dongche can also move on some "normal" roads. Currently, HSR trains account for approximately 20 percent of all passenger traffic, while 80 percent are “regular” trains, the fastest of which (direct night expresses between the largest cities in the country) can travel at a speed of 140-160 kilometers per hour.
Previously, Chinese trains were not only slow, but also uncomfortable. It was considered commonplace to smoke right in the car. They were noisy and smelled bad; air conditioners were rare, and it was even specifically indicated on the tickets. At present, the situation has changed dramatically. Even in ordinary trains, a complete replacement of the wagon stock has been made. Trains with the letters G and D resemble airplanes in terms of comfort: soft reclining seats (sleepers are not provided on high-speed lines), dry closets, air conditioning, and the absence of annoying music. Tickets are twice as expensive as regular trains, but still cheaper than air. And certainly, the new type of trains is much more comfortable than buses, where, in the old fashioned way, Chinese serials about the civil war are turned on in full sound, worse than which only the Chinese analogue of the Full House program can be.
High-speed trains have changed the concept of space. China is a huge country, travel through which previously required a significant investment of time, effort and nerves. Now the distance between Beijing and Shanghai (1318 kilometers) on the G-1 train can be covered in 4 hours and 48 minutes. For comparison: the Sapsan train between Moscow and St. Petersburg travels an hour faster, but the distance here is half as much. Between Beijing and Guangzhou, the distance is 2100 kilometers, on the fastest train with the letter G, it can be traveled in eight hours. In Russia, approximately the same distance separates Moscow and Tyumen, on the branded train "Russia" it is overcome in a day and six hours.
All HSRs are operated by CRH (China Railway High-Speed), a subsidiary of China Railways State Corporation, under the control of the Ministry of Transportation and the State Administration of Railways. The former railway ministry was abolished in 2013 after a high-speed train collision in Wenzhou (40 dead) and a corruption scandal involving its former leader. Liu Zhijun, considered the father of the high-speed rail system, has been accused of receiving "kickbacks" on road construction contracts of up to four percent. However, there were enough questions about the effectiveness of the work of the ministry without this.
Photo: Wei Wanzhong / Xinhua / Globallookpress.com
All Chinese high-speed lines are unprofitable and are subsidized by the state. Both in terms of construction and maintenance. Financing is obtained from state-owned banks in the form of loans to the railway corporation and regional authorities. The payback period for relatively short lines between large cities (for example, Beijing - Tianjin) is 15-16 years with a passenger traffic of about 30 million people a year. Exit "to zero" highways in remote areas with difficult terrain is almost impossible.
In fact, the state sponsors the creation of deliberately unprofitable highways, while solving such strategic tasks as employment of workers and businesses. In addition, fast, convenient and inexpensive transport unites the country: it allows the population to travel to study and work in neighboring cities, travel and spend money in tourist areas. All this ultimately leads to the unification of China, the spread of common values and the normative Chinese language. As one Chinese scholar said on this occasion: "More than high-speed roads, only hieroglyphs were made for the unity of our country."
Against the backdrop of a new economic crisis, the government is seeking to secure new orders for its industry. Since in China the entire transport infrastructure is more or less built, Beijing is looking at its neighbors, whose infrastructure is much worse.
Moreover, in some areas, the Chinese high-speed lines almost reached the state border. In the west, the Lanzhou-Urumqi highway has been built (although it has not yet been connected to Beijing). In the northeast, the HSR network has reached the border city of Hunchun, from which Vladivostok is only 125 kilometers in a straight line. In 2019, the extension of the high-speed line from Harbin to Mudanjiang (370 kilometers to Vladivostok) is expected.
Docking with Russia
In 2014-15, the authorities of Heilongjiang province expressed the idea of building the Harbin-Vladivostok high-speed line. Competing Jilin officials proposed a variant of the Hunchun-Vladivostok high-speed rail line with an extension to Khabarovsk. Russian officials like to dream up no less, so, in turn, they came up with a project for the Hunchun - Fengshuilin - Vladivostok road and rail corridor, which, in particular, involves the construction of a 10-kilometer bridge across the Amur Bay. Obviously, in all cases we are talking about the construction of a road with a Chinese gauge and one single stop - the final one, at which border and customs procedures will be carried out.
Perhaps, from the point of view of a long-term development strategy, setting such goals is necessary. However, at the moment, all three "projects" look like unscience fiction. Judging by the Chinese experience and given the current volumes of cross-border passenger traffic, none of the routes will ever pay off. At the same time, their implementation will require colossal money, which neither the region nor the federal budget currently has. Potentially, Chinese investors have funds, however, it is not clear what can make them invest in a deliberately unprofitable infrastructure project on the territory of another state.
Contrary to popular belief in Russia, Chinese investors are not good magicians, but pragmatic businessmen who always think about their own benefit. Perhaps the Chinese border authorities are counting on subsidies from the Center. But it will be possible to get them only if the maximum use of Chinese technologies and production is guaranteed. Roughly speaking, only if it is a Chinese road built by Chinese workers using Chinese materials and equipment imported duty-free will it be of interest to Beijing.
The same problems apply to another project, much more real. We are talking about the Moscow-Kazan high-speed rail line, a memorandum on the joint construction of which was signed during Xi Jinping's May visit to Moscow. The design documentation is currently being prepared. In September, concession agreements are expected to be signed with the Chinese side, which won the tender on a non-alternative basis. Russia now has neither the appropriate technologies, nor its own financial resources (initially, it was planned to spend a trillion rubles on the project, which today the budget cannot afford), nor the ability to seek sources of financing in European banks.
Photo: Roman Yarovitsyn / Kommersant
Bargaining with potential Chinese investors continues, but it is not clear how it will end. Chinese capital, which is ready to participate in the consortium, would like to receive unprecedented preferences and use its capacities to the maximum. The Russian side is striving to localize production to the maximum and get not only a road, but also an industrial boom in the surrounding territories.
Even now, Chinese experts say that a separate branch of high-speed rail without creating a network does not make sense. Following this logic, they propose to extend it to Yekaterinburg and further - to the border with Kazakhstan, and in the future to Beijing. Perhaps this is exactly the order that Chinese builders need, who, having built everything at home, may soon be left without work. The very approximate cost of the project is 250 billion dollars, which is a little less than all the Chinese spend on their own high-speed rail network.
However, there are still more questions to this project than answers. Only the Chinese have money for construction, but this automatically means Chinese rules in organizational and technical aspects, to which Russia and Kazakhstan may not agree for various reasons.
