High-Speed Rail: The Real Estate Express in China China’s high-speed rail (HSR) network spans an impressive 48,000 kilometers, the largest in the world. Yet, behind the gleaming trains and modern stations, there’s a stark reality: over 90% of these lines are operating at a loss. , page 240

High-Speed Rail: The Real Estate Express in China

China’s high-speed rail (HSR) network spans an impressive 48,000 kilometers, the largest in the world. Yet, behind the gleaming trains and modern stations, there’s a stark reality: over 90% of these lines are operating at a loss. How did China come to invest so heavily in an unprofitable system? The answer lies in local governments’ obsession with land speculation.

The Real Investor Behind HSR

While China State Railway Group Co., Ltd. (China Railway Group) is the face of HSR construction, local governments are the ones shouldering most of the financial burden—more than half of the total investment in many cases. The China Railway Group itself is drowning in RMB 6 trillion (USD 830 billion) of debt, but that pales in comparison to the debt-fueled spending spree of local governments. Goldman Sachs estimates Chinese local government debt at close to 100 trillion (USD 14 trillion), or about 80% of Chinese GDP.

Stations Far from the Action: A Speculator’s Dream

Why are so many HSR stations located in the middle of nowhere, often tens of miles from city centers? It’s not poor planning—it’s a deliberate strategy. Local governments designate rural areas as “new development zones,” build HSR stations there, and seize surrounding farmland at low cost. They then auction off the land to developers at inflated prices, hoping for a financial windfall. This speculative cycle, not transport efficiency, has often dictated station placement.

The Debt Time Bomb

This land-fueled model worked well in China’s booming real estate market. Land sales funded HSR projects and propped up local budgets. But as the real estate market cooled after COVID, the cracks began to show. With dwindling land revenue, local governments are now grappling with unsustainable debt levels, making HSR investments look increasingly precarious.

The HSR Legacy

High-speed rail in China was never just about transportation. It was about local governments leveraging the tracks to turbocharge land sales. But with China’s real estate bubble effectively burst, this strategy has lost its momentum. Instead of the financial windfall they hoped for, local governments are left with debt—and a high-speed rail network that, while impressive, is struggling to pay for itself.

In the end, China’s high-speed rail wasn’t just about connecting cities; it was about connecting government coffers to a fleeting real estate boom. Now, as the bubble deflates, the trains keep running—but the bill is coming due.

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For 700 years, the Japanese have been producing wood without cutting down trees. In the 14th century, the extraordinary daisugi technique was developed in Japan.
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有趣
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Another woman in the video is Adelina Zhang (张宁), who has been serving as hosts in various 🇨🇳 state events in the UK for years. She’s also worked with Newton Leng, the man who yelled at Brendan in the video.
h/t
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时政
( www.sohu.com)

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时政
( twitter.com)

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时政
( twitter.com)

🚨👇🏿🚨

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These are the same Democrats that want this material IN OUR KIDS' SCHOOLS. Please spare me the outrage.
时政
( twitter.com)

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In all hotels in the world where Ruzzians stay, it is necessary to introduce a rule: check their suitcases before leaving. And bathrooms, suddenly they like the toilet.
时政
( twitter.com)

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时政
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#Zhuozhou, the town engulfed by a flood to save #Beijing. Here's our report on our trip there. "There has been some resentment in Hebei Province that they had to take the brunt of this potentially deadly flood to control the crisis in the capital..."
时政
( www.bbc.com)

Three more replications of diamagnetism in LK-99

A re-cap of who they are and where to find them:

working out of the
laboratories has replicated the apparent diamagnetic properties of LK-99 in the video attached. He did so following the recipe…
时政
( twitter.com)

One evening, while walking along the riverbed of the Myakka River State Park in Sarasota, Florida, photographer Larry Lynch came across a group of alligators.

This is the result of setting his flash on the lowest setting to give just a tiny bit of light

有趣
( lynchphotos.com)

This is the Graffito of Esmet-Akhom, the last known inscription written in Egyptian hieroglyphs, dated to 394 CE, essentially marking the end of a 3400 year-old civilization, talking about a period when the Roman Empire was close to an end too

[read more:…
有趣
( twitter.com)

NASA only uses 15 digits of π for calculating interplanetary travel. At 40 digits, you could calculate the circumference of a circle the size of the visible universe with an accuracy that'd fall off by less than the diameter of a single hydrogen atom
有趣
( ow.ly)

Ta Prohm is a temple at Angkor, Cambodia, built in the late 12th & early 13th centuries. Huge trees, reminiscent of ancient redwoods and oaks, are blended into the walls, and rocks hugging the giant roots gives the temple a surreal appearance [read more: ]
有趣
( buff.ly)

The Dakota fire pit is an efficient, simple fire design where the fire burns from the top downward, drawing a steady, laminar stream of fresh air from the air hole as it burns, achieving near complete combustion with little or no seen smoke

[read more: ]
有趣
( buff.ly)

A lot of folks in the comments are rightly mentioning the land component, that's part of my point.

New land prices have risen 214% in Sydney (per sqm) in the past decade.

This is part of the lesson and needed change I was alluding to.
时政
( twitter.com)

Back in 2022 the Albanese government pledged to build 1m homes over the next 5 years.

It came up enormously short of that so far.

So its moving the goal posts for now 1.2m homes to be built in the 5 years from July 2024.

时政
( www.smh.com.au)

I met with and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Charles Brown.

I thanked the US for its unwavering support and the latest military aid package.

As winter approaches, it’s critical to strengthen Ukraine’s air defense to protect our military, people, and economy.
时政
( twitter.com)

Castle Combe; often named as the ‘Prettiest Village in England' :

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The village has a rich history and the houses are made up of the honey coloured…
时政
( twitter.com)

Happy birthday to Marie Skłodowska Curie, who was born on this day in 1867!

Marie Curie was the first person to be awarded the Nobel Prize twice, and is still the only individual to receive the prize in two different science categories.

Find out more:
时政
( bit.ly)