> Imagine how embarrassing and annoying it must be for Chinese people to see the relatively sub-par quality of the end result.
That’s honestly just cope. China has the best rail network in the world by far and there’s really nothing even close to what they’ve accomplished in about 15 years.
In the time the US has been twiddling their thumbs planning and throwing billions at contractors to consider high speed rail and scams like hyper loop, China went from 0 miles of high speed rail to thousands.
There’s a lot of cruft in construction in the US and it’s impossible to deny. I lived near a highway that was being repaired for years. It was ongoing before I moved to that city and apparently only finished after I moved out 5 years later. Thorough environmental checks for building dams, okay. But just build a goddamn road—especially when all you’re doing is fixing what’s there. Quit selling it out to your biggest donor/lowest bidder. Pay someone who delivers results with a record to back it up even if the initial budget looks higher.
Infrastructure is like a pair of boots. Pay a little extra now and you’ll quickly realize why it’s good you didn’t cheap out.
I agree. I feel like a lot of people's perception of China was formed in 1995 and has not been revised since. I hear it all the time online. Their buildings suck and are liable to collapse at any second. Their infrastructure sucks. They can only manufacture junk, and can only do it poorly. They have zero initiative and can only rip off western tech and innovation, etc... It's just not true anymore.
Indeed. The Chinese high-speed rail network transports nearly 2 billion passengers a year. There have been two fatal accidents in its entire history, in 2011 and 2022, with a total of 48 deaths.
That safety record is equivalent to commercial aviation in the US.
Not sure where you’re talking about in Asia. Vietnam uses Zalo, China has Wechat, Japan has Line, Korea has Kakaotalk, Thailand I think is Line as well. I think the average tech-aware person in at least East Asia doesn’t know what WhatsApp even is.
There is no 'Asia'. Every country is unique. Hong Kong mostly uses Whatsapp (though some Telegram and Wechat as well), Singapore uses Whatsapp a lot, Turkey uses Whatsapp, Indonesia too...
That’s honestly just cope. China has the best rail network in the world by far and there’s really nothing even close to what they’ve accomplished in about 15 years.
In the time the US has been twiddling their thumbs planning and throwing billions at contractors to consider high speed rail and scams like hyper loop, China went from 0 miles of high speed rail to thousands.
There’s a lot of cruft in construction in the US and it’s impossible to deny. I lived near a highway that was being repaired for years. It was ongoing before I moved to that city and apparently only finished after I moved out 5 years later. Thorough environmental checks for building dams, okay. But just build a goddamn road—especially when all you’re doing is fixing what’s there. Quit selling it out to your biggest donor/lowest bidder. Pay someone who delivers results with a record to back it up even if the initial budget looks higher.
Infrastructure is like a pair of boots. Pay a little extra now and you’ll quickly realize why it’s good you didn’t cheap out.