China's infrastructure splurge
China's race to build roads, railways and airports speeds ahead. Beijing badly needs to expand its handling capacity. In 2002, the airport ranked 26th in passenger numbers worldwide, now it is the 9th busiest. China's rapid economic growth and equally rapid integration into the global economic system is putting huge strains on its infrastructure. This has led to a spate of spending on transport. At 30 billion dollars, the Beijing-Shanghai high speed line is the most expensive project in China's railway history. More prosaic but cumulatively, no less remarkable projects abound. 15 years ago, intercity travel was often a choice between slow, crowded trains or a perilous journey by car or bus on narrow railroads. Flying was for the privileged. Until 1993, buying a plane ticket required a letter of authorization from an employer. But since the 1990s', China has built an expressway network crossing the country that is second only to America's interstate highway system in length. By the end of 2007, some 53600 kilometers of toll expressways have been built. The pace of construction will now be slowing a bit, but the aim is to have 70000 kilometers of expressways by 2020. The ministry of communications, which is responsible for roads, boasts that china's expressway builders achieved in 17 years what the west took 40 to accomplish. The expressway network has helped divert some of the freight traffic from the overburdened railway system. It has also, to the delight of China's burgeoning car industry, but to the horror of environmentalists, helped to promote a shape increase in private car ownership. The Asian development bank, ADB, which financed part of a 660 kilometer expressway linking Beijing with Shenyang in the northeast, found that the new toll road was little use after its completion in 2000. Now, says an ABD official, traffic flow and therefore revenue far exceeds initial predictions thanks to the growth of industries near the route and the increasing use of private cars for long distance travel. It is not just expressways that are getting attention. In 2005, China's leadership launched a programme to build what it called a new socialist countryside. This was an effort to assuage discontent in the countryside over the widening gap between rural and urban incomes and public services. The program included the plan construction of 300000 kilometers of new railroads between 2006 and 2010, an increase of nearly 50%. Investment in railways has been far slower to gather pace, in southern China, the worst snowstorms in decades paralyzed much of the network in late January and early February, but the rail connections between north and south were already inadequate. Much of the south's coal supply is sent by rail from northern mines to the coast and then loaded onto ships. The world bank says that China's railway carries 25% of the world's railway traffic on just 6% of its track length. Strong political world may have helped what one world bank advisor calls China's mind-boggling pace of rail and road construction. A plan published by the ministry of communications in 2004 mentions offhandedly an expressway from Beijing to Taipei, target completion date 2030. How the road will traverse the 150 kilometers Taiwai strait is not mentioned, nor does the document suggest how to tackle the even bigger problem of reaching agreement with Taiwan. But government maps of the completed expressway network show it. It would be unwise to rule it out.
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