Real Investment in Real Infrastructure

Sunday Jan 22, 2011

 

An alert reader sent this article which I reprint below. My thoughts are as follows.

 

The Chinese are marter than the Japanese, instead of going to war they will create a Greater East Asia Co Prosperity Sphere by building literal routes to China. Gee what an irony and another point to make in my letter, as Franklin said, honey works much better than vinegar. I  put the photos linked on on my student blog of the Chinese RR system and terminals, amazing, we of course still do not have a train from San Antonio to Austin to Dallas, ridiculous. Instead we are paying people not to work by extending unemployment benefits, maintaining all sorts of government offices that produce nothing whatsoever other than regulations, the Energy Dept is a good example, and doing it all on borrowed money, from the Chinese that they made manufacturing goods for us as we have no interest in doing so. 

China’s Vision for Integration with Southeast Asia

The Thailand and Chinese governments are about to sign a “memorandum of understanding” that will lead to the building of an important new rail line and within three years allow introduction of high-speed train services between the Chinese city of Kunming and Bangkok via Vientiane in Laos.

Currently there is no rail connection between China and most of Southeast Asia. The new line, whose construction will begin soon, will be the first phase of an ambitious Chinese plan to give its economy fast, high-capacity rail access to the region, using Bangkok as the hub of a major new system.

Later stages will replace the obsolete narrow-gauge track that currently links Bangkok to Singapore via Malaysia with a standard-gauge connection carrying trains running at up to 350 kms an hour. Then will come new rail routes to Bangkok through Vietnam and Cambodia to the east and through Burma to the west.

The new network, financed by cheap Chinese government money and equipped by China’s fast-expanding railway equipment industry, will not only open up the region to Chinese factories, but also give Southeast Asian economies much easier access to Chinese markets for their exports of agricultural commodities, natural resources and manufactures, and encourage inbound tourism.

The Chinese vision is even grander. The Beijing government wants improved access to Europe through high-capacity over-ground access to ports on the Indian Ocean and planned rail links from Northern China through Central Asia and Russia.

Within a few years it could take as little time as two days to travel in comfort by train on an unbroken journey all the way from London to Singapore.

With trade among Asian countries growing twice as fast as their trade with the rest of the world, there is fast-growing need for improved intro-Asian transportation links.