PRC Economy - New Reflections : Dec 15 2011

[ashi]

I don't understand what your mumble jumble is here

What! They didn't make you sing this in school ? 东方红 and all the rest of it ? East is Red

东方红，太阳升，
中国出了个毛泽东。
他为人民谋幸福，
呼尔嗨哟，他是人民大救星！

And of course this. 百花齐放，百家争鸣 Hundred Flowers Campaign

but I do remember you challenged everyone with a bid few years back that China was going to collapse and India was going to pass China in growth rate. "Yawn" for your prediction again.

Well, the music is still playing. Remember the one who laughs last. Like I said, the tide still hasn't gone out for China. It happened in the 90s for S Korea for eg (who picked themselves up and came back stronger), Japan 90s again, never recovered after that, how China responds to that will decide things.

The music is always playing. With my infinite wisdom I am predicting the world is going to end ....

[kish]

China’s Leaders Take Aim at Railways Ministry

The ministry’s ability to throw money around to get things done and preserve its power in the end helped bring it down. Liu Zhijun, the bullet train network’s top booster, was ousted as minister two years ago, amid accusations that he took massive bribes and steered contracts, some of them associated with the high-speed rail network. Among his rumored misdeeds: having 18 mistresses.

18 mistresses? no wonder ordinary chinese are not getting a bride, communist party biladels are having a good time leaving the common man to suffer.

Who is going to pay the debt that is expected to amount to nearly 3 trillion yuan?” said Zhao Jian, a railway expert at Beijing Jiaotong University. He said the official debt figure is 2.6 trillion yuan ($414 billion), but he estimates it will go higher as ongoing projects are completed

What idiotic question is this? may be they can ask their tallel fliend pakis to pay the debt.

[vina]

Who is going to pay the debt that is expected to amount to nearly 3 trillion yuan?” said Zhao Jian, a railway expert at Beijing Jiaotong University. He said the official debt figure is 2.6 trillion yuan ($414 billion), but he estimates it will go higher as ongoing projects are completed

Oh dont worry. We have been repeatedly assured by posters here quoting full "statistics" about how the trains are running full, making money hand over fist etc, how people don't use the slow trains anymore etc.etc . What is a few measly RMB of debt. The Chinese citizens will pay it back in no time. !

[Suraj]

If PRC asks their taller than the tallest mountain, deeper than the deepest ocean friends to the south to eat grass - like they famously threatened to do in 1974 - for half a decade and hand over their entire GDP each year during that period to PRC, then all of China Railway's debts can be repaid off.

[amit]

Abolishing the entire Rail Ministry! This must take the cake.

But in a way it only proves that our Chinese pals have been right all along and we, dhoti clad cowering idealists, have been wrong.

China has no problem with NPAs, 900 gazillion tons of steel production, ghost cities and all that.

They will simply abolish all of them. All these artefacts which tarnish the glorious rise of the Middle Kingdom are, like GDP, "man made" and just "reference" points.

Eg: NPAs? What NPAs? They are just accounting numbers and very much man made. [Of course the patriotic Chinese people will just bear with a smile - and some re-education - as their lifetime's savings are wiped out during the glorious rise].

[Christopher Sidor]

What chinese are doing with regard to their railways ministry is theoretically very good. Spin off the railway into a corporation, which concentrates on operational aspects. And operates on no-profit-no-loss paradigm. Also bring the railways under the transport ministry, which can then bring together all the various modes of transportation, i.e. sea/river based transportation, road based transportation, air and finally railways to achieve the very best levels of efficiencies and synergies for the overall economy.

So what is wrong with this picture? The word "Theoretically". Theory and practice are two different beasts. There will be opposition to change. And extracting efficiencies is fine on paper but very very tough on implementation.

About the debt that will not be a deal killer. A SPV can be floated, i.e. a so called bad bank/trust/entity, which will hold the debt.

But the moot point should not be forgotten in all of this.
1) Railways are very good at moving goods. Very inefficient at moving people, especially when the real cost of this movement is subsidized, like it is in India.
2) High speed railways are good when the journey times are less than 5-6 hours and distances are max upto 600 kms. China really went overboard, constructing thousands of kilometers of high speed rail lines. If one wants to breach 600 kms of high speed railways then one needs maglev trains, a technology which is still has some time to go.

Abolishing Railways ministry is good step. But the problem is that the root cause of the Chinese Railways ministry have not been tackled. The extremely long high-speed railway lines, which are not economically. The gross corruption which occurs in the ministry. The inefficiencies which occur in the railways, which incidentally Indian Railways also shares with the Chinese Railways.

[ashi]

2) High speed railways are good when the journey times are less than 5-6 hours and distances are max upto 600 kms. China really went overboard, constructing thousands of kilometers of high speed rail lines. If one wants to breach 600 kms of high speed railways then one needs maglev trains, a technology which is still has some time to go.

There are stops in the big cities in between thousands of kilometers. So it is a link with multiple drops.

[amit]

... which incidentally Indian Railways also shares with the Chinese Railways.

Interesting and well reasoned post. However, did you really need to add this line? We all know about corruption in India and there are dozens of threads where this is discussed to death.

Why bring this topic to a thread which exists to understand PRC and peer through the smoke and mirrors that constitutes the news that is allowed to come out of the Middle Kingdom? Why always imply that while China is bad we are also bad (and sometimes even more so) - is this some kind of subconscious ==?

Just and observation, take it for what it's worth.

[amit]

There are stops in the big cities in between thousands of kilometers. So it is a link with multiple drops.

If that's the reasoning that was used by Chinese planners when they built these white elephants its no wonder that the Railway Ministry was abolished.

So somebody is going to pay $173 for a one-way first class ticket from Shanghai to Beijing for a train that has 24 stops and not take an airplane where a round trip can be had for as low as $103.

Incidentally travel time for the plane is 2 hours and for the train (advertised) is more than 5 hours.

[amit]

Now I'm waiting for a flurry of links and first person accounts from our Chinese brothers.

[wrdos]

$103 is maybe the cheapest price for some special days only. You are not guaranteed to buy it everyday. Yes, there are 24 stations between Beijing and Shanghai, but only the slowest trains need stop every station, right? The fastest trains between Beijing and Shanghai are around 4 hours, not so much slower than the planes especially you need travel much further to the airports. Furthermore, punctuality of trains in China is very high, at least much higher than the planes.

High speed trains tremendously improve the mobility of Chinese citizens especially when almost every major Chinese city has been or will be connected within 1 or 2 years by the world's largest and the only one continental HSR network. I highly recommend you to try it at least once to learn how modern technologies can improve people's life.

Maybe after 2 or 3 decades, you may have your own HSR in India too. Then you can understand it better.

There are stops in the big cities in between thousands of kilometers. So it is a link with multiple drops.

If that's the reasoning that was used by Chinese planners when they built these white elephants its no wonder that the Railway Ministry was abolished.

So somebody is going to pay $173 for a one-way first class ticket from Shanghai to Beijing for a train that has 24 stops and not take an airplane where a round trip can be had for as low as $103.

Incidentally travel time for the plane is 2 hours and for the train (advertised) is more than 5 hours.

[wrdos]

Vina-ji, for a nation as populous as China is, we need the 800 million tons of steel if we want to provide every Chinese village with road/railway connection, essential housing space, running water, and reliable electricity supply for the villagers to own an air-conditioner and refrigerators so that they can survive the hot summer.

I know it would be so difficult for you to understand that such luxury in your home country is simply necessity for another country. And a nation need steel, all the steel to achieve it. I fully understand your situation, for sure you could not understand because you just take what around you for granted.

Maybe it will cost you another 3 or 4 more decades to understand why a nation with a more than a billion population needs steel consumption of hundreds of millions to provide her citizens the necessity only.

Yeah. I too wonder, how Germany with a far lower steel consumption and capacity than China as such high per capita GDP , not to mention the whole of Europe and US and Japan !

But think of it. All that building frenzy and operating those steel plants of 900 million tons capacity and keeping them supplied must have boosted the GDP. Now that they have to get flushed down the toilet, what will happen to the GDP ?

And oh, what about the bank loans and other loans that must have been literally trillions to build a 900m capacity steel industry ? Now when you have to drop to 400m tons and write off 500m tons of capacity, what will happen to all those loans, and who will pick up the tab for that (the poor toiling citizen of course..). Now what will happen when this overbuilding craze that occurred in EVERY industry in China turns south and contracts ?

That sounds like a giant bubble bursting!

[krishnan]

Never knewn chinese used steel to lay roads

[amit]

The ticket fare is CNY1,750 per sightseeing seat and business seat, CNY950 per first-class seat and CNY555 per second-class seat.

Wrdos that's from the link I posted. And this is one-way tickets and give me a break, if Chinese airlines (especially budget) charge more than that you aviation industry will be the next one that will be abolished.

Maybe after 2 or 3 decades, you may have your own HSR in India too. Then you can understand it better.

OK that's a good data point. So you think India is 2 or 3 decades behind China! But you know what, I don't think even within that timeframe we'll have the monstrosity of a 1000 km bullet train track. That's because unfortunately in India investments are made with a definite RoI in mind. And since the guys who make these decision do not have the luxury in indulging in "18 mistresses" they have time to do RoI analysis.

More seriously do you think India does not have Bullet trains because it does not have the technology to build them nor access to the technology from abroad? Seriously dude if you think so, you live in a bigger La, La Land than I though.

There have been feasibilities done on Bullet trains and we may or we may not (since it's not a priority) get Bullet trains on smaller routes. But it's not a priority. What is a priority is a high speed freight train corridor between Mumbai and Delhi as part of the Mumbai-Delhi industrial corridor. That makes sense and RoI which is why it will probably get built.

You see Wrdos ji, there's a reason that the Indian Railways in India doesn't get dissolved. That's because, despite all the negatives, it still runs a network that carries the greatest number of people in the world and pays for itself. And it can only do that because it does not indulge in "mine's bigger than you'rs" building spree.

There's a reason why nobody in the world has built bullet train lines that are 1000 km long. That's because with those kinds of distances air travel will always triumph in costing. And if your 300 km speed train has to do 24 stops (or even half of that) the energy cost of acceleration and deceleration makes it unviable. Bullet trains were introduced in Japan, Germany and France because when they travel over medium range distances at constant speed, then most of the extra cost - both building and maintenance - could be recouped. Even then none of these three countries make a profit from Bullet trains, they just about break even. The Chinese Railways in it's brilliance added regular stops to the trains. Bravo!

Unfortunately even in China the laws of physics cannot be Shanghai'ed.

[pankajs]

Vina-ji, for a nation as populous as China is, we need the 800 million tons of steel if we want to provide every Chinese village with road/railway connection, essential housing space, running water, and reliable electricity supply for the villagers to own an air-conditioner and refrigerators so that they can survive the hot summer.

I know it would be so difficult for you to understand that such luxury in your home country is simply necessity for another country. And a nation need steel, all the steel to achieve it. I fully understand your situation, for sure you could not understand because you just take what around you for granted.

Maybe it will cost you another 3 or 4 more decades to understand why a nation with a more than a billion population needs steel consumption of hundreds of millions to provide her citizens the necessity only.

For China, Too Much Steel Isn't Enough

The country is already the world’s largest steel producer, accounting for 45 percent of global output, and is home to six of the world’s 10 largest steelmakers, including Baosteel, which had revenue of 223 billion yuan ($35 billion) last year. The mainland’s total capacity, which is set to hit 940 million tons this year, already outstrips demand by 220 million tons, according to Shanghai-based research and consulting firm Mysteel. “The situation is dire. We have never seen overcapacity on such a scale,” says Michael Komesaroff, a principal at commodity consultants Urandaline Investments in Queensland, Australia.

The excess supply, coming at a time when iron-ore prices remain high, is hitting profitability. China’s steel industry lost 1 billion yuan in the first quarter, compared with a profit of 25.8 billion yuan last year. “The winter for the steel industry has come. We will have to control output and watch for high inventory,” warned Zhang Changfu, general secretary of the China Iron and Steel Association, in April. “Major steel users such as property, auto, shipbuilding, and infrastructure have all slowed their growth or even declined.” Baosteel announced on June 12 that it plans to cut prices for some products by 4 percent in July, the first reduction so far this year.

“They are not building infrastructure now because they need it, they are building now because they want to hit GDP targets,” says Patrick Chovanec, a business professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

Perhaps the our Chinese friends should ponder on the statement of their fellow comrade Zhang Changfu, general secretary of the China Iron and Steel Association.

[amit]

Maybe it will cost you another 3 or 4 more decades to understand why a nation with a more than a billion population needs steel consumption of hundreds of millions to provide her citizens the necessity only.

My, my this time from 2-3 decades it's become 3-4 decades. Shanghai calculators in over drive.

Wrdos ji, your rosy picture of every village road paved in steel and every village house built of steel is indeed very rosy even though the rust is visible on the edges. It's pity that the CCP mouthpiece China Daily doesn't seem to have your conviction.

China's crude steel output grew 3.1 percent to 716.54 million tonnes in 2012, down 5.8 percentage points from a year earlier, the China Iron and Steel Association (CISA) said in a press release.

CISA said its member companies saw profits plummet 98.22 percent to 1.58 billion yuan (about $252 million) year on year.

Meanwhile, China's steel sector still has excessive production capacity, which has caused steel output to greatly exceed market demand.

As a result, steel producers competed fiercely to boost their sales, which in turn resulted in steel price decreases, the association said.

"The steel industry experienced its greatest difficulties since the beginning of the century," the association said.

Talking about steel, Wrdos ji, I've got a business proposition for you. I've got a bridge - made from 100 per cent good quality British steel - which I can sell to you for cheap. Are you interested?

[wrdos]

Hmm, so it means, when building a road in India, you don't even need steel? No wonder why >90% of roads in India could hardly called a "road" in the outside world.

As I mentioned before, for you, Amit-ji, maybe 2 or 3 decades are necessary, and for the other guys, maybe 3 or 4 decades would be necessary to understand some basic and common civil engineering knowledge (in the outside world),

Building a road needs A LOT OF STEEL.

My, my this time from 2-3 decades it's become 3-4 decades. Shanghai calculators in over drive.

Wrdos ji, your rosy picture of every village road paved in steel and every village house built of steel is indeed very rosy even though the rust is visible on the edges. It's pity that the CCP mouthpiece China Daily doesn't seem to have your conviction.

[amit]

^^^^^

Wrdos,

Is that what you're reduced to?



Sure India needs steel and it produces quite a bit of it. But that doesn't mean you have to have a steel making capacity which is more than the combined capacities of the next top 10 steel producing countries.

You own party mouth piece China Daily says there's a problem and you are in a state of denial as usual.

I find it interesting that you repeatedly need to prove that India is, what, two, three or four decades behind China. This shows the deep sense of insecurity you have. You're worried that folks don't take China (and drones like you) seriously despite No2 in GDP, 900 million tons of steel, the greatest pollution creating industrial complex in the history of mankind...

Need I go on?

Just reflect what you've reduced to defending and denying - reports that appear in the China Daily for God's sake!

But I'm glad that you've done a strategic retreat in your defence of Bullet Trains in China!

[wrdos]

The 1.2 billion population India needs 40million ton steel only? What a splendid mideavial life you are enjoying. Even less than the tiny South Korea with a 1/30 population? No wonder, steel must be a luxury for a nation where even no steel needed to build a road, or houses?. Sir, let's talk about this issue after 2 or 3 decades later please. It is too difficult for you right now.

As for HSR, you have never had any boarding experience, right? Let's discuss it 2 or 3 decades later too, maybe after the Japanese or German or Chinese can finish building at least a single one for you. I am sure you could hardly understand it right now, too.

^^^^^

Wrdos,

Is that what you're reduced to?



Sure India needs steel and it produces quite a bit of it. But that doesn't mean you have to have a steel making capacity which is more than the combined capacities of the next top 10 steel producing countries.

You own party mouth piece China Daily says there's a problem and you are in a state of denial as usual.

I find it interesting that you repeatedly need to prove that India is, what, two, three or four decades behind China. This shows the deep sense of insecurity you have. You're worried that folks don't take China (and drones like you) seriously despite No2 in GDP, 900 million tons of steel, the greatest pollution creating industrial complex in the history of mankind...

Need I go on?

Just reflect what you've reduced to defending and denying - reports that appear in the China Daily for God's sake!

But I'm glad that you've done a strategic retreat in your defence of Bullet Trains in China!

[amit]

The 1.2 billion population India needs 40million ton steel only? What a splendid mideavial life you are enjoying. Even less than the tiny South Korea with a 1/30 population? No wonder, steel must be a luxury for a nation where even no steel needed to build a road, or houses?. Sir, let's talk about this issue after 2 or 3 decades later please. It is too difficult for you right now.

My, my getting really touchy and nasty are we Wrdos ji? Good, it means that my points have stuck home.

It is entirely irrelevant whether India produces 40 million tons of steel or 4 million tons. What has been proven through several different sources is that the Chinese steel industry is in massive trouble because of ridiculous over capacity.

If you had bothered to have done checks on sources other than your propaganda material (one can always hope) you would have found out that India's steel output was 76.7 million tons in 2012. And yes regarding your jibe about South Korea, they produced 69.3 million tons during the same year.

Japan's production fell to 107.2 million ton in 2012 from 118.7 MT in 2008. Production in the US slipped to 88.6 million ton in 2012 from 91.4 MT in 2008, according to World Steel Association data.

The data also shows that by 2014 India will become the second largest steel producer in the world after China. So much for 2 to 3 decades.

World steel production in 2012 was 1,548 million tons out of which China produced 716.5 million tons or roughly half of the world output.

Now this figures gives drones like you a warm and fuzzy feeling I know. However, the fact remains that steel consumption is a good barometer for growth. And there's no way in hell that the Chinese economy - despite the much touted second highest GDP - has the capacity to absorb 716.5 million tons of steel.

Most countries in such situations cut back on output - case in point Japan and the US. Now what does China do? It actually goes on a capacity increasing exercise and is aiming at 900 million tons. Seesh! You guys will have enough steel to pave every road and build every house with steel and still have some left to nibble on during breakfast.

The net result of the megalomaniac expansion is that the steel industry has been plunged into a deep crisis - and it must be serious indeed otherwise a party mouthpiece like China Daily wouldn't be running stories like the one I posted.

As for HSR, you have never had any boarding experience, right? Let's discuss it 2 or 3 decades later too, maybe after the Japanese or German or Chinese can finish building at least a single one for you. I am sure you could hardly understand it right now, too.

This is a cheap jibe even by your standards. I can only say, thank god the country I live in doesn't have a HSR on which I would ride with fear for my life due to shortcuts taken by corrupt officials with 18 mistresses. I very much prefer to fly or take a non glamorous train.

Thank you very much.

[wrdos]

Amit-ji, you are raising the railway safety discussion?

Sir, you know why in 2011, hundreds of foreign reporters from dozens of countries were running there to see and report the accident? Sir, it is because in China, rail accident is very rare.

Sir, for railway safety record, I don't think China is behind Britain, or most of the European countries, at least during the past 10 years. Sure, we might have an accident every 2 or 3 years.

The China railway is very safe. Maybe after 2 or 3 decades, you can understand why people can be that surprised by a mere railway accident.

This is a cheap jibe even by your standards. I can only say, thank god the country I live in doesn't have a HSR on which I would ride with fear for my life due to shortcuts taken by corrupt officials with 18 mistresses. I very much prefer to fly or take a non glamorous train.

Thank you very much.

[amit]

^^^^
Wrdos,

I guess you should realise by now that you won't be able to bore me to quit our discussion with your clever trolling.

Here's nice compilation about the supar doopar safe Chinese Railways - especially HSR. I hope and pray that Indian Railways, never ever (leave alone 2-3 decades later) comes to this stage.

In March 2012 AP reported: Since the Wenzhou crash, there have been reports of problems with brakes, signaling systems and faulty construction. In one case the Railways Ministry ordered almost all of a $260 million railway line in northeastern China redone after finding contractors had farmed the work out to unqualified construction companies that filled railway bridges' foundations with rocks and sand instead of concrete. [Source: Elaine Kurtenbach, AP, March 12, 2012]

In June 2011 AP reported: China's multibillion-dollar railway plan "has provoked complaints that it is too expensive for a country where millions of people still live in poverty. Critics say railway officials have diverted too much money to high-speed rail and should be expanding lower-cost traditional rail. The replacement of slower lines with more expensive high-speed trains has prompted complaints from passengers reluctant to pay higher fares, especially on shorter routes. [Source: AP, June 27, 2011]

In an interview with Xinhua, Huang Qiang, chief researcher with the China Academy of Railway Sciences, said Beijing is continuing a safety overhaul of high-speed railways that includes development and improvement of signaling equipment, train maintenance and protection against lightning and earthquakes. "China's high-speed railway development has been aggressive in previous years, in which some important links were missed," Xinhua quoted Huang as saying.

. Questions have also arisen about whether costs and public needs are too often overlooked as the leadership pursues grandiose projects, which some critics say are for vanity or to engender national pride but which are also seen as an effort to pump up growth through massive public works spending.The Finance Ministry said last week that the Railways Ministry continued to lose money in the first quarter of this year. The ministry’s debt stands at $276 billion, almost all borrowed from Chinese banks. [Source: Keith B. Richburg, Washington Post April 23, 2011]

“They’ve taken on a massive amount of debt to build it,” Patrick Chovanec, who teaches at Tsinghua University, told the Washington Post . He said China accelerated construction of the high-speed rail network — including 295 sleek glass-and-marble train stations — as part of the country’s stimulus spending in response to the 2008 global financial crisis.Zhao Jian, a professor at Beijing Jiaotong University and a longtime critic of high-speed rail, said he worries that the cost of the project might have created a hidden debt bomb that threatens China’s banking system.“In China, we will have a debt crisis — a high-speed rail debt crisis,” he told the Washington Post. “I think it is more serious than your subprime mortgage crisis. You can always leave a house or use it. The rail system is there. It’s a burden. You must operate the rail system, and when you operate it, the cost is very high.”{Has this poor professor been put under house arrest yet?}

During February’s annual migration, officials noticed that the high-speed trains were largely empty. But the slow trains on those lines have been taken out of use, giving people few choices. As a result, the highways were clogged and more people rode long-distance buses. Working class travelers complained they couldn't afford high-speed tickets and regular trains were sold out. A migrant worker became an Internet sensation when he stripped to his underwear to protest outside a ticket office after he waited 14 hours in line but couldn't get tickets for his family.

In April 2011, China railway ministry also announced it would reduce ticket prices to boost lagging ridership and would slow construction of high-speed lines to avoid outpacing public demand. With the lower ticket prices, it remains to be seen whether the bullet trains will earn money. Sun Zhang, a professor with the Urban Rail and Railway Engineering Department of Shanghai's Tongji University, told the Global Times that with concerns rising domestically over passenger numbers and travel costs the government could consider subsidizing the high-speed railway network to make it more affordable to ordinary passengers, particularly in peak traveling seasons such as the Chinese Lunar New Year.{No wonder the Railway Ministry was abolished. On top of the debt incurred in these stupid projects they now have to subsidise travel!}

In April 2011, a former senior engineer at the Railway Ministry said that claims of 240mph speeds were "fraudulent", that safety concerns were ignored and that China had bought critical parts from abroad. Richburg wrote, “The new leadership at the Railways Ministry announced that to enhance safety, the top speed of all trains was being decreased from about 218 mph to 186. Without elaborating, the ministry called the safety situation “severe” and said it was launching safety checks along the entire network of tracks. Chinese officials have proudly noted that their bullet trains were the world’s fastest on rails. But the slower speeds announced last week would put them on a par with European and Japanese trains. {Ouch!} Trains and tracks wear out more quickly at faster speeds, and high-speed tracks need to be straighter.

China’s high-speed rail suffered 168 glitches in July, { }the 21st Century Business Herald reported citing a separate Railways Ministry internal report. Some of those failures may be related to corruption, says Siva Yam, president of the U.S.-China Chamber of Commerce in Chicago. Railways Minister Liu Zhijun, who championed the high- speed network, was fired early this year over corruption. The ministry has a virtual monopoly, as many employees as the U.S. government and its own court system. [Source: Bloomberg News, September 18, 2011]

In March 2012, AP reported: “Part of a high-speed railway line that had already undergone test runs collapsed in central China following heavy rains, state media reported Monday, jolting railroad shares and reviving worries over safety. Xinhua other reports said a 300-meter (984 feet) section of the railway line had collapsed, but mentioned no casualties or other details. It said hundreds of workers were rushing to repair the line between the Yangtze River cities of Wuhan and Yichang. The railway line is due to open in May. [Source: Elaine Kurtenbach, AP, March 12, 2012]

From Changsha to Guangzhou, the one-way fare in economy class for the two-hour journey, at speeds of up to 210 miles per hour, is 333 renminbi ($51). That is comparable to a deeply discounted airfare, but expensive for a migrant worker from Hunan who might earn only $160 to $400 a month in wages in Guangzhou. The same trip takes nine hours on an older, diesel train. But it costs only 99 renminbi ($15). [Source: Keith Bradsher, New York Times June 22, 2011]

More such gems in that report, read it.

And Oh Wrdos, please go ahead and troll. Every time you come up with some smart assed comment about India you're going to get some more fact thrown at you.

I hope you realise that you're a losing the information war here. Instead of shock and awe, you are having dirty linen being exhibited. I wonder what you're supervisor thinks?

[wrdos]

amit-ji,
I have said many times, let's stop here, OK? You have never seen an HSR, you don't even know building road needs steel, and you insist that India railway being safer than China's.
It is meaningless to go on the trolling anymore. Let's stop here and keep believe what you want to believe, OK? If you like, we can talk about these issues 20 or 30 years later.

[amit]

amit-ji,
I have said many times, let's stop here, OK? You have never seen an HSR, you don't even know building road needs steel, and you insist that India railway being safer than China's.
It is meaningless to go on the trolling anymore. Let's stop here and keep believe what you want to believe, OK? Let's talk about these issues 20 or 30 years later, OK?:D

You make a lot of interesting assumptions don't you?

I'm happy I haven't had the privilege of travelling on the Chinese "HSR". I hope I don't have to on my future visits. However, I've travelled on Bullet trains in Japan as well as France and I quite like them. They are nice and shinny and look, what we term as TFTA an acronym reserved for your taller than mountains and deeper than ocean friends who reside on India's western border. However, I'm increasingly beginning to think that it's as much applicable to Drones like you. Oh, TFTA stand for: Tall, Fair & Tight Assed. You seem to be suitable impressed by TFTA stuff, which is why you stole Siemens tech to build your "chindigenous" HSR network.

India does not need them at this stage of development, a much more pressing requirement is high speed dedicated freight corridors.

And yes Indian Railways has one of the lowest, if not the lowest accident rates in the world when measured on the volume of traffic it carries each day. Surprised? Don't be India is full of surprises - like the fact that within two years India will become the second highest producer of steel. And that amount would roughly coincide with the kind of steel requirement that India needs given it's level of GDP growth.

Regarding India, you've been a member of this forum for long enough to know that we don't hide the country's faults and in fact we are mercilessly critical of various issues here. Just go ahead and explore the forum to reaffirm this belief.

I know that presents a dilemma to folks like you who come from authoritarian societies. You automatically equate such criticism with hatred for India and the system it represents. And that's why you want to shock and awe us with the "great progress" being made by the Middle Kingdom.

Cognitive dissonance sets in when, instead of being properly awed and shocked we turn around and laugh at your face and point out that the emperor is naked. That usually puts off most drones after sometime - they simply can't handle this apparent non linear behaviour and drop out of circulation. You've been an exception so far. But I see it's starting to affect you too.

What to do, we are like that onlee. And you know what, we don't want to be anything else.

PS: It will be pity if you stop your trolling. It's so entertaining.

[subhamoy.das]

For all the tall claims of wardos that CHINA is at European level of per capita GDP wealth, the reality has been exposed by posting data after data from independent authorities like world bank, IMF etc and even by his sensible fellow citizens like Heech. But still he lives in his dream. So let him live in his dream. Just a quick data point. Number of middle class in CHINA ( house hold with USD 2000+ pm ) was about 10 - 15% more than India. This was from a comparison of BRIC countries. So all the largest, tallest, widest manufacturing has not really yielded much divident other than showing up thousands of dead pigs in the river that provides drinking water to the residents of Sanghai. It is impossible for countries with 1b+ poplulation like CHINA and INDIA to rich western level of prosperity acorss the board becasue for that to happen the amount of well paying jobs which needs to be created cannot be sustained by the consumers of the world put together.

[subhamoy.das]

I saw a repot in a local Indian paper that CHINA has split its railway ministry to make it efficient etc. No sure if it was posted here from other sources...

[subhamoy.das]

http://www.samachar.com/Xi-to-use-wife- ... fhaea.html

CHINESE president to use wife to broaden appeal to citizens!

[pankajs]

China seeks new competitive edges for exports

"Made in China" goods have long-dominated the global market, but rising costs are weakening China's price edge and strengthening the country's resolve to come up with "new edges," analysts say.

Calls to create new competitive edges in technologies, brands, quality and service have appeared in a government work report delivered by Premier Wen Jiabao to the ongoing annual session of the National People's Congress, China's top legislature.

The government report said China should raise the quality of, and returns on, foreign trade, rather than just increase the foreign trade volume. Instead of relying solely on cost and price advantages, it should also raise its overall competitive advantages.

Analysts say all of this signals a shift in China's export policy, in which it hopes to export more high-quality goods and those with a higher profit ratio.

The shift is also a timely response to dramatic changes in both domestic and overseas markets, which used to serve China's export industry and its overall economy well.

Other nuggets.

[pankajs]

Selling Frenzy In China As Gov't Slams Housing Bubble With Tax Hike

China is determined to poke holes in its housing bubble. Nowhere is this attempt more forceful than in Shanghai, where the government introduced its first-ever property tax last year.

Something else is happening now in China housing. Investors who buy homes as a store of value, rather than as a place to sleep at night, are rushing to their realtors before the government implements a 20% capital gains tax on housing sales. Beijing introduced the new rule on March 1, but no one knows when it will go into effect.

“The new measures will have a significant impact on both demand and supply in the existing home market,” Lina Wong, a managing director at Colliers International, was quoted saying in Shanghai Daily Tuesday.

[Suraj]

Warning to Chinese posters

This thread is about China. *Everything* related to China will be discussed - the positive and the negative. Attempts to troll and distract by bringing up India or any other entity will result in your post being edited or deleted without notice, and you being potentially warned for disruptive, uncivilized behavior.

If you want a forum where everyone will bend over backwards to respond admiringly about everything in China, go post in a Pakistani forum. If you want sycophants, this isn't the place.

[pankajs]

Ignore China's property bubble at your peril - Video

A shock wave through the entire economy, declining asset prices and peoples' savings wiped out. Gillem Tulloch talks to Tara Joseph about the 'when' not 'if' of China's property bubble bursting.

[pankajs]

Domestic demand holds key to China's growth - chinadaily.com.cn

Leading IMF official says transition will be driven by quality of growth and further economic reform

A top International Monetary Fund official warned on Tuesday of the need for China to follow through on plans to shift its economy from an investment-driven model to one that relies on domestic consumption.

Zhu Min, one of the IMF's three deputy managing directors, said the key to this transition is economic reform and the quality, rather than the rate, of growth. {Comrade Zhu Min is simply wrong and needs to be sent to a reeducation camp. The jealousy wrt our unsurpassed growth rate is the reason for such propaganda.}

Overcapacity is a major challenge in China, where utilization of manufacturing resources has dropped to 60 percent, a level Zhu described as risky.

"Over-investment is a big concern and the quality of growth is a big concern," he said. { Comrade Zhu seems to mouthing the Western and Indian propaganda onleeeeee. }

Zhu, who assumed his current post in July 2011, blamed over-investment for constraining the wages of Chinese workers. Household income remains a very small share of the country's economy, he said.{ This is outrageous I tell you. The world is shifting the focus to such trivial things to discredit our achievement on our per capita GDP. }

To maintain growth at or near current levels, China needs to keep moving toward consumption as its key economic driver, the IMF official said.

This goal is stressed in the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-15), as well as the Government Work Report delivered last week by Premier Wen Jiabao at the National People's Congress.

The transition has sparked heated debate in China, and Zhu said on Tuesday that how people talk about it is important.

This article has just been written to malign our Chinese friends on this forum who have so bravely defended,in the last few pages of this thread, their very real achievements on their unsurpassed growth rate, their exports/trade, their trade surplus/forex reserves, their capacity creation (Steel industry and a bunch of other industries), their per capita GDP.

[pankajs]

China Construction Equipment Market Still Faces a Glut

China's market for construction equipment still faces a glut of unsold inventory, analysts said in a conference call organized by J.P. Morgan Securities Wednesday.

"There is still about a year's worth of supply of excavators" available for sale in China, Ann Duignan, an analyst at J.P. Morgan, said in an interview after the event. Even if sales of excavators start to recover this year, she said, production should be down 30% to 40% from 2012 as dealers work through inventories.

A scramble by foreign and local companies into the Chinese market has resulted in towering overcapacity. Mr. Phillips estimated that China last year had capacity to build 460,000 crawler excavators, more than four times 2012 sales. Loose financing practices have resulted in a high rate of repossessions, which put more equipment back onto the market.

[pankajs]

Official Newspaper Blames Local Govts for Overcapacity Which Threats Chinese Economy

The People's Daily warned that the persistent obstinacy may lead to a systematically economic collapse in the country without control.

A Chinese ruling party's mouthpiece newspaper has blamed local governments for the country's excess capacity problem which has long plagued the world's second-biggest economy, and warned that the persistent obstinacy may lead to a systematically economic collapse in the country without control.

The People's Daily said in a commentary published Wednesday that overcapacity now extends to emerging industries, and is becoming an increasingly big obstacle to the economy's recovery.

"With overcapacity becoming more prevalent, the economy has been puffed up by low-level redundancy constructions, leading to…vicious competition and plummeting returns of companies," it said, "Systematically economic risks and crisis could occur" if the momentum is not arrested.

Even the venerable People's Daily has been hijacked and has become the mouthpiece of the Western and Indian propagandist.

[Suraj]

Discussions on HSR in the Indian context have been moved to the appropriate forum - the Indian Railways thread.

[amit]

Even the venerable People's Daily has been hijacked and has become the mouthpiece of the Western and Indian propagandist.

You know I'm quite surprised at the extent of negative information coming out of China via Chinese sources over the past year or so.

IMO it could mean one of two things:

1) the leadership change window has resulted in slackening of controls as folks try to understand in which direction new policy would go. And hence some of the stuff are being slipped out by folks who are genuinely concerned about the state of affairs (there are million of decent Chinese who don't think loving their motherland means loving Dear Leader and the CCP).

2) The second possibility is that the situation is even more serious than we imagined and the sh!t is starting to hit the ceiling and madarins are panicking and loosening controls on information.

It's not often you see rags like the People's Daily and China Daily publish such candid stuff.

JMT

Added later: The WiKi entry for China Daily has this intriguing sentence:

The editor of the paper has told foreign editors that the paper's editorial policy was to back the Party line and criticize the authorities only if there was deviation from party policy.

A head scratching moment.

[Singha]

Seems caterpillar got raped for 600 million dollars buying a chinese mining tools co last yr. it has to be written off the books now
http://www.businessinsider.com/accounti ... ary-2013-1

I wonder which of the big m&a firms produced a big glowing due diligence reports using their superb expertise in china and pocketed their fat commision...

[Suraj]

Suntech, China's Solyndra, implodes

China has for some time been subsidizing its solar industry and betting big on clean energy.
But the huge bet seems to be crumbling now, and at the center of it is Suntech Power Holdings, one of the world's biggest solar panel-makers.

In November, a U.S. trade panel approved tariffs of between 24 - 36 percent on Chinese solar-panel imports, after it ruled that domestic solar panel-makers were hurt by illegal dumping.

They argued that Chinese solar panel manufacturers could sell their products dirt cheap because they were extremely heavily subsidized by their government. Suntech was subject to an even higher 36 percent tax.

Suntech has also been the subject of controversy for some time over its finances. Bloomberg reports that the company had been amassing debt for quite a while and that it reached close to $2 billion as of August 2012.

Another huge blow to the company was its discovery that €554.2 million in German government bonds that it was given as collateral for its investment in Global Solar Fund "may not have existed and the company may have been a victim of fraud." That dispute was settled last week.

Then, Suntech announced that it had entered a forbearance agreement with holders of $541 million in bonds due today, and said it will not make the payment but is working with bondholders to restructure the debt.
...

Suntech's stock is down nearly 98 percent since 2008 as this chart shows. In the past year, it's been down nearly 80 percent

[hanumadu]

^^Good riddance. Hope it is the first among many. Time for all other countries to slap anti dumping tariffs on chinese made goods.

[krishnan]

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