China’s High Speed Rail Network Is A Trillion Dollar Debt Sinkhole

Lefty sorts are always whining that other countries have high speed rail networks and we don’t. Many point to China’s extensive network of high speed rail as what we should be doing.

Tiny problem: China’s high speed rail network is a giant, unprofitable sinkhole of $1.8 TRILLION worth of debt.

Some take-aways:

  • The average operating loss for the system is $24 million per day.
  • The official amount for China National Railway debt for high speed rail is $900 billion, but since roughly half of the debt comes from local governments, the total is probably closer to $1.8 trillion.
  • For comparison sake, $1.8 trillion is about South Korea’s entire yearly GDP.
  • “Shanghai, the richest city in China, has a total GDP of $600 billion in 2020, which means that even the whole year of Shanghai’s GDP won’t be able to cover the debt of China National Railway.”
  • It’s extensive: 37,900km, nearly double the length from 2015.
  • Return on high speed rail investment is only about 2%, and the bulk of bond payments for loans are coming due over the next few years. “Cash flow from railway transportation revenue isn’t enough to cover the operating costs, let alone the ability to pay the debt and interest.”
  • Local government debt levels are around 100%.
  • “More than 85% of the funds raised through urban investment bonds are earmarked for repaying old debts with new ones.”
  • Even the most profitable high speed rail stretch, Beijing to Shanghai, only earns a return on investment of 5%.
  • Japan’s successful high speed rail network serves three metropolitan areas (Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka) that have 55% of that nation’s population.
  • “A professor at the School of Economics and Management of Beijing Jiaotong University concluded that the operating costs are only just covered when the transport density of a high-speed rail line reaches 36 million passenger kilometers per kilometer. In China the average transport density is only about 17 million passenger kilometers per kilometer.”
  • High speed rail can’t transport heavy freight.
  • “The Lanzhou Uramuchi HSR in western China can run more than 160 trains per day. In reality, this route only runs four trains per day.”
  • High speed rail occupancy rate is only 30%, and is still too expensive for most Chinese to use.
  • High speed rail construction has squeezed out much-needed construction of regular rail. “China’s rail freight capacity can’t meet market demand. China’s market share of road freight turnover has risen rapidly to 49% market share in 2016.” China rail has jacked up freight costs to make up for losses on high speed rail.
  • China’s freight trucks get overloaded all the time.
  • China’s containerized shipping accounts for 40% of global trade, but “the proportion of China’s sea rail intermodal transport volume in 2017 was only about 2.5 percent.” 84% of port containers go out by road.
  • So why all the money poured into high speed rail? Opportunities for corruption.

    Officials see the high-speed rail project in which China is involved as a lucrative opportunity. China’s former minister of railways, known as the father of high-speed rail, was sentenced to death for corruption. Emerging industries such as high-speed rail, which offer both substantial commercial value and political achievements for local officials, have enormous room for corruption. In a systemically corrupt environment white elephant projects, that is a large project that falls significantly short of its goals, and the costs of upkeep outweigh its usefulness, are favored by many officials and businessmen looking to make a fortune. The vast majority of high-speed railways around the world can’t make ends meet on passenger revenues alone to cover their construction and operating costs. Most operate at a loss.

    In light of all that, why do American leftists keep complaining about America’s lack of high speed rail? Simple: It’s the corruption, stupid. High speed rail construction offers boundless opportunities for graft and corruption, and refusing to build any keeps them from getting their snouts into another giant trough of taxpayer money…

    (I didn’t expect this past week to become a string of “China’s economy is smoke and mirrors all the way down” posts, but I keep running into more examples.)

    Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

  • 17 Responses to “China’s High Speed Rail Network Is A Trillion Dollar Debt Sinkhole”

    1. Kirk says:

      If rail projects made the money that the various adherents claimed, then private industry would be lining up to build the damn things. The fact that they are not is what the average guy would call “a clue”.

      China is going to eventually implode under the weight of all those bad investments. It’s only a matter of time, and the fact that they’ve (the CCP) essentially sold out the well-being of their own people is the sole reason this crap has been able to go on for as long as it has. When and if the Chinese people figure that out, the CCP is doomed. All the money wasted on these ghost cities, useless electric cars, and high-speed rail lines to nowhere? Those things represent how much capital has been wasted, that could have been the Chinese people’s prosperity and well-being.

    2. Kirk says:

      Likely the next post Lawrence makes, but Instapundit is conveying reports of a bank run, in China.

      At this point, I can’t even get upset at the stupidity of the idiots behind all this. It’s like being in a spectacular trainwreck, and all you can do is sit there and watch as the various responsible parties try their best to make believe none of this is that big a deal, it’s just business as usual…

    3. […] Kirk suggested Chinese bank runs might be the next story to cover. I think I covered bank runs at […]

    4. Jim Dahmus says:

      This is bad. But Biden gave away $2.0 Trillion his first month in office in “Covid Relief “, and all we got for our money was record inflation

    5. Unrepentant Capitalist says:

      There are two desirable niches in business, highest quality and lowest price. In transportation, highest quality is flying. (Although Elon Musk may change that into launching?) High speed rail cannot even come close to competing in most markets. Lowest price is something rail can compete at, but not if you put the “high speed” in front of it. So as a business plan it will never work, unless your business is taxpayer funded corruption.

    6. John Drummond says:

      Nothing to do with the economics of HSR but I traveled from Shanghai to Beijing on HSR First Class. But First Class is not the highest class. There is a frosted glass door in the first carriage beyond which government elites travel. If you wonder why Democrats have a soft spot for the CCP, it’s because the Party elite have such commanding power and influence.

    7. Kirk says:

      The biggest problem with high-speed rail isn’t the quality or the price. It’s the inherent inflexibility of it, and the fact that to make money at it, you have to have a set number of passengers who’re needing to get to some location along your inflexible rail line. Japan has that; China does not. Same with the US.

      Most high-speed rail projects are pure vanity projects built for the sheer prestige of it all. Making money is the last thing anyone thinks of, outside Japan. If I remember my reading on this issue from a few years back, there are no high-speed rail lines or routes that make money outside of Japan, and even those are kinda questionable once you go digging into the subsidy records.

      It’s the same with light rail in the US. None of the projects have ever reached their predicted use rates, and none of them make any damn money. If this crap was profitable, you’d have to beat the investors away with clubs. It isn’t, and you don’t. Only governments that are coerced into this crap by left-wing advocates for rail ever do these things, and the irony is, most of those advocates won’t use the systems when they’re built. Friend of the family was a huge light-rail advocate in the Seattle area, and despite the fact that the lines run right by her apartment and workplace, she’s used them exactly twice. Inconvenient, see… So, she agitated for these things to be built, and then won’t use them. They’re for “other people”, not her… And, those other people? They ought to be made to use them, and get off the highways.

      There ain’t no hypocrite like a left-wing hypocrite.

    8. roo_ster says:

      Lots of gov’t-built (in one way or another) projects never make money, cost serious money to keep operating, and yet are a great boon to the citizenry. Off the top of my head: Interstate Highway System, Post Office, Police Agencies, etc.

      We are not a people created to serve the market. Rather the market is a tool to serve a people. Neither libertarians not marxists seem to get that.

      Market fetishism has got to go.

    9. Hairless Joe says:

      Looks like a case of “cargo cult” thinking by the CCP functionaries: They saw that Japan’s Shinkansen helped Japan’s economic growth, so they decided to build an even bigger network in the hope of getting the same results. By the time the wheels came off the caboose they had their graft safely stored away in foreign bank accounts. Now their problem is how to shift the blame for the debacle onto non-participants, as they head off to a comfortable retirement.

      Couldn’t happen to a more deserving gang of thieves and murderers, methinks.

    10. roo_ster says:

      This I thought emblematic of the whole market/financial fetishist viewpoint. It is a take-away literally spelled out in the video referring to the most “profitable” stretch of HSR:

      *”The asset profit rate is less than 5%, which is about the same as the benchmark interest rate of banks.”*

      It shows the fundamental viewpoint bifurcation between those who must deal in the reality of the physical world where things must be moved, maintained, built, grown, etc. and those who spend their time pushing abstract symbols about (financial instruments, spreadsheet cells, economic analysis, etc.).

      The factoid implies that if you can literally do nothing while your money sits in a bank and still makes 5% ROI, the rational course of action is to do nothing, not build out a HSR line (or anything else).

      This attitude, if pervasive, leads to pretty much NO infrastructure getting built out, EVER, by rational actors. Not only that, this attitude and state of (financial) reality assumes that an entire civilization’s infrastructure, institutions, etc. _are already built out & functional_, as no one in a savage state of nature is making 5% ROI on any deposit in any bank.

      I know this might horrify many economists, but many times(1) ROI and the other economic metrics are at best extremely limited when evaluating the value/utility/worth of an activity or product. In the case of HSR, being able to move people about a polity in a time-efficient manner has value not accounted for in the economic analysis.

      One more, with feeling:
      *The economy exists to serve the nation. The nation does not exist to serve the economy.*

      Regards,

      roo_ster

      (1) National existential issues, especially.

    11. JohnnyC says:

      You’re missing the point, it was their Manhattan project and wasn’t designed to pay its own way. They are now the undisputed world leader in this technology and will be selling their expertise all along the BRI.

      They are also building their country’s infrastructure and avoiding our mistakes, rail lines and cars are much easier to maintain than highways. With 1.3 or so billion people, you certainly don’t want everyone getting a car to visit grandma in the countryside or commute to the suburbs.

      Don’t be surprised if eventually this extends all the way across Eurasia and the Persian Gulf. Of course, while building the high speed tracks, normal freight lines are being put in as well.

      Its a strategic move and well above the economic realm. China is positioning themselves to dominate the remaining 21st and 22nd centuries.

      Besides, no one in their right mind likes flying unless you have a private jet and a supermodel girlfriend. It may be fast, but if they can get to 2/3 of the total travel time of air, you can dismantle most of those local airports. Personally, as a former road warrior, I’d settle for half the travel time. The sardine cans in the sky suck more than lobbyists in DC, and airports are mess even on good days.

    12. roo_ster says:

      JohnnyC wrote:
      “Its a strategic move and well above the economic realm.”

      Somebody gets it.

      JohnnyC wrote:
      “Besides, no one in their right mind likes flying unless you have a private jet and a supermodel girlfriend. It may be fast, but if they can get to 2/3 of the total travel time of air, you can dismantle most of those local airports. Personally, as a former road warrior, I’d settle for half the travel time. The sardine cans in the sky suck more than lobbyists in DC, and airports are mess even on good days.”

      Yes, this ^^^.

      I despised air travel before 9-11. After 9-11 it got worse and then the Covid hysteria made it so, so much worse. Even for work, I would rather drive if schedule permits.

      I tried AMTRAK once and it departed 8 hours late. That was inconvenient and a bummer and demonstrates AMTRAK is not a real player, transpo-wise. But the actual travel was much superior to an airline. I was able to sleep good sleep with decent room and comfort in coach. Plugged in my CPAP, placed a bandanna over my face, and got a good 8 hours of shuteye.

    13. Kirk says:

      Oi… The idiocy is palpable.

      News flash for ya… The market does rule all. Your examples of the Post Office and all the rest are completely idiotic, because if the government did not “manage” those for us, someone else would. Being as they’re, y’know… Basic functions everyone needs. Nobody “needs” high-speed rail; they only use that if there’s no other bloody choice in the matter of getting from point “A” to point “B”.

      Passenger rail died a deserved death when it did because air was a superior and faster means of travel, one that could be far more flexible and which required considerably less in the way of infrastructure and maintenance.

      The economics aren’t there. No matter how much public money you pour down that rathole, nobody wants to spend the time or go to the effort of getting on high-speed rail that doesn’t have to. You can make it work in a country like Japan, where the travel corridors are narrow, urbanization is high, and it has a very high population density. None of those conditions obtain anywhere in North America, no matter how you try to work the numbers. The only way you can manage to make high-speed rail pay is if you force it down everyone’s throat with government mandates and shutting down every other option. There’s no other way to get the passenger base.

      It also doesn’t make a lick of sense when you start looking at the expenses and construction times involved. You can’t even make a case for it between major metro areas like Las Vegas and Los Angeles; they tried working something like that along the I-15 corridor, and despite government shenanigans and subsidies galore, nothing got going because the base economics they needed to underwrite it weren’t there.

      Rail in North America is for industrial transportation, not passengers. The sooner the idiots of the world figure that out, the better off we’ll be. Had someone started out with a different set of premises than the ones we actually have, that might have been different. As it is, trying to graft high-speed rail into the existing transportation network is simply not doable or economic. You have to build out an entirely new and separate network of purpose-built high-speed rail lines, because anything else will disrupt the freight lines, costing even more money.

      One of the things that tells me how big a bunch of idiots people are when they start yammering about any form of passenger rail is that they never, ever calculate or include the cost incurred by the freight lines due to having to accommodate Amtrak’s boutique passenger service. It ain’t cheap, at all–BN track guys around here are always grousing about how disruptive the limited passenger trains really are to their operations, and how much it costs the freight guys in terms of lost revenue and opportunity losses.

    14. roo_ster says:

      Kirk wrote:
      “News flash for ya… The market does rule all. Your examples of the Post Office and all the rest are completely idiotic, because if the government did not “manage” those for us, someone else would. Being as they’re, y’know… Basic functions everyone needs.”

      Reality, history, and human nature differ with your market fetishism.

      ROADS
      Nobody stepped up to build an interstate highway system (or reasonable market analog) until Eisenhower & Co. made it happen. The market failed to produce such “Basic functions everyone needs.”

      In any case, roads, “Basic functions everyone needs,” many times had next to zero contact with market forces in their genesis. How many times have you seen a road named, “Military Road” on maps as you travel? Generally, THAT is why they were built (military purposes), rather than any market influence. Getting troops from here to there. The first roads in Scotland were built by the Romans for just such a purpose. It wasn’t some entrepreneurial Adam Smith ancestor, but the gov’t of Rome, using Roman tax monies, for the purpose of war, that made it happen.
      Example:
      https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0a/Military_Road_Marker_US_64_Marion_AR.jpg/448px-Military_Road_Marker_US_64_Marion_AR.jpg

      POST
      In many times and in many places, folks did without the post, despite that being “Basic functions everyone needs.” Looks like a significant market failure, if one insists the post is a market creation.

      ……..

      I could go on, but there is no reality that market fetishists will not shrug off with their abiding faith. They are divorced from both reality and the human condition, as their model of humans is that of a moist robot. Marxism and market fetishism: a pox on both inhuman/anti-human ideologies.

    15. […] In The Wasp Network, also, Goodbye Chicken – Hello Shark Meat & Apples BattleSwarm: Red China’s High Speed Rail Network Is A Trillion Dollar Debt Sinkhole, also, Bank Runs In Red China? Behind The Black: Today’s Blacklisted American, Ingenuity […]

    16. […] high speed rail network is a giant, unprofitable sinkhole of $1.8 TRILLION worth of debt,” notes Lawrence Person. It loses money at a rate of $24 million per pay, rather than paying of its debt. […]

    17. […] Commies (and their American fans) do love their high speed rail projects. Never mind that high speed rail in China has mostly been a trillion dollar, money losing sinkhole. […]

    Leave a Reply