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Caro visitante,
Os contractos que a Alstom assinou para o metro de Shanghai ja tinham sido confirmados no principio deste ano, bem como a compra de varios Airbus.
A visita de Chirac nao provocou nenhum novo contracto para a Alstom ou Airbus (que eu saiba)
Aconcelho uma leitura atenta do lemonde.fr e liberation.fr especialmente os artigos dos correspondentes da China, por um periodo de um ano.
Espero ter ajudado
Os contractos que a Alstom assinou para o metro de Shanghai ja tinham sido confirmados no principio deste ano, bem como a compra de varios Airbus.
A visita de Chirac nao provocou nenhum novo contracto para a Alstom ou Airbus (que eu saiba)
Aconcelho uma leitura atenta do lemonde.fr e liberation.fr especialmente os artigos dos correspondentes da China, por um periodo de um ano.
Espero ter ajudado
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- Mensagens: 807
- Registado: 28/9/2004 8:29
- Localização: Singapore, Saigon, Shanghai
Segundo creio ainda não foi tomada nenhuma decisão sobre a liagção alta-velocidade Pequim - Xanga...já agora deixo uns artigos interessantes sobre o projecto:
Associated Press
Chirac's China Visit Nets $5B in Business
10.11.2004, 03:10 PM
French companies were counting some $5 billion in spoils Monday after President Jacques Chirac used an official visit to China to boost economic ties, in a bid to prevent France from being left behind in the emerging Asian superpower's markets.
Chirac and his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao presided over a weekend signing ceremony in Beijing at which French companies inked more than 20 new deals with local partners.
But some struggled to hide their disappointment after the size and scope of deals fell short of expectations.
The contracts included a $1.5 billion rolling stock order for Alstom SA, the French engineering giant that is fighting its way back from near-bankruptcy with the help of a multibillion-dollar government-backed bailout.
But Chirac's trip failed to produce a deal on a major high-speed railway link planned between Beijing and Shanghai, for which Alstom's TGV trains are up against Japan's bullet train technology.
Alstom's shares fell 3.7 percent Monday to close at $0.65, with some Paris traders saying they'd hoped for a bigger order and a share of the pie for the group's troubled power turbine business.
In other deals, water and energy giant Suez SA clinched new Chinese water and waste treatment contracts worth $845 million in the eastern coastal cities of Qingdao and Shanghai. Oil company Total SA finalized a deal to build 200 gas stations.
Airbus SAS also sealed six new passenger jet orders and confirmed another 20 announced previously. But the Toulouse-based aircraft maker failed to sell the new A380 "superjumbo" to China - confounding market rumors that it was poised to announce a deal for 10 of the 555-seater jets.
"It's a hard blow," said Emmanuel Matot, aerospace analyst for Paris-based brokerage ETC Pollak Prebon. "China is where the strongest aviation growth in the world is going to be."
Over the next 20 years, Airbus sees average annual passenger traffic growth of 8.5 percent in China, compared with under 5 percent for the rest of the world.
Airbus spokeswoman Barbara Kracht conceded that time is running short for Chinese carriers to book and receive new planes ahead of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, when millions of additional visitors are expected to flock to China.
"A decision has to be made at some point," Kracht said. But she stressed that Airbus remains "confident that one day the A380 will fly in China."
Airbus said Saturday it plans to boost annual procurement in China to $120 million by 2010 from its current level of $15 million.
In terms of foreign direct investment, France still lags behind other major European partners in China - which attracted more foreign investment than the United States for the first time last year, as its economy expanded by over 9 percent in real terms.
By the end of 2003, France had invested $6.1 billion, compared with Germany's $8.9 billion and Britain's $11.4 billion, Chinese trade ministry figures show.
During his visit, which ends Tuesday, Chirac has gone out of his way to charm his hosts, quoting Chinese poetry and echoing Beijing's repeated calls for "mutual respect" in foreign relations.
Discussion of human rights abuses has been avoided, with Chirac instead discreetly handing over a list of imprisoned dissidents - played down by French officials as a routine gesture by a visiting European leader. Even the names upon it remained a secret.
The French head of state also called for an end to the European Union's arms embargo against China - imposed after the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown on student protesters in Beijing - describing it as "a measure motivated purely and simply by hostility."
EU foreign ministers failed to agree on lifting the 15-year-old embargo at a meeting in Luxembourg Monday, despite the strong French pressure.
For all France's efforts to woo China, however, its investments there are set to lag even further behind other European countries, according to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development.
The Paris-based organization estimates that French-based companies are on course to invest a further $554 million this year, with the Netherlands and Germany each investing $1.1 billion and Britain $770 million.
Business Weekly
August 17, 2004
The Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway is still at approval stage by central government, but international firms are making last ditch efforts to win the order.
The designs and schemes of the project are waiting for approval from the State Council, and then for last nod from the National People's Congress, said Sa Shuli, professor with Beijing Jiaotong University and consultant to the Ministry of Railways.
But he said it is hard to tell the exact time of the final approval.
French giant Alstom Chairman and chief executive officer Patrick Kron said in Paris that the firm is willing to transfer its "complete technology" to China, which could give Alstom a huge advantage in winning the order.
That means Alstom will help Chinese enterprises to produce the same high-tech trains as it does itself.
Earlier last month, Alstom China's vice-president Lu Yuebing said the firm is confident of winning the bid with its TGV (French high-speed train) technology.
The company is capable of providing trains carrying 1,000 passengers at a speed of 350 kilometers per hour, Lu said.
"We have a fine record of the transfer of core technologies," he said and strongly recommended Chinese policy-makers to visit South Korea to see the Korea Train eXpress (KTX).
The KTX project, which adopts TGV technology, has helped Korean companies to develop their own innovations on the basis of Alstom's technology, Lu said.
The French Government is also showing great support for the cooperation.
The upcoming visit by French President Jacques Chirac in October is believed to be a critical time for TGV technology in China, since French senior train officers will join the trip.
The reason why the project attracts so much attention lies in the huge input: more than 100 billion yuan (US$12.08 billion). It is China's second largest project in history, only after the Three Gorges Dam in terms of the investment scale.
The 1,300-kilometer passenger-only high-speed railway, will enable trains run at 250 to 300 kilometers an hour, which will reduce the travel time between Beijing and Shanghai from the current 12 hours to 4 to 5 hours.
Currently there are three options for the line: France's TGV, Japan's Shinkansen and Germany's ICE, which are perceived as the most advanced high-speed rail technologies in the world.
Behind this is a decade's competition between Alstom of France, Siemens of Germany and the Japanese consortium that produces Shinkansen.
The Japanese side is confident because of its Asian background.
"We have abundant experience in large capacity transportation and high-density operation," said a staff member with Sumitomo Corp, China Branch.
He further explained that China and Japan are similar in terms of density of population in cities.
In addition, Japan, which first developed its Shinkansen in 1959, has the longest history in developing and maintaining high-speed railways, he said.
The first Shinkansen was completed in 1964, while the high speed railways in France and Germany were finished in 1981 and 1988.
A consortium has been established by Japan's three largest trading conglomerates, Mitsubishi, Sumitomo and Mitsui, in order to win the bid. Furthermore, famous Japanese machinery manufacturers, such as Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd, Hitachi Ltd, Mitsubishi Electric Corp support the consortium with their latest technology.
"The Shinkansen operates smoothly in Taiwan, and we are confident about a success in the Chinese mainland," he said.
The German firm, Siemens AG said it is bidding for China's current railway acceleration project, which is widely seen as a prelude to the bigger deal of the Beijing-Shanghai railway order.
Dong Jianmei, a public relations staff with Siemens' railway division said the firm has been making every effort to win the order.
The winner will help China raise its train speed on five major existing railway lines to 200 kilometers per hour.
The five train lines include one between Beijing and Shenyang, Northeast China's Liaoning Province, and another to connect Qingdao and Jinan in East China's Shandong Province.
"We have been working with China's railway authorities since the 19th century, and the cooperation has been very pleasant. And we believe the Chinese government will make a wise decision (on the projects of both acceleration and Beijing-Shanghai railway)," Dong said.
While the global giants are speaking out about their advantages, the Ministry of Railways has declined to comment at the current stage, saying it is too early to say anything. They said it will inform the public as soon as result is decided.
Analysts suggest such a huge project will not be given to a single firm or a single country.
"What the ministry will do is to probably introduce part of the technology, and take advantage from various aspects," Sa said.
He said that when it comes to strategically-important projects, many factors should be considered, not only the aspect of technology, but also political and national defense factors.
"Shinkansen is advanced in terms of technology, Germany, as a traditional manufacturing country, has many companies equipped with comprehensive and complete management system, such as Siemens," he said.
France-base Alstom is also competitive in the sector, Sa said.
"For the high-speed railways, Chinese firms are only competent at laying rails, while other technologies, such as producing locomotives and cars, maintaining and operating railways and trains still rely on foreign firms," Sa said.
China currently can construct railways and produce trains with the speed of 160 kilometers per hour, and the country is accelerating the existing 73,002-kilometer-railway network, according to Sa.
The existing Beijing-Shanghai railway is under the most pressure among the whole railway network in China because of the logistics between the largest two cities in the country.
There are only two railways for the double direction. Passenger trains and freight trains run on the same rail.
The aim for passenger trains is a high speed and comfortable journey, while freight trains target carrying more cargo.
"The different targets make two types of trains sacrifice between each other, which influences the efficiency of the line. It is absolutely necessary to construct another Beijing-Shanghai railway," said Shi Lixin, director with the Institute of Economy Structure and Management of the National Development and Reform Commission.
Railways have advantages over road in land saving and large transportation capacities. Trains consume an environmentally friendly energy -- electricity -- which is cheaper than the oil that trucks and airplanes consume.
China, with the world's largest population should develop the railway network, Shi said.
The Ministry of Railways started planning the project in 1994.
There was a heated debate on introducing maglev technology on the line.
Maglev trains may deliver a speed of 450 to 500 kilometers an hour. But due to its huge cost and technology problems, the suggestion has been thrown out.
For comparison between the maglev train and a rail train, the former's construction cost for one kilometer is three times higher, but its transport capacity is only half of the latter, and the ticket price is five times higher.
There is so far no long distance maglev railway in the world.
Shi agrees with the government's cautious moves on the project, since "every aspect should be taken into consideration."
Sweating bullets over new Chinese train
By Kosuke Takahashi
May 13, 2004
SHANGHAI - The bitter wartime history between China and Japan and strengthening of Sino-French relations might trump price and technology in deciding one of the world's most lucrative engineering projects: China's high-speed rail link between Beijing and Shanghai, known as the bullet train, expected to be a centerpiece of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in China.
No one expects the contract for this high-speed railway link to hinge only on politics, but it could be one measure of how Sino-Japanese political relations work these days. The Chinese government is expected to decide on the contract in coming months;
how it decides will say a lot about pragmatic power politics in Asia. It also could have implications for China-United States relations, and even Taiwan.
The key here is twofold: One, because of China's war memories and politically sensitive issues between Japan and China, such as Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's repeated visits to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine memorializing the war dead, some in the Chinese government might want to link economics closely to politics, rather than separating the two and making a pragmatic economic decision to award Tokyo the bullet-train contract. Others argue that the expanding Sino-Japanese economic relationship is so important that the contract should be awarded to Tokyo.
Two, recently deepening Sino-French relations might mean China will award France the railway contract. In return, Paris would continue to encourage the European Union to lift the arms sales embargo against China, to the annoyance of Washington. Already, France has strongly and publicly urged lifting the embargo (imposed after the Tiananmen massacre) and supported China's claim to sovereignty over Taiwan, a move greatly appreciated by Beijing.
China first proposed the Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Railway Project in 1997. A massive national project, the cost of the approximately 1,300-kilometer railway has been estimated at 130 billion yuan (US$5.7 billion). French engineering giant Alstom's bullet train TGV, German super train Inter-City Express (ICE) and Japan's bullet train Shinkansen are vying to get the award of the tender, which is expected to be issued this year.
Recently, however, some news reports indicated that major projects, including the rail link, are on hold because of their high cost and because the Chinese economy is growing so fast that it must be dramatically cooled down. There has been no official Chinese confirmation, however, about putting the bullet-train project - part of the 2008 Olympics showcase - on hold.
In the earlier stage, Germany's Siemens' high-speed magnetic-levitation (Maglev) railway technique was poised to be a top bidder. By January, however, China had abandoned plans to use that technology in favor of less expensive conventional wheel-track trains, according to the China Daily. The Maglev cost can be as high as $45 million to $60 million per kilometer, twice that of wheel-track lines, the newspaper reported. Until then, Siemens had been a strong candidate because it had already developed the Maglev train in Shanghai, which is plying the 30km Shanghai airport link at 430 km/h, making it the world's fastest train in commercial service. German government and financial circles, however, are now touting conventional wheel-track trains, throwing Berlin's hat into the ring once again.
Shinkansen has tech, safety track record
The rail project has been viewed as a contest among Japan, Germany and France to show off their technological and operational prowess for railways. Although their operating speeds are almost the same, at about 300 km/h, Japan's Shinkansen operates with electric drive motors while the French TGV and German ICE use high-speed locomotives. In terms of energy efficiency, Shinkansen excels: its power consumption per passenger is said to be only 40-50 percent of TGV and 50-90 percent of ICE.
Shinkansen also has a long record of system safety, better than the two Europeans. It has never experienced any fatal accidents since its introduction in 1964, while an ICE derailment left 100 people dead in June 1998; a TGV derailment occurred in October 2001, leaving five people slightly injured.
Japanese and French marketing strategies in Asia have been almost dead even so far. In October, Taiwan is to inaugurate Japan's Shinkansen system between Taipei and the southern port of Kaohsiung. Alstom, on the other hand, provided most of the technology for South Korea's new high-speed train between Seoul and the southern cities of Busan and Mokpo, which was inaugurated on April 1. Meanwhile, German ICE has fallen behind in Asia in its marketing and sales.
War memories affect economic decisions
Although Shinkansen has the safety record and enhanced energy efficiency, the most troublesome issue for Japan is anti-Japanese sentiment among the Chinese. China's latent anti-Japanese feelings were especially aroused by Koizumi's repeated visits to Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine, the Shinto shrine dedicated to Japan's war dead, including class A war criminals of World War II. Chinese sentiment was also inflamed by the arrest in late March by Japanese police of seven Chinese activists who landed on one of the disputed Senkaku (called Diaoyu in China) Islands in the East China Sea. These unsettled past issues again exposed the difficulties lurking in Sino-Japanese relations (see Island feud a barometer of China-Japan ties, May 6).
Moreover, the older Chinese generations, who remember the South Manchuria Railway Co founded by the Japanese military government in 1906 after the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05), are said to oppose any Japanese trains running on the Chinese mainland. Some Chinese are carrying out an Internet petition campaign in a bid to thwart the Beijing's possible adoption of Japan's Shinkansen. Chinese popular resistance would be a visible and measurable challenge for both Chinese and Japanese governments in the coming months.
Indeed, Japan's wartime history has cost Japan at least one other lucrative contract. Tokyo failed to win the Korean bullet train contract because of the wartime comfort-women issue, in the spotlight around 1993. During the war, Korean and other Asian women were rounded up and kept in brothels for Japanese troops; South Korea sought an official apology. The issue became a major diplomatic problem between Seoul and Tokyo, and Japan lost out on the train contract. Today Japanese business leaders and bureaucrats do not want history to repeat itself in China with the bullet train.
Strengthening Sino-China relations
Meanwhile, China and France appear keen to expand their relations. To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between the two countries, France is now holding "China Year" and China is reciprocating with one for France. Proclaiming their affinity to the rest of the world, the French government invited Chinese President Hu Jintao as a state guest to Paris this past January. Moreover, just before the Taiwan presidential election in March, France and China conducted their first-ever joint naval military exercises.
For China, behind this recent diplomatic warmth is the Taiwan problem. China aims to encourage France further to lift the EU embargo on arms exports to China, which would concern the US because it might destabilize the regional strategic arrangement in North Asia and enhance China's ability to attack Taiwan. Beijing calls Taiwan a renegade province; many in Taiwan, however, consider themselves distinct from China and a separate, sovereign nation. China has not ruled out the use of force at some point to reunify Taiwan and the mainland.
Paris expects that close relations with Beijing would bring new business opportunities to its military-industrial complex, including Airbus Industrie, the major rival of the US aircraft maker Boeing in the world's skyliner markets. Other commercial, non-military benefits would also flow to France. Furthermore, France needs to secure strong support from China over the location of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project, the world's first sustained nuclear fusion reactor venture. It also involves Japan, China, the European Union, Russia, South Korea, and the United States.
Japan and France are currently bidding to build the ITER reactor, and China's support is crucial. The US and South Korea are supporting Japan, while China and Russia support France. The support of China remains a key factor in realizing the international project for either Japan or France. Negotiations at the vice-ministerial level are expected to be held late this month, possibly in Vienna, but the final decision is not expected to be reached in the near future.
Besides these factors, the underlying common interests and factors that unite France and China appear to be their strategies to seek a genuinely multipolar world, to offset and counterbalance US President George W Bush's pursuit of unilateralism, especially in the US-led war in Iraq. French President Jacques Chirac even invited Hu to address in France's lower chamber of parliament, a major honor, although more than half the 577 members of that chamber did not turn up - apparently to demonstrate their distaste for China's human-rights record.
Germany should not be counted out of the running in the rail project. Early this month, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao paid an official visit to Germany and reportedly discussed the project, among other issues, with German President Johannes Rau.
Might China's largest transportation artery boil down to pure economics or politics cloaked conveniently in nationalism? Early this month, one Shanghai-based Chinese journalist said, on condition of anonymity, "The Chinese government wants to award it to Japan, but they will give Japan severe competition up to the last minute, because they want Japan to pay for the railway costs as much as possible, reducing [the] Chinese burden."
China keenly interested in train technology
Japan is willing to sell China both software and hardware for Shinkansen, that is, compartments, signals and a traffic-control system, which Japanese officials believe essential to run Shinkansen safely in another country. But China is reportedly interested mainly in buying any kind of technology, expecting the nation's enhanced domestic production system to suffice in the future for the hardware. France and Germany, however, may be more amenable to China's emphasis on technology over hardware.
Japanese bureaucrats and business leaders envisage Japan's bullet trains not only linking Beijing and Shanghai but also crossing the Chinese mainland, just as the bullet trains have covered Japan's main island Honshu with a network of lines connecting Tokyo with most of the island's major cities and Fukuoka on the island of Kyushu. Experts estimate China's railways would eventually total 8,000-10,000km, four to five times as long as the network served by Shinkansen in Japan.
Japanese leaders too have been busy selling Shinkansen to China. In April 2003, the Japan Business Federation, or Keidanren, established the internal promotion committee on China's high-speed rail link, which consists of 39 Japanese companies including trading houses Mitsubishi Corp and Marubeni Corp.
"We have been offering the expertise to the Chinese government [for] more than 20 years and will continue to do so," Masato Ohno, director of international affairs at Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transportation, told Asia Times Online. "Although Japan is in a difficult situation due to political matters, we hope the Chinese government will decide the winner in an objectively reasonable way by thinking about their long-term national interest."
But China's bullet-train issue has already become involved in world politics; whether economic objectivity is possible remains to be seen.
Kosuke Takahashi is a former staff writer at the Asahi Shimbun and is currently a freelance correspondent based in Tokyo. He can be contacted at kosuke_everonward@ybb.ne.jp.
(Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for information on our sales and syndication policies.)
Associated Press
Chirac's China Visit Nets $5B in Business
10.11.2004, 03:10 PM
French companies were counting some $5 billion in spoils Monday after President Jacques Chirac used an official visit to China to boost economic ties, in a bid to prevent France from being left behind in the emerging Asian superpower's markets.
Chirac and his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao presided over a weekend signing ceremony in Beijing at which French companies inked more than 20 new deals with local partners.
But some struggled to hide their disappointment after the size and scope of deals fell short of expectations.
The contracts included a $1.5 billion rolling stock order for Alstom SA, the French engineering giant that is fighting its way back from near-bankruptcy with the help of a multibillion-dollar government-backed bailout.
But Chirac's trip failed to produce a deal on a major high-speed railway link planned between Beijing and Shanghai, for which Alstom's TGV trains are up against Japan's bullet train technology.
Alstom's shares fell 3.7 percent Monday to close at $0.65, with some Paris traders saying they'd hoped for a bigger order and a share of the pie for the group's troubled power turbine business.
In other deals, water and energy giant Suez SA clinched new Chinese water and waste treatment contracts worth $845 million in the eastern coastal cities of Qingdao and Shanghai. Oil company Total SA finalized a deal to build 200 gas stations.
Airbus SAS also sealed six new passenger jet orders and confirmed another 20 announced previously. But the Toulouse-based aircraft maker failed to sell the new A380 "superjumbo" to China - confounding market rumors that it was poised to announce a deal for 10 of the 555-seater jets.
"It's a hard blow," said Emmanuel Matot, aerospace analyst for Paris-based brokerage ETC Pollak Prebon. "China is where the strongest aviation growth in the world is going to be."
Over the next 20 years, Airbus sees average annual passenger traffic growth of 8.5 percent in China, compared with under 5 percent for the rest of the world.
Airbus spokeswoman Barbara Kracht conceded that time is running short for Chinese carriers to book and receive new planes ahead of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, when millions of additional visitors are expected to flock to China.
"A decision has to be made at some point," Kracht said. But she stressed that Airbus remains "confident that one day the A380 will fly in China."
Airbus said Saturday it plans to boost annual procurement in China to $120 million by 2010 from its current level of $15 million.
In terms of foreign direct investment, France still lags behind other major European partners in China - which attracted more foreign investment than the United States for the first time last year, as its economy expanded by over 9 percent in real terms.
By the end of 2003, France had invested $6.1 billion, compared with Germany's $8.9 billion and Britain's $11.4 billion, Chinese trade ministry figures show.
During his visit, which ends Tuesday, Chirac has gone out of his way to charm his hosts, quoting Chinese poetry and echoing Beijing's repeated calls for "mutual respect" in foreign relations.
Discussion of human rights abuses has been avoided, with Chirac instead discreetly handing over a list of imprisoned dissidents - played down by French officials as a routine gesture by a visiting European leader. Even the names upon it remained a secret.
The French head of state also called for an end to the European Union's arms embargo against China - imposed after the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown on student protesters in Beijing - describing it as "a measure motivated purely and simply by hostility."
EU foreign ministers failed to agree on lifting the 15-year-old embargo at a meeting in Luxembourg Monday, despite the strong French pressure.
For all France's efforts to woo China, however, its investments there are set to lag even further behind other European countries, according to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development.
The Paris-based organization estimates that French-based companies are on course to invest a further $554 million this year, with the Netherlands and Germany each investing $1.1 billion and Britain $770 million.
Business Weekly
August 17, 2004
The Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway is still at approval stage by central government, but international firms are making last ditch efforts to win the order.
The designs and schemes of the project are waiting for approval from the State Council, and then for last nod from the National People's Congress, said Sa Shuli, professor with Beijing Jiaotong University and consultant to the Ministry of Railways.
But he said it is hard to tell the exact time of the final approval.
French giant Alstom Chairman and chief executive officer Patrick Kron said in Paris that the firm is willing to transfer its "complete technology" to China, which could give Alstom a huge advantage in winning the order.
That means Alstom will help Chinese enterprises to produce the same high-tech trains as it does itself.
Earlier last month, Alstom China's vice-president Lu Yuebing said the firm is confident of winning the bid with its TGV (French high-speed train) technology.
The company is capable of providing trains carrying 1,000 passengers at a speed of 350 kilometers per hour, Lu said.
"We have a fine record of the transfer of core technologies," he said and strongly recommended Chinese policy-makers to visit South Korea to see the Korea Train eXpress (KTX).
The KTX project, which adopts TGV technology, has helped Korean companies to develop their own innovations on the basis of Alstom's technology, Lu said.
The French Government is also showing great support for the cooperation.
The upcoming visit by French President Jacques Chirac in October is believed to be a critical time for TGV technology in China, since French senior train officers will join the trip.
The reason why the project attracts so much attention lies in the huge input: more than 100 billion yuan (US$12.08 billion). It is China's second largest project in history, only after the Three Gorges Dam in terms of the investment scale.
The 1,300-kilometer passenger-only high-speed railway, will enable trains run at 250 to 300 kilometers an hour, which will reduce the travel time between Beijing and Shanghai from the current 12 hours to 4 to 5 hours.
Currently there are three options for the line: France's TGV, Japan's Shinkansen and Germany's ICE, which are perceived as the most advanced high-speed rail technologies in the world.
Behind this is a decade's competition between Alstom of France, Siemens of Germany and the Japanese consortium that produces Shinkansen.
The Japanese side is confident because of its Asian background.
"We have abundant experience in large capacity transportation and high-density operation," said a staff member with Sumitomo Corp, China Branch.
He further explained that China and Japan are similar in terms of density of population in cities.
In addition, Japan, which first developed its Shinkansen in 1959, has the longest history in developing and maintaining high-speed railways, he said.
The first Shinkansen was completed in 1964, while the high speed railways in France and Germany were finished in 1981 and 1988.
A consortium has been established by Japan's three largest trading conglomerates, Mitsubishi, Sumitomo and Mitsui, in order to win the bid. Furthermore, famous Japanese machinery manufacturers, such as Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd, Hitachi Ltd, Mitsubishi Electric Corp support the consortium with their latest technology.
"The Shinkansen operates smoothly in Taiwan, and we are confident about a success in the Chinese mainland," he said.
The German firm, Siemens AG said it is bidding for China's current railway acceleration project, which is widely seen as a prelude to the bigger deal of the Beijing-Shanghai railway order.
Dong Jianmei, a public relations staff with Siemens' railway division said the firm has been making every effort to win the order.
The winner will help China raise its train speed on five major existing railway lines to 200 kilometers per hour.
The five train lines include one between Beijing and Shenyang, Northeast China's Liaoning Province, and another to connect Qingdao and Jinan in East China's Shandong Province.
"We have been working with China's railway authorities since the 19th century, and the cooperation has been very pleasant. And we believe the Chinese government will make a wise decision (on the projects of both acceleration and Beijing-Shanghai railway)," Dong said.
While the global giants are speaking out about their advantages, the Ministry of Railways has declined to comment at the current stage, saying it is too early to say anything. They said it will inform the public as soon as result is decided.
Analysts suggest such a huge project will not be given to a single firm or a single country.
"What the ministry will do is to probably introduce part of the technology, and take advantage from various aspects," Sa said.
He said that when it comes to strategically-important projects, many factors should be considered, not only the aspect of technology, but also political and national defense factors.
"Shinkansen is advanced in terms of technology, Germany, as a traditional manufacturing country, has many companies equipped with comprehensive and complete management system, such as Siemens," he said.
France-base Alstom is also competitive in the sector, Sa said.
"For the high-speed railways, Chinese firms are only competent at laying rails, while other technologies, such as producing locomotives and cars, maintaining and operating railways and trains still rely on foreign firms," Sa said.
China currently can construct railways and produce trains with the speed of 160 kilometers per hour, and the country is accelerating the existing 73,002-kilometer-railway network, according to Sa.
The existing Beijing-Shanghai railway is under the most pressure among the whole railway network in China because of the logistics between the largest two cities in the country.
There are only two railways for the double direction. Passenger trains and freight trains run on the same rail.
The aim for passenger trains is a high speed and comfortable journey, while freight trains target carrying more cargo.
"The different targets make two types of trains sacrifice between each other, which influences the efficiency of the line. It is absolutely necessary to construct another Beijing-Shanghai railway," said Shi Lixin, director with the Institute of Economy Structure and Management of the National Development and Reform Commission.
Railways have advantages over road in land saving and large transportation capacities. Trains consume an environmentally friendly energy -- electricity -- which is cheaper than the oil that trucks and airplanes consume.
China, with the world's largest population should develop the railway network, Shi said.
The Ministry of Railways started planning the project in 1994.
There was a heated debate on introducing maglev technology on the line.
Maglev trains may deliver a speed of 450 to 500 kilometers an hour. But due to its huge cost and technology problems, the suggestion has been thrown out.
For comparison between the maglev train and a rail train, the former's construction cost for one kilometer is three times higher, but its transport capacity is only half of the latter, and the ticket price is five times higher.
There is so far no long distance maglev railway in the world.
Shi agrees with the government's cautious moves on the project, since "every aspect should be taken into consideration."
Sweating bullets over new Chinese train
By Kosuke Takahashi
May 13, 2004
SHANGHAI - The bitter wartime history between China and Japan and strengthening of Sino-French relations might trump price and technology in deciding one of the world's most lucrative engineering projects: China's high-speed rail link between Beijing and Shanghai, known as the bullet train, expected to be a centerpiece of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in China.
No one expects the contract for this high-speed railway link to hinge only on politics, but it could be one measure of how Sino-Japanese political relations work these days. The Chinese government is expected to decide on the contract in coming months;
how it decides will say a lot about pragmatic power politics in Asia. It also could have implications for China-United States relations, and even Taiwan.
The key here is twofold: One, because of China's war memories and politically sensitive issues between Japan and China, such as Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's repeated visits to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine memorializing the war dead, some in the Chinese government might want to link economics closely to politics, rather than separating the two and making a pragmatic economic decision to award Tokyo the bullet-train contract. Others argue that the expanding Sino-Japanese economic relationship is so important that the contract should be awarded to Tokyo.
Two, recently deepening Sino-French relations might mean China will award France the railway contract. In return, Paris would continue to encourage the European Union to lift the arms sales embargo against China, to the annoyance of Washington. Already, France has strongly and publicly urged lifting the embargo (imposed after the Tiananmen massacre) and supported China's claim to sovereignty over Taiwan, a move greatly appreciated by Beijing.
China first proposed the Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Railway Project in 1997. A massive national project, the cost of the approximately 1,300-kilometer railway has been estimated at 130 billion yuan (US$5.7 billion). French engineering giant Alstom's bullet train TGV, German super train Inter-City Express (ICE) and Japan's bullet train Shinkansen are vying to get the award of the tender, which is expected to be issued this year.
Recently, however, some news reports indicated that major projects, including the rail link, are on hold because of their high cost and because the Chinese economy is growing so fast that it must be dramatically cooled down. There has been no official Chinese confirmation, however, about putting the bullet-train project - part of the 2008 Olympics showcase - on hold.
In the earlier stage, Germany's Siemens' high-speed magnetic-levitation (Maglev) railway technique was poised to be a top bidder. By January, however, China had abandoned plans to use that technology in favor of less expensive conventional wheel-track trains, according to the China Daily. The Maglev cost can be as high as $45 million to $60 million per kilometer, twice that of wheel-track lines, the newspaper reported. Until then, Siemens had been a strong candidate because it had already developed the Maglev train in Shanghai, which is plying the 30km Shanghai airport link at 430 km/h, making it the world's fastest train in commercial service. German government and financial circles, however, are now touting conventional wheel-track trains, throwing Berlin's hat into the ring once again.
Shinkansen has tech, safety track record
The rail project has been viewed as a contest among Japan, Germany and France to show off their technological and operational prowess for railways. Although their operating speeds are almost the same, at about 300 km/h, Japan's Shinkansen operates with electric drive motors while the French TGV and German ICE use high-speed locomotives. In terms of energy efficiency, Shinkansen excels: its power consumption per passenger is said to be only 40-50 percent of TGV and 50-90 percent of ICE.
Shinkansen also has a long record of system safety, better than the two Europeans. It has never experienced any fatal accidents since its introduction in 1964, while an ICE derailment left 100 people dead in June 1998; a TGV derailment occurred in October 2001, leaving five people slightly injured.
Japanese and French marketing strategies in Asia have been almost dead even so far. In October, Taiwan is to inaugurate Japan's Shinkansen system between Taipei and the southern port of Kaohsiung. Alstom, on the other hand, provided most of the technology for South Korea's new high-speed train between Seoul and the southern cities of Busan and Mokpo, which was inaugurated on April 1. Meanwhile, German ICE has fallen behind in Asia in its marketing and sales.
War memories affect economic decisions
Although Shinkansen has the safety record and enhanced energy efficiency, the most troublesome issue for Japan is anti-Japanese sentiment among the Chinese. China's latent anti-Japanese feelings were especially aroused by Koizumi's repeated visits to Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine, the Shinto shrine dedicated to Japan's war dead, including class A war criminals of World War II. Chinese sentiment was also inflamed by the arrest in late March by Japanese police of seven Chinese activists who landed on one of the disputed Senkaku (called Diaoyu in China) Islands in the East China Sea. These unsettled past issues again exposed the difficulties lurking in Sino-Japanese relations (see Island feud a barometer of China-Japan ties, May 6).
Moreover, the older Chinese generations, who remember the South Manchuria Railway Co founded by the Japanese military government in 1906 after the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05), are said to oppose any Japanese trains running on the Chinese mainland. Some Chinese are carrying out an Internet petition campaign in a bid to thwart the Beijing's possible adoption of Japan's Shinkansen. Chinese popular resistance would be a visible and measurable challenge for both Chinese and Japanese governments in the coming months.
Indeed, Japan's wartime history has cost Japan at least one other lucrative contract. Tokyo failed to win the Korean bullet train contract because of the wartime comfort-women issue, in the spotlight around 1993. During the war, Korean and other Asian women were rounded up and kept in brothels for Japanese troops; South Korea sought an official apology. The issue became a major diplomatic problem between Seoul and Tokyo, and Japan lost out on the train contract. Today Japanese business leaders and bureaucrats do not want history to repeat itself in China with the bullet train.
Strengthening Sino-China relations
Meanwhile, China and France appear keen to expand their relations. To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between the two countries, France is now holding "China Year" and China is reciprocating with one for France. Proclaiming their affinity to the rest of the world, the French government invited Chinese President Hu Jintao as a state guest to Paris this past January. Moreover, just before the Taiwan presidential election in March, France and China conducted their first-ever joint naval military exercises.
For China, behind this recent diplomatic warmth is the Taiwan problem. China aims to encourage France further to lift the EU embargo on arms exports to China, which would concern the US because it might destabilize the regional strategic arrangement in North Asia and enhance China's ability to attack Taiwan. Beijing calls Taiwan a renegade province; many in Taiwan, however, consider themselves distinct from China and a separate, sovereign nation. China has not ruled out the use of force at some point to reunify Taiwan and the mainland.
Paris expects that close relations with Beijing would bring new business opportunities to its military-industrial complex, including Airbus Industrie, the major rival of the US aircraft maker Boeing in the world's skyliner markets. Other commercial, non-military benefits would also flow to France. Furthermore, France needs to secure strong support from China over the location of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project, the world's first sustained nuclear fusion reactor venture. It also involves Japan, China, the European Union, Russia, South Korea, and the United States.
Japan and France are currently bidding to build the ITER reactor, and China's support is crucial. The US and South Korea are supporting Japan, while China and Russia support France. The support of China remains a key factor in realizing the international project for either Japan or France. Negotiations at the vice-ministerial level are expected to be held late this month, possibly in Vienna, but the final decision is not expected to be reached in the near future.
Besides these factors, the underlying common interests and factors that unite France and China appear to be their strategies to seek a genuinely multipolar world, to offset and counterbalance US President George W Bush's pursuit of unilateralism, especially in the US-led war in Iraq. French President Jacques Chirac even invited Hu to address in France's lower chamber of parliament, a major honor, although more than half the 577 members of that chamber did not turn up - apparently to demonstrate their distaste for China's human-rights record.
Germany should not be counted out of the running in the rail project. Early this month, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao paid an official visit to Germany and reportedly discussed the project, among other issues, with German President Johannes Rau.
Might China's largest transportation artery boil down to pure economics or politics cloaked conveniently in nationalism? Early this month, one Shanghai-based Chinese journalist said, on condition of anonymity, "The Chinese government wants to award it to Japan, but they will give Japan severe competition up to the last minute, because they want Japan to pay for the railway costs as much as possible, reducing [the] Chinese burden."
China keenly interested in train technology
Japan is willing to sell China both software and hardware for Shinkansen, that is, compartments, signals and a traffic-control system, which Japanese officials believe essential to run Shinkansen safely in another country. But China is reportedly interested mainly in buying any kind of technology, expecting the nation's enhanced domestic production system to suffice in the future for the hardware. France and Germany, however, may be more amenable to China's emphasis on technology over hardware.
Japanese bureaucrats and business leaders envisage Japan's bullet trains not only linking Beijing and Shanghai but also crossing the Chinese mainland, just as the bullet trains have covered Japan's main island Honshu with a network of lines connecting Tokyo with most of the island's major cities and Fukuoka on the island of Kyushu. Experts estimate China's railways would eventually total 8,000-10,000km, four to five times as long as the network served by Shinkansen in Japan.
Japanese leaders too have been busy selling Shinkansen to China. In April 2003, the Japan Business Federation, or Keidanren, established the internal promotion committee on China's high-speed rail link, which consists of 39 Japanese companies including trading houses Mitsubishi Corp and Marubeni Corp.
"We have been offering the expertise to the Chinese government [for] more than 20 years and will continue to do so," Masato Ohno, director of international affairs at Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transportation, told Asia Times Online. "Although Japan is in a difficult situation due to political matters, we hope the Chinese government will decide the winner in an objectively reasonable way by thinking about their long-term national interest."
But China's bullet-train issue has already become involved in world politics; whether economic objectivity is possible remains to be seen.
Kosuke Takahashi is a former staff writer at the Asahi Shimbun and is currently a freelance correspondent based in Tokyo. He can be contacted at kosuke_everonward@ybb.ne.jp.
(Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for information on our sales and syndication policies.)
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