China Is Eager to Bring High-Speed Rail Expertise to the U.S.

[Ernst Debets]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

Als Governator eens wat verder zou kijken dan z'n neus lang is dan wist hij
allang dat Amtrak tussen Boston en Washington een HSL lijntje heeft liggen
waar ze met Duitse (Siemens) techniek over rondscheuren (Acela Express).

Ernst Debets/
Zaanstad

-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: owner-d66 at nic.surfnet.nl [mailto:owner-d66 at nic.surfnet.nl] Namens Cees
Binkhorst
Verzonden: vrijdag 9 april 2010 0:11
Aan: Discussielijst over D66
Onderwerp: China Is Eager to Bring High-Speed Rail Expertise to the U.S.

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

Het zou een succes van jewelste zijn ;)

Groet / Cees

April 7, 2010
China Is Eager to Bring High-Speed Rail Expertise to the U.S.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/08/business/global/08rail.html
By KEITH BRADSHER

BEIJING — Nearly 150 years after American railroads brought in thousands 
of Chinese laborers to build rail lines across the West, China is poised 
once again to play a role in American rail construction. But this time, 
it would be an entirely different role: supplying the technology, 
equipment and engineers to build high-speed rail lines.

The Chinese government has signed cooperation agreements with the State 
of California and General Electric to help build such lines. The 
agreements, both of which are preliminary, show China’s desire to become 
a big exporter and licensor of bullet trains traveling 215 miles an 
hour, an environmentally friendly technology in which China has raced 
past the United States in the last few years.

“We are the most advanced in many fields, and we are willing to share 
with the United States,” Zheng Jian, the chief planner and director of 
high-speed rail at China’s railway ministry, said.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California has closely followed progress 
in the discussions with China and hopes to come here later this year for 
talks with rail ministry officials, said David Crane, the governor’s 
special adviser for jobs and economic growth, and a board member of the 
California High Speed Rail Authority.

China is offering not just to build a railroad in California but also to 
help finance its construction, and Chinese officials have already been 
shuttling between Beijing and Sacramento to make presentations, Mr. 
Crane said in a telephone interview.

China is not the only country interested in selling high-speed rail 
equipment to the United States. Japan, Germany, South Korea, Spain, 
France and Italy have also approached California’s High Speed Rail 
Authority.

The agency has made no decisions on whose technology to choose. But Mr. 
Crane said that there were no apparent weaknesses in the Chinese offer, 
and that Governor Schwarzenegger particularly wanted to visit China this 
year for high-speed rail discussions.

Even if an agreement is reached for China to build and help bankroll a 
high-speed rail system in California, considerable obstacles would remain.

China’s rail ministry would face independent labor unions and 
democratically elected politicians, neither of which it has to deal with 
at home. The United States also has labor and immigration laws stricter 
than those in China.

In a nearly two-hour interview at the rail ministry’s monolithic 
headquarters here, Mr. Zheng said repeatedly that any Chinese bid would 
comply with all American laws and regulations.

China’s rail ministry has an international reputation for speed and low 
costs, and is opening 1,200 miles of high-speed rail routes this year 
alone. China is moving rapidly to connect almost all of its own 
provincial capitals with bullet trains.

But while the ministry has brought costs down through enormous economies 
of scale, “buy American” pressures could make it hard for China to 
export the necessary equipment to the United States.

The railways ministry has concluded a framework agreement to license its 
technology to G.E., which is a world leader in diesel locomotives but 
has little experience with the electric locomotives needed for high speeds.

According to G.E., the agreement calls for at least 80 percent of the 
components of any locomotives and system control gear to come from 
American suppliers, and labor-intensive final assembly would be done in 
the United States for the American market. China would license its 
technology and supply engineers as well as up to 20 percent of the 
components.

State-owned Chinese equipment manufacturers initially licensed many of 
their designs over the last decade from Japan, Germany and France. While 
Chinese companies have gone on to make many changes and innovations, 
Japanese executives in particular have grumbled that Chinese technology 
resembles theirs, raising the possibility of legal challenges if any 
patents have been violated.

All of the technology would be Chinese, Mr. Zheng said.

China has already begun building high-speed rail routes in Turkey, 
Venezuela and Saudi Arabia. It is looking for opportunities in seven 
other countries, notably a route sought by the Brazilian government 
between São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, Mr. Zheng said.

International rail experts say that China has mastered the art of 
building high-speed rail lines quickly and inexpensively.

“These guys are engineering driven — they know how to build fast, build 
cheaply and do a good job,” said John Scales, the lead transport 
specialist in the Beijing office of the World Bank.

The California rail authority plans to spend $43 billion to build a 
465-mile route from San Francisco to Los Angeles and on to Anaheim that 
is supposed to open in 2020. The authority was awarded $2.25 billion in 
January in federal economic stimulus money to work on the project.

The authority’s plans call for $10 billion to $12 billion in private 
financing. Mr. Crane said China could provide much of that, with 
federal, state and local jurisdictions providing the rest. Mr. Zheng 
declined to discuss financial details.

China’s mostly state-controlled banks had few losses during the global 
financial crisis and are awash with cash now because of tight regulation 
and a fast-growing economy. The Chinese government is also becoming 
disenchanted with bonds and looking to diversify its $2.4 trillion in 
foreign reserves by investing in areas like natural resources and 
overseas rail projects.

“They’ve got a lot of capital, and they’re willing to provide a lot of 
capital” for a California high-speed rail system, Mr. Crane said.

Later plans call for the California line to be extended to Sacramento 
and San Diego, while a private consortium hopes to build a separate 
route from Los Angeles to Las Vegas.

Toyota is shutting a big assembly plant in Fremont, Calif., that it once 
operated as a joint venture with General Motors, and one idea under 
discussion is converting the factory to the assembly of high-speed rail 
equipment, said Mr. Crane, who is also a member of the state’s Economic 
Development Commission.

Rail parts from China would then come through the nearby port of 
Oakland, in place of auto parts from Japan.

“High-speed rail requires a lot of high technology — we would send many 
high-end engineers and high-end technicians” to California, Mr. Zheng said.

G.E. estimates that the United States will spend $13 billion in the next 
five years on high-speed rail routes. China, with a much more ambitious 
infrastructure program, will spend $300 billion in the next three years 
on overall expansion of its rail routes, mainly high-speed routes, 
according to G.E.

China’s long-term vision calls for high-speed rail routes linking 
Shanghai to Singapore and New Delhi by way of Myanmar, and someday 
connecting Beijing and Shanghai to Moscow to the northwest and through 
Tehran to Prague and Berlin, according to a map that Mr. Zheng keeps on 
a bookshelf behind his desk. He cautioned that there were no plans to 
start construction yet outside China.

A high-speed rail link for passengers from Beijing to Shanghai will be 
finished by the end of 2011 or early 2012, and cut the journey to four 
hours, from 10 hours now, Mr. Zheng said.

New York to Atlanta or Chicago is a similar distance, and takes 18 to 19 
hours on Amtrak, which must share tracks with 12,000-ton freight trains 
and many commuter trains.

For the American market, Mr. Zheng said, “we can provide whatever 
services are needed.”

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