How much debt is China in for high-speed rail?

A Whopping $900B Debt – China's Once-Profitable High-Speed Railways Now Heading Towards A Trillion Dollar Disaster. China's long-distance high-speed rail (HSR) is hailed as the fundamental tenet of its initiatives to recover the country's coronavirus-affected economy.



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According to the latest data, as of the first half of 2022, the total liabilities of China National Railway Group totaled 6 trillion yuan, and in the first half of 2022 alone, it has lost 80.4 billion yuan, with an average loss of 400 million yuan per day.

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Wider Risks to the Chinese Economy In 2020, China Railway's final profit and loss statement recorded losses of ¥55 billion CNY (approx. ¥1.1 trillion JPY/ $7.9 billion USD), while in 2021, it was in the red by ¥49.8 billion CNY (approx. ¥1 trillion JPY/ $7.2 billion USD).

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The interstate highway system cost $129 billion — roughly $290 billion in current dollars — and took 35 years to complete, running from 1957 to 1992. The $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill enacted in 2021 has $102 billion for rail, but none of the money is set aside for high-speed rail.

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China's 'Hidden Debt' Accordingly, a 30,000-kilometer expansion will cost about 3.6 trillion yuan. China Railway sells bonds to state-owned banks and brokerages to pay the costs.

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That's according to Bloomberg Economics, which now forecasts it will take until the mid-2040s for China's gross domestic product to exceed that of the US — and even then, it will happen by “only a small margin” before “falling back behind.” Before the pandemic, they expected China to take and hold pole position as ...

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Rail currently provides low-cost long-distance transportation for heavy freight, which HSR is unlikely to do given its higher costs and the track damage caused by heavy trains. HSR may compete with the domestic air cargo industry, though its historically poor profitability suggests lackluster returns.

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Implementing high-speed rail will keep billions of dollars in the U.S. economy by decreasing the amount of oil that the U.S. consumes. According to the International Association of Railways (UIC), high-speed rail is eight times more energy efficient than airplanes and four times more efficient than automobile use.

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For China's ruling Communist Party and its leader Xi Jinping, high-speed rail is also a powerful tool for social cohesion, political influence and the integration of disparate regions with distinct cultures into the mainstream.

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High-speed trains are European-standard high-speed inter-city trains, capable of typical ground speeds of 250 kph (or 155 mph). They currently run between Moscow, St. Petersburg, Helsinki, and Nizhny Novgorod. These trains are called Sapsan within Russia, or Alstom on the Helsinki – St.

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China: Surpassing the Rest of the World Due to generous funding from the Chinese government, high-speed rail in China has developed rapidly over the past 15 years. China began planning for its current high-speed rail system in the early 1990s, modeling it after Japan's Shinkansen system.

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That works out to $200 million a mile for hilly areas. At these costs, Obama's original high-?speed rail plan would require well over $1 trillion, while the USHSR's plan would need well over $3 trillion. Building a system longer than China's would cost at least $4 trillion.

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