London to Beijing...by rail?

The Chinese are famous for their outrageous infrastructure projects - you don't build something like the Great Wall without being ever-so-slightly ambitious. And if you are to believe the latest whispers to come out of the People's Republic, nothing has changed.

Passengers could soon travel from London to Beijing in a little over a day on trains travelling almost as fast as aeroplanes. China is in negotiations to build a 2000 mile high-speed rail network to India and Europe with trains capable of travelling at over 200mph within the next ten years. Trains would also travel to Singapore, India and Pakistan - and this is just the first phase.

A second line would head to Germany via Russia (exact routes are currently undecided), and a third line would extend south from China to connect Vietnam, Thailand, Burma and Malaysia.

Wang Mengshu, a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and a senior consultant on China's domestic high-speed railways, said this month that work on the Southeast Asia line was "underway".

"Opening up Central, East and South East Asia"

"We have also already carried out the prospecting and survey work for the European network, and central and eastern European countries are keen for us to start," Mr. Wang said.

Mr. Wang said that China was already in negotiations with 17 countries over the rail lines, which will draw together and open up the whole of Central, East and South East Asia.

He added that the network would also allow China to transport valuable cargoes of raw materials more efficiently.

"It was not China that pushed the idea to start with," said Mr. Wang. "It was the other countries that came to us, especially India. These countries cannot fully implement the construction of a high-speed rail network and they hoped to draw on our experience and technology."

Government funding

However others remain cautious, "I understand we want to improve our rail networks, potentially as far as Europe, but whether they will be high-speed or not is yet to be determined," said one Chinese official based in Brussels.

Financing would come from government cash and bank loans but private sector funding would also be needed, according to Mr. Wang.

Business Week reports how European experts say the current low maritime transport costs make it harder to justify an EU-China rail line on commercial grounds however. With global trade seemingly unstoppable in early 2007, ship builders were receiving record orders. But the subsequent financial crisis and global economic slump led to a 12 percent fall in world trade flows last year, according to WTO figures.

China is currently investing in its own high-speed railway expansion project. When completed in the next five years nearly 30,500 kilometres of new railways will be built, connecting all its major cities with high-speed lines.

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