"BEIJING (AFP) - Shanghai’s apparent decision to shelve a planned extension of its high-tech train system left industry insiders puzzled Monday, underlining the dilemma China faces in balancing progress with public concern.
Citing unnamed officials, the official Xinhua news agency said Saturday the 4.3-billion-dollar extension of the magnetic levitation train line, or Maglev, had been suspended amid worries the German technology could pose a radiation risk to communities along the new line."
Returned from Beijing ten days ago. There’s a big building boom going on, the 2008 Olympics are on the horizon. If money is scarce, you couldn’t tell it from all the activity.
Maglev seems to me a bit like hovercraft. If you don’t ever need to stop, it’s great.
Actually I have been reading that the Chinese economy is inching its way towards a ‘Great Depression’ style crash. The Chinese have been keeping a tight lid on their money (I think they try to keep it artificially low to make their exports cheap). The next couple o’ years could be intersting. It could be that the higher ups are putting money towards proven technology and good PR, like spraypainting the grass green for the Olympics, for example.
In any event if there is any major deviation in the Chinese money markets get ready for the herd to go running off the cliff.
…And their economy being so mammoth in size, I’d think it would really make waves all over the World’s finanancial status…Including ours.
Why can’t we bring to their attention of our large status of probably their largest consumer, hence a major force building their economy…and…do a bit of arm twisting to let more of our export products into their country…
Could also be that given they are also monkeying with an HST rail system, that after analysing the given costs/benifits, that they finally realized the HST is almost as fast, moves the same amount of people and costs a hellova lot less, using more or less ‘off the shelf’ technology, just makes better economic sense?
Besides its easier to backengineer an electric locomotive than it is a mag-lev…
The biggest problem with the Chinese economy is that the government doesn’t allow the Chinese currency to be priced according to market - they keep it low in order to insure that Chinese exports are cheap. If the Chinese currency was allowed to ‘price itself’ so to speak, the result could be a major correction, at the very least. This has been a big bone of contention that we have had with China for years. The problem may compound itself if it isn’t allowed to fix itself. This is the basic theory behind a lot of the stuff I have been reading, the details an economist would have to explain (or someone who knows the stuff a little better).
IF the Chinese economy corrected in the best case scenario or crashed in the worst case scenario then you can bet it will affect us in a big way. Unlike the Japan mess (remember, we were marveling at their economy at one time too) the Chinese are MAJOR trading partners. If the exports from China suddenly got expensive you can bet that would affect our economy since China has become a huge component. Naturally, BNSF and most other rail carriers would also suffer as a result.
Personally, I think the Chinese are doing the right thing with their currency, pegging it to the U.S. dollar. The costs of their goods will go up soon enough, as they run into resource problems a
In a recent issue of “Modern Railways” (a British magazine) , the technical editor, Roger Ford, debunked most of the popular myths surrounding maglev. He showed that it’s not likely be economically viable any time soon and anticipated that the Chinese would ditch it for conventional high speed rail. Apparrently there was a bit of a tussle within the Chinese govt. The Technology Ministry wanted to push Maglev, but the Transport Ministry wanted to go for conventional high speed rail. Mr. Ford predicted the Transport Ministry would win in the end.
Talking of China, one of the Open Access operators here, Grand Central, is talking about buying 140mph trains from China. But given it would be a new design, it would take them a while to get approved by Network Rail, the infrastructure owner. Furthermore if they want a diesel train capable of 140 mph, the only engines up to the job are made in Britain or Germany!
i believe Ford, along with Carter and Nixon, on China. I know their hated in this country, but they have ALWAYS been dead on with what’s going on there.
Cordon, what the Chinese are doing, is effectively waging economic warfare against us. By pegging their currency against ours, they ensure that their cost of production will be lower than ours. Second they do not allow the export of significant amounts of their currency, they don’t need to, they have plenty of ours. This depresses the value of the US Dollar, which drives up our cost to purchase anything from anyone other than China. It also drives up our cost of oil and fuels inflation in the US. The only way to counter this inflation is to drive up interest rates, unfortunately since China is our biggest lender this perversely helps the Chinese government even more. The Chinese have studied the way that we won the Cold War against the Soviet Union, and are using a variation of that strategy against us.
It’s my understanding that the Chinese may already have significant indirect stake in BNSF, and the fact that BNSF (1) cross-subsidizes Chinese imports on the backs of domestic rail shippers, and (2) went balls to the walls to get the LA-Chicago transcon double tracked while nickel and diming the primary domestic shipping routes, such would seem to bear out this perception of de facto Chinese control over BNSF’s corporate decisions.