# What's the deal with China's short-sighted, unsustainable car policy **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 14, 2011, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-chinas-short-sighted-unsustainable-car-policy/588987 "2011-07-14T07:14:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2011, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-chinas-short-sighted-unsustainable-car-policy/588987/41 "2011-07-19T05:16:07Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > **coremelt** > That got volumes up high enough fast enough to make the ongoing losses sustainable. In contrast the bulk of Chinese cannot afford these trains. The ongoing losses are therefore harder to sustain. > Maybe they’ll subsidize it enough to make it affordable. They might. Or quite possibly they don’t mind losing money until the rising middle classes can afford them? Again you are trying to judge China’s actions by western economic rationalizations. China is still a command economy for many areas and the HSR is one of them. The Sydney Harbour Bridge was built in 1930 and it didn’t pay for itself until 1988, that’s 58 years to break even. Massive infrastructure projects that take 20 years to break even or longer are actually pretty common throughout history even in the US. The fact that the current US climate you can’t commit to any project that takes more than 4 years to break even is one of the main reasons the US economy is suffering so much. All your infrastructure money went to Afghanistan and Iraq where billions of it was stolen by corrupt contractors. And you claim building a HSR network is wasteful? ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2011, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-chinas-short-sighted-unsustainable-car-policy/588987/42 "2011-07-19T05:58:30Z")
Really **coremelt** , stay on subject. The subject is not wars or the US. It is which policy choices the Chinese government is making regarding its transportation sector. Focus. “Command” is a relative thing. So far the Chinese government is [not willing to lose enough](http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2011-01/12/content_11831362.htm) on HSR to make it affordable for the masses. > [@](#): > > many travelers cannot afford the tickets, causing a waste of transport capacity. > > According to a report in the Shanghai-based Oriental Morning Post on Tuesday, hundreds of soft berths on bullet trains between Chengdu and Shanghai will be vacant, although cheaper tickets have sold out. > > He Jianzhong said this year the situation had pushed many passengers, who used to ride home by slow trains because of the cheap tickets, onto long-distance buses. > > This extra traffic will add pressure to the road transport system during the travel peak season, He said. > > The Ministry of Transport estimated that a record high of 2.6 billion bus passenger trips will be made during the peak time between Jan 19 and Feb 27, an increase of 11.6 percent on the same period last year. > > The transport sector plans to increase capacity to handle the extra traffic. A total of 840,000 buses, including 70,000 added this year, will hit the road during the travel peak, making 2.4 million road trips a day, he said. As per that article Chinese HSR is not cutting down bus or car traffic; it is instead competing successfully with airline commuter flights among the wealthy. That’s not the way Japan succeeded with HSR. > [@](#): > > While giving away some passengers to road transport, the high-speed railways, at the same time, have attracted more affluent travelers from the airlines. > > Wang Changshun, deputy head of the Civil Aviation Administration of China, told a conference on Tuesday that the fast trains have forced some airlines to cancel short-distance flights along high-speed rail lines. OTOH, you are right in one sense. The goals for HSR in China is not the same goals that other countries, including Japan, might have or had. One of China’s bigger concern is to free up space on older train lines for freight. And getting freight to and from the more inland areas cheaply and reliably is key right now. Seems to me more new freight lines would have done that job cheaper though. ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2011, 10:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-chinas-short-sighted-unsustainable-car-policy/588987/43 "2011-07-19T10:34:32Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Really **coremelt** , stay on subject. The subject is not wars or the US. It is which policy choices the Chinese government is making regarding its transportation sector. Focus. It’s relevant as the jingoistic China bashing and denial of their success that happens on this board seems to come solely from US citizens. Australia has long taken a more pragmatic view towards China, namely that they are the 100 pound gorilla of the 21st century that we all have to get along with whether we like it or not. China passed Japan as the biggest two way trade partner for Australia a long time ago, the US is a distant number 3. [http://www.dfat.gov.au/trade/focus/081201\_top10\_twoway\_exports.html](http://www.dfat.gov.au/trade/focus/081201_top10_twoway_exports.html) ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2011, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-chinas-short-sighted-unsustainable-car-policy/588987/44 "2011-07-19T12:55:52Z")
“Until the middle class can afford tickets…”??? I was in Shanghai in October last year and we asked the hotel to get us tickets to Xian when they went on sale (10 days beforethe trip, I was told). They were sold out… not just the cheap seats, but the sleepers too. Fortunately, we got airline tickets on CTrip at the same cost as a sleeper. The streets are mostly cars from what I saw, but yes, a lot of scooters too. The separate bike/scooter lanes (curb between outside car lanes and bike lanes, sometimes even railings) are very nice. Even in Xian, we got stuck in a traffic jam of mostly cars, some trucks and busses. While we have a collection of photos of funny little cars from our travels in Europe (FOrd Ka, Smart Car, etc.) most of what we saw in China was normal sedans. Shangha was the worst for traffic, but they have built elevated expressways over many main streets to double and speed the capacity of their roads, so traffic usually moved pretty good. The biggest problem is pollution. The haze was everywhere in Beijing and Xian - visibility was maybe a mile, and even 100km away at the great wall, the fog was awful. IIRC, this was more from coal burning than auto exhaust. But yes, they have excellent subway systems and continue to build. Anyone who gets a chance, take the maglev from the airport to the edge of Shanghai, a 7-minute trip hitting speeds of 431km/hr. Basically, instead of sitting around talking, the Chinese are building - roads, rail, subways, buidlings, bridges. Unlike North America, they don’t have the luxury of waiting while they argue politics. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2011, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-chinas-short-sighted-unsustainable-car-policy/588987/45 "2011-07-19T15:39:51Z")
And yet go to Kunming and you’ll sit two hours in traffic because the city is missing a key traffic light at a critical intersection. China invests in infrastructure strategically in selected locations, and if that strategy should benefit the people of China beyond what is needed to avoid open revolt, it is often by happy coincidence rather than design. As for cars- around the world, a new car is the ultimate symbol of the middle class. It is a universal aspiration. I had Chinese friends that would spend huge chuncks of their earnings on a car that would take twice as long to wade through traffic as taking a bus would. My students eagerly bragged about takng driving lessons, even though as future primary school teachers looking to make around $200 a month, a car is not in ther near future. Girls put “has a car” on top of their list of desired traits in men. My professor friend seriously considered marrying an illierate gangster because he promised to buy her a car. People REALLY want cars. All the government can do is try to manage this desire. They promised to make people rich, and if being rich means cars, there will be cars ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2011, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-chinas-short-sighted-unsustainable-car-policy/588987/46 "2011-07-19T18:16:02Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > And yet go to Kunming and you’ll sit two hours in traffic because the city is missing a key traffic light at a critical intersection. China invests in infrastructure strategically in selected locations, and if that strategy should benefit the people of China beyond what is needed to avoid open revolt, it is often by happy coincidence rather than design. > > As for cars- around the world, a new car is the ultimate symbol of the middle class. It is a universal aspiration. I had Chinese friends that would spend huge chuncks of their earnings on a car that would take twice as long to wade through traffic as taking a bus would. My students eagerly bragged about takng driving lessons, even though as future primary school teachers looking to make around $200 a month, a car is not in ther near future. Girls put “has a car” on top of their list of desired traits in men. My professor friend seriously considered marrying an illierate gangster because he promised to buy her a car. People REALLY want cars. > > All the government can do is try to manage this desire. They promised to make people rich, and if being rich means cars, there will be cars Not surprising in a society where the government is not open to constructive criticism. Better improvement through feedback fails when you don’t allow feedback. As for the car culture - no surprise, it’s been the same in North America, just more attainable. I recall in the summer after high school back in the 70’s, I was working in a public housing project to pay my way through university. WHen I told this to a 15 year old kid, he said “why don’t you just take the money and buy a car instead?” That was a common mentality. With a car you were free and could DO things. Cars are a symbol of status and prestige. (heck, remember when a colour TV was status? How about when it was an iPod?) ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2011, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-chinas-short-sighted-unsustainable-car-policy/588987/47 "2011-07-22T02:29:36Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > (heck, remember when a colour TV was status? How about when it was an iPod?) Those were simple times. These days, you have to build an unsustainable, high-speed rail network to achieve status. ---
**Author:** ![Autolycus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/22d042/32.png) [@Autolycus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Autolycus)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2011, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-chinas-short-sighted-unsustainable-car-policy/588987/48 "2011-07-22T04:13:56Z")
**coremelt** , what exactly are you even arguing, that HRS covering all of China is sustainable? And can somebody explain to me what a ‘command economy’ is? ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2011, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-chinas-short-sighted-unsustainable-car-policy/588987/49 "2011-07-22T05:15:19Z")
> [@Balthisar](#): > > Context, man. Ok, maybe “by definition” was imprecise, but everyone else knows what I mean. I think I know what you mean but I think you are wrong. If you look at many Asian streets, it is the bikes and scooters that are dominant. Depending on the place, the dominance can be near total. The streets are for travelling along, and the mode of travel is defined by what is used on them, not by the street itself. ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2011, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-chinas-short-sighted-unsustainable-car-policy/588987/50 "2011-07-22T05:52:09Z")
> [@Autolycus](#): > > **coremelt** , what exactly are you even arguing, that HRS covering all of China is sustainable? > > And can somebody explain to me what a ‘command economy’ is? We have wildly different definitions of what sustainable means. To me if the HSR is still here in 20 years then it was sustainable, even if it’s lost money for 16 of those years. My prediction is the China wide HSR will still exist in 20 years, be an even bigger network and that the main trunk routes will be profitable, while the government will choose to subsidize routes to rural areas. The Chinese Government has a massive trade surplus, they can afford to subsidize the HSR network for 20 years. This is exactly what happened in Japan, took 20 years for Shinkansen to be profitable and even now the government still subsidizes the routes to smaller towns. And before we bring up this bull shit again, Coastal China has an equal population density as Japan does, and the GDP per capita of China is now higher than Japan’s was when they started the shinkansen. Cite’s are in earlier posts I made above. No doubt to you this is “unsustainable”, because they won’t make money within 5 years, but to be honest that sort of thinking is why the US is in decline. ---
**Author:** ![Throatwarbler\_Mangrove](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8c91f0/32.png) [@Throatwarbler\_Mangrove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Throatwarbler_Mangrove)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2011, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-chinas-short-sighted-unsustainable-car-policy/588987/51 "2011-07-22T06:40:20Z")
The national transportation grid plays a large role in promoting regional economic and political integration and in fostering the spread of economic development to areas that have previously been backwaters, and thus reducing inter-regional inequalities. This was and remains an important rationale behind the development of the European high speed rail network. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2011, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-chinas-short-sighted-unsustainable-car-policy/588987/52 "2011-07-24T02:56:25Z")
Not sure how much [this](http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/07/23/china.train.accident/index.html?hpt=hp_t2) informs, but how many crashes like this has Japan had? > [@](#): > > A high-speed bullet train collision in eastern China’s Zhejiang province late Saturday left 33 people dead and nearly 200 injured, state-run news agency Xinhua reported. … officials said some cars were severely twisted and it was hard to know how many people were still trapped inside. Japan? [_No_ fatalities](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinkansen#Safety_record) in all its years of High Speed Rail. ---
**Author:** ![voltaire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voltaire/32/313_2.png) [@voltaire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voltaire)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2011, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-chinas-short-sighted-unsustainable-car-policy/588987/53 "2011-07-24T18:34:52Z")
Yeah, it sure doesn’t sound good: > [@](#): > > Many were outraged over video that was posted online Sunday showing backhoes breaking apart carriages that had fallen off the elevated tracks. Another photograph online showed what some thought were the same backhoes burying parts of the train. > > Internet users suspecting a coverup questioned how evidence could be destroyed so quickly and wondered if the carriages had been properly inspected by rescue teams for passengers first. > > Authorities have so far been unable to explain why the oncoming train did not stop in time and whether engineers anticipated vulnerabilities to lightning strikes. > > The disaster will no doubt invite greater scrutiny of the already embattled Ministry of Railways. > > The three officials who were fired Sunday included the head of the Shanghai rail bureau and its [Communist Party](http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics/government/communist-party-ORGOV0000117.topic) chief, whose jurisdiction included one of the trains. > > The ministry was rocked by scandal in February when its chief, Liu Zhijun, was dismissed after allegedly taking $125 million in kickbacks tied to shoddy construction work. > > Two months later, the ministry reduced maximum speeds along the network to reduce costs and as a safety precaution. > > [China’s](http://www.latimes.com/topic/intl/china-PLGEO00000014.topic) high-speed rail system, the largest in the world, has attracted controversy for years because its engineering is alleged to be have been copied from European and Japanese technology and because the national track network was laid in record time. > > Officials have touted the country’s rail technology as the world’s most advanced and have eyed foreign markets including California. > > But the marketing campaign, so far, has not gone well. The recently opened Beijing-Shanghai line featuring newer and faster trains than those that collided in Wenzhou has been beset by power failures and delays in recent weeks. The $32.5-billion line was meant to be a symbol of China’s engineering prowess. > **[Deadly Chinese bullet train crash spawns anger, safety concerns](https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-xpm-2011-jul-25-la-fg-china-train-crash-20110725-story.html)** > > Deadly Chinese bullet train crash spawns anger, safety concerns [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-chinas-short-sighted-unsustainable-car-policy/588987.md?page=2)