Country Roads
Development in Transportation
1 Outline
Transportation Railroad Highway Civil aviation Pedestrian facilities
Trade
Minerals Rare earths
Inter-province comparison
2 3 Gtoe: Gigatons of Oil Equivalent
4 Comparative Disadvantage of the Silk Road Area
Key factors affecting competitiveness Proximity to sources of inputs (raw materials, labour, etc) Transportation to markets
“Considering that market access has a significant international component, it is likely that, with further integration into the world economy, these inequalities will grow if access to new markets is not evenly distributed across the country.” Laura Hering and Sandra Poncet, “The Impact of Economic Geography on Wages,” China Economic Review, 2009 #20.
Example: Cost of transportation to Kyrgyzstan Imports: 10%; Exports: 14% of total cost Integration of rail networks between China and its neighbours hindered by weak mutual trust and security concern 5 Rail bottleneck between China and Central Asia
Ishim River Astana
Dzungarian Gate (阿拉山口)
Population 2/3 Kazakh 1/4 Russian
6 Railway Development
7 The “New Silk Road”
歐亞大陸橋
8 Eurasian Land Bridges
Trans-Siberian Railway 西伯利亞鐵路 (1916) From Russian Far East to Rotterdam, the Netherlands Mainly through Russia Concern about monopoly and domination by Russia
New Eurasian Land Bridge 新歐亞大陸橋 (1990) From Lianyungang to Rotterdam Through west China, Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus to Europe
9 Eurasian Land Bridges
Trans-Asian Railway 泛亞鐵路 (under planning & part construction) Initiative by UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific Agreement signed in 2006 by 17 countries Connecting existing rail systems with new links
4 planned routes Northern corridor: Mainly follows Trans-Siberian Railway Southern corridor: Turkey through South Asia to southwest China Southeast Asia network: Kunming to Singapore North-South corridor: Finland through Russia to Central Asia and Iran
10 Existing Land Bridges
11 China’s own initiative of southern land bridge
12 China’s own initiative of southern land
Kashgar bridge
Islamabad
Karachi
13 Political Economy of Rail Systems
Constraints on current and planned Eurasian Land Bridges
Diverse rail systems (track gauge, signal, power, etc) Historical (colonial) legacy Technical debate over superiority of rail systems Concern about national security Technological concern: Reliance on foreign system and equipment
Protectionism: Freight transit and handling charges
Regional stability
14 Diverse Rail Systems
15 SiMinYi viaduct, JiTong Railway, near Jingpeng, Inner Mongolia (by Schaffner)
Silk Road Region: The Passing-by?
Long distance rail primarily serves two ends of the Eurasian continent, i.e. east China and western Europe, and has less value for places and peoples in between
16 Railroads ‘Go West’: Integration by iron tracks 17 Railroads ‘Go West’: Integration by iron tracks
18 High Speed Rail (HSR): Accelerator of National Integration?
19 Initial Planning of HSR
Concentrate on mega cities in east and central China Only the “mid-west” was covered during early stage World Bank's relatively modest expectations of HSR in China (especially of Chongqing's position in the future rail network)
20 HSR plan at its peak
21 China’s HSR “Go-out”
22 Chongqing: The new hub for international rail transport?
23 Side Story: Rail plan across Taiwan Strait
Connecting London and Taipei by Eurasian Bridge?
24 Arguments AGAINST High Speed Rail (Zhou Jian)
Long-term financial problems according to foreign experience Construction cost too high Unlikely to draw enough passengers to offset
No significant improvement in rail congestion
Upgrading freight rail systems between industrial centres more cost effective (experience of India)
(趙堅,北京交通大學經濟管理學院教授) 25 Bare Viability of HSR
90
80
70
60
50 Column 1 40 Column 2
30
20
10
0 Taipei-Zuoging Beijng-Tianjin Seoul-Busan
Million passengers/year (actual) Required number of passengers for economic viability Based on SCMP 18 Feb '11 p. B-10 Probably a ‘non-starter’ in the West
26 Scaling Back HSR
2011: Minister of Railway Liu Zhijun (劉志軍) under investigation of alleged “severe violation of discipline” (corruption)
HSR cut under Sheng Guangzu 盛光祖
Reduced the speed of forthcoming HSR lines from 350km/hr to 300km/hr
East-west lines: Only 4 go that fast
Shorter lines: 200-250km/hr
Possible considerations (not announced): Safety, pollution, energy
Zhao Jian: Energy consumption of trains at 350 km/hr could be twice that of trains at 200 km/hr 27 Scaling Back HSR
Projects in urgent demand continued for economic development
Others projects might be curtailed
Xi’an to Urumqi route
Original plan : 350 km/hr
Sheng's plan : 200 km/hr
NY-Washington, DC : 240 km/hr (compare)
28 Post-2011 adjustment to the HSR plan
29 Lowering Sights for Railroads in General
Sheng: A few projects will be rolled out between 2011 and 2015 across the country with an investment of RMB2.8 trillion
Railway network
Present: 91 000 km
End 2015: 120 000 km (People’s Daily, 13 April 2011)
2010: Railway investment plateaued
8% of infrastructure spending
3% of overall fixed asset investment
Trend of declining
spending Jonathan Fenby
30 Highway / Expressway
31 NW the leader
SW lagged behind
Why?
(North) (+Tibet) 32 Expressways Highways
Expressways/Highways in West China, 1999-2008 (acc to tech levels)
(North) (+Tibet) 33 Emphasis on ROAD in many eastern PLJs Emphasis on RAIL in many western PLJs
34 ROAD – fairly evenly distributed per capita except for Ningxia and Tibet RAIL – disproportionately more in Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Qinghai and Tibet
35 Overall size of freight traffic through highways in some western PLJs has been increasing during GOW
(Source: Deutsche Bank Research, 2013) 36 Different approaches according to John A. Donaldson
Yunnan : Super highways connecting Kunming to borders and other provincial capitals
Guizhou : Rural roads to reduce isolation of mountainous areas
Xinjiang : Not in his study but determined to have it both ways
Road Construction
37 Xinjiang International Transport
Border 8 countries
Mainly rely on road transport
International rail through Dzungarian Gate (阿拉山口)
International flights in operation
38 阿黑土別克
Xinjiang Road built International 2002 Transport
39 40 Karakoram Highway Der Spiegel 1 July 2012 (linking Xinjiang and Pakistan) Karakoram Highway in Pakistan (from Xinjiang)
41 Nick Frisch File photo from Dawn, Karachi, 15 August 2011 “If you are building a ball field, they will come” New expressway crossing Yellow River in central Ningxia
National
If PLJ debt is included, China’s debt (48%-90% of GDP) may be roughly equivalent to US debt (87% of GDP) (FT 12 Aug 2011)
JDS 2009 42 Financing Transportation Projects of GOW
Railroads mainly financed by bonds
SOEs usually as ultimate creditors
RMB3T owed for high speed rail (how to paid off?)
Railroads in the West usually expensive Distance, landscape, geology, etc Least financially viable Chongqing underground rail line Qinghai-Tibet railway Xi’an-Nanjing railway
43 Bank Financing and the Issue of Returns
Road projects financed by bank loans
Low rate and long period of return
Local governments responsible for construction and operating costs of own section
Lower traffic flow due to distance between cities and low population density
Construction not solely for economic consideration
Sectional toll gates as commonly found along highways in China Gansu, July 2013 44 Urban Transport in West China
Motor vehicles as prime means
Traffic management can’t catch up with rapid growth in number of vehicles
Development of metro system
Common scene: Non-moving two-way traffic in Lanzhou, July, 2013
45 46 Issue of Priorities: Development vs Livelihood
Cost Items (RMB billion)
Accessible clean water 2.8 for 13m rural people
Chongqing urban mass- 3.3 transit railway, phase one 47 Automobile Boom in China (11.5 million sold in 2011)
Sale of electric / hybrid cars still at low level Only 5 679 BYD electrics sold in 2011 (hybrids: 2 580) ‘Non-starters’ in West China 48 Scott Kennedy blog Jan 2012 Civil Aviation
49 Air Transport in West China
Rail and highway (bus, truck/lorry) Well suited to the flat, compact East Expensive in the sprawling, often mountainous West
Air transportation as solution to the West? Operating costs Environmental costs
50 Air transport in West China less extensive than the East in general (not comprehensive, 51 for general picture only) Air network in Xinjiang started developing much earlier than other PLJs
52 Potential for aviation industry in West China due to its strategic location
53 Freight Energy Efficiency
Air pollution
Best: Slow boats nd 2 : Truck (130 tonne-miles per gallon) rd 3 : Normal rail (400 tonne-miles per gallon)
Worst: Airplanes CO2 emission by air freight
4 times those for lorries/trucks
38 times rail (best option for west China / Central Asia)
48.5 times ocean container shipping (best)
But for most hauls, the highway is still king
54 55 Political Economy of Pedestrian Facilities
56 Whom do transportation “improvements” benefit?
Guiyang vs Taipei
Common Scene I Decommissioned pedestrian crossing
57 Harold Lasswell's classic question – Politics: Who Gets What, When and How?
Common Scene II Pedestrian given little consideration in road planning (Urumqi)
58 Guiyang
Common Scene III Automobiles occupying pedestrian space, coupled with loose law enforcement (Guiyang)
59 Does it work?
Common Scene IV Weak sense of civil obedience
60 Common Scene V Public facilities installed on pedestrian paths (Chongqing)
JDS 2011 61 Pedestrian Street at Jiefangbei (解放碑), Chongqing From ‘liberation’- to marketization…
62 Transportation- and West China From street to sky, there are a lot issues for us to consider in respect of the subtle relationships between the ruling and the ruled Who are the real beneficiaries of infrastructural development? Would development in transportation accelerate assimilation and dependence of West China on the East (core) region? Are national integration and locality mutually exclusive? and more…
Urumqi, September 2009 (two months after riots)…
Pedestrian street in minority areas: Does it make any difference? 63 Tina Wichmann