

High-speed railways are revolutionizing trade in Eurasia - johnny99
http://salon.com/2014/12/31/go_west_young_han_how_chinas_new_silk_road_threatens_american_imperialism_partner/

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stevengg
Pepe Escobar is great he blogs here
[http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Others/Escobar.html](http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Others/Escobar.html)

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danmaz74
This article makes it look like bullet trains will transport goods from China
to Spain... which is a very stupid idea, as the cost of transport is so much
higher than by sea.

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joe_the_user
Indeed,

The article seems a confused mishmash of various possibilities and so paints
various absurd possibilities like this.

Bullet trains are slower than planes and more expensive than container ships -
much of China's bullet train building has been to facilitate internal
transport and as make-work infrastructure creation. China building-up overall
rail infrastructure might bring more trade with various Asian nations but a
number of other factors still have to come together for this. China still
isn't a first world nation by any means - China's vast industrial capacity is
focused on "final assembly" and so China still is dependent on other nations
for things like, say, the chips that go in the iPhones it assembles. The
situation doesn't resemble "a new empire flexing its muscles" or similar rot.

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omegaworks
>Go west, young Han. One day, if everything happens according to plan (and
according to the dreams of China’s leaders), all this will be yours — via
high-speed rail, no less.

Comparing the opening of a new global trade route to the Manifest Destiny
conquest and colonization of the American west is propagandistic and
inflammatory. If anything, this will only serve to encourage investment in the
rail transport infrastructure we desperately need here in North America.

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Turing_Machine
What makes you think that a) all of the (e.g.) 131 ethnicities in Kazakhstan
will welcome this and b) that the Chinese would build something like this
without being prepared to defend it using military force?

