In recent years, the construction of China's high-speed rail, which had slowed down, has once again accelerated.

From 2012 to August 2024, China's fixed asset investment in railways has reached 9.65 trillion yuan, with the operational mileage of high-speed rail exceeding the total operational mileage of all other countries in the world.

It has played a key role in improving transportation efficiency and driving economic growth.

From January to August this year, China's fixed asset investment in railways reached 410.2 billion yuan, with a year-on-year growth rate of 10.5%, the highest in the past decade.

Based on this growth rate, it is estimated that the total fixed investment in railways for the year is expected to reach around 840 billion yuan, setting a new record.

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What signal does this historic turning point release?

Not long ago, during the fiercely competitive US election, presidential candidate Donald Trump said to Tesla CEO Elon Musk in a live broadcast on social media: "It's unreasonable for the United States to have no high-speed rail."

"High-speed trains... are incredibly fast and incredibly comfortable... and our country doesn't have anything like that, not even close."

An embarrassing record is that the mileage of the US high-speed rail is approximately 488 meters.

In Fresno, California, there stands an overpass about 488 meters long, which took 3 years to build, cost 1 billion US dollars, and was completed in 2018, but has been waiting for the "first high-speed rail system in the United States" project to reach both ends... On the other side of the Pacific, the world's largest high-speed rail network is still accelerating construction.

Recently, with the opening of the "Meizhou to Longchuan West section" of the Longlong High-speed Rail in Guangdong, China's railway business mileage officially exceeded 160,000 kilometers, of which the high-speed rail business mileage exceeded 46,000 kilometers, respectively increasing by 64.2% and 392.2% compared to the end of 2012.

If you broaden your horizons, you will find that on the vast territory of China, the "infrastructure mania" is still desperately building high-speed rail, reshaping the mountains and rivers.

Major news of high-speed rail construction continues to come, profoundly affecting China's economic pattern: On September 4, the Jingjing High-speed Rail started joint debugging and testing, and after opening at the end of the year, Hubei will become the 10th province in China with "high-speed rail in every city"; On September 6, China's second privately-owned high-speed rail - Hangzhou-Wenzhou High-speed Rail started operation, and Zhejiang achieved the "one-hour traffic circle in the province"; On September 11, the century project "Yangtze River High-speed Rail" - Shanghai-Chongqing-Chengdu High-speed Rail construction achieved a breakthrough, and the difficult project Tongtaiyang Bridge across the Beijing-Shanghai Expressway was successfully closed... Why does China still desperately invest in and build expensive high-speed rail, even in many "poor and remote areas"?

Why is high-speed rail construction still extremely important at the end of the "big infrastructure era", with large-scale and breakthrough "century projects" appearing one after another?

Why open up high-speed rail investment to private capital to further accelerate the construction of important branch networks?

The "big construction of high-speed rail" has a deep meaning behind it, not just transportation and investment.

In fact, it not only hides China's far-reaching plan to accelerate the construction of a unified national market, but also plays a key role in the game of big powers.

Let's first look at the most important high-speed rail - the "Yangtze River High-speed Rail", which can be called the main artery of China's east-west high-speed rail.

Its full name is Shanghai-Chongqing-Chengdu High-speed Rail, starting from Baoshan Station in Shanghai and ending at Chengdu Station in Sichuan, with a total line length of about 2,100 kilometers and a design speed of 350 kilometers per hour.

The first section was officially started on September 25, 2021, and is expected to be fully connected by 2030.

How important is this high-speed rail?

You can tell by the provinces and cities it connects.

Although the name contains "river", the "Yangtze River High-speed Rail" is not built along the Yangtze River bank.

The "river" here refers to the entire Yangtze River economic belt.

It passes through Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Hubei, Sichuan and other 5 provinces, as well as Shanghai, Chongqing and other 2 municipalities directly under the Central Government, and the top 10 cities in China's economy along the line include Shanghai, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Nanjing, Wuhan, Chongqing, Chengdu and other 7 cities, which are absolutely important.

This "century project" is expected to have a total investment of more than 560 billion yuan, equivalent to building 4.5 Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridges, 5 Wuhan-Guangzhou High-speed Rails, and 12 Shenzhen-Zhongshan channels.

After completion, the "time-space compression" effect brought about is also extremely amazing.

Now, if you take the high-speed rail from Chengdu to Shanghai, it takes the fastest 11 hours and 11 minutes.

After the completion of the "Yangtze River High-speed Rail"?

It is directly reduced to 6.8 hours!

The original one-way time can almost be a round trip.

It will connect the three major urban agglomerations of the Yangtze River Delta, the Yangtze River Middle Reaches Urban Agglomeration, and the Chengdu-Chongqing Double City Economic Circle, benefiting the areas along the coast: in Jiangsu, the Yangtze River High-speed Rail will include Taizhou, achieving the full coverage of high-speed rail in the five cities in the north of Jiangsu, and narrowing the gap between the north and south of Jiangsu; in Anhui, it will continue to strengthen the status of the transportation hub, achieving "33 minutes from Hefei to Nanjing"; in the Chengdu-Chongqing area, it will accept the economic radiation of the Yangtze River Delta through the Yangtze River High-speed Rail, and also strengthen the deep integration and development of the double cities...

The design speed of the entire line is 350 kilometers per hour, which is the highest level that China's high-speed railways can achieve in design.

In the section from Dazu Stone Carving Station to Jianzhou Station of the Chengdu-Chongqing Central Line High-speed Rail, the condition of 400 kilometers per hour is reserved, leaving room for further acceleration.

Such a huge move is more extraordinary for Anhui, Hubei, Sichuan and Chongqing, which have more underdeveloped areas along the line.

Cities with strong momentum such as Hefei, Huzhou, and Yibin also have the opportunity to rise with the trend.

High-speed rail is still a very important "accelerator" for China's economy.

If the "Yangtze River Expressway" changes the entire Yangtze River economic belt, then for Guangdong, the economic powerhouse of China, the significance of high-speed rail is even more special: it is a key link to change the pattern of "poor Guangdong, rich Guangdong", and a bridge to "common prosperity".

Recently, the Meilong High-speed Rail, which is less than 100 kilometers long, was opened, making up for the important "short board" of Guangdong's high-speed rail network.

After opening, it is no longer necessary to detour around Chaoshan from Meizhou in the northeast of Guangdong to Shenzhen and Guangzhou.

The fastest time from Meizhou West Station to Guangzhou East and Shenzhen North Station is 1 hour and 47 minutes, and 1 hour and 36 minutes, respectively, reducing the time by 2 hours and 5 minutes, and 1 hour and 2 minutes.

Meizhou officially joined the "2-hour high-speed rail circle" of Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

So far, the two "high-speed rail circles" of large and small in the land of southern Guangdong have also been officially "connected", and the business mileage of Guangdong's high-speed rail is approaching 3,000 kilometers, once again leading the country.

The Meilong High-speed Rail, Mei-Shantou High-speed Rail, Gan-Dong High-speed Rail, Xiamen-Shenzhen High-speed Rail, and Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong High-speed Rail Guangzhou-Dong Section form a large circle - G8446, from Guangzhou East to Guangzhou South; G8445, from Guangzhou South to Guangzhou East.

This "Guangdong Grand Loop" with a total distance of nearly 6 hours has passed through Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Dongguan, Huizhou, Heyuan, Meizhou, Jieyang, Chaozhou, Shantou, and Shanwei, connecting 10 cities into a chain.

At the same time, the Meilong and Mei-Shantou lines are connected with the Gan-Dong High-speed Rail and Hang-Dong line, starting and ending in Shantou, with D7322 and D7324 leaving in opposite directions, passing through Shantou, Shanwei, Shenzhen, Dongguan, Huizhou, Meizhou, Jieyang, and Chaozhou, forming the "Eastern Guangdong Small Loop".

So far, Guangdong has officially entered the "Circular High-speed Rail" era, covering high-speed rail to the "poorest places".

It is important to know that as the first economic province in the country, there is a significant difference in the level of economic development between the eastern, western, and northern parts of Guangdong and the Pearl River Delta.

For example, Meizhou's total economic output is ranked fourth from the bottom in the province, only 1/24 of Shenzhen's.

In recent years, policies such as the "high-quality development project of thousands of counties, towns, and villages", industrial transfer in the Pearl River Delta, flyover economy, and targeted assistance from Guangzhou and Shenzhen have been implemented to achieve coordinated regional development by the strong leading the weak.

Now, the opening of the "circular high-speed rail" directly radiates the development dividend to the eastern, western, and northern parts of Guangdong.

Activating the eastern, western, and northern parts of Guangdong to "keep pace" with the Pearl River Delta is exactly the strategic pattern that Guangdong is thinking about.

In fact, there are definitely not a few provinces that are desperately building high-speed rail like Guangdong.

At present, China has 10 provinces that have officially achieved "high-speed rail in every city".

The earliest to achieve "high-speed rail in every city" is Fujian, which was achieved in 2018, followed by Anhui, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Hebei, Guangdong, Henan, Hunan, Guangxi, and Hubei.

On September 4, the Jingmen-Jingzhou High-speed Rail (Jingmen to Jingzhou) started joint debugging and testing, laying a solid foundation for the on-time opening of the entire line.

This means that Jingmen will bid farewell to the history of no high-speed rail, and Hubei Province will become the 10th province in China with "high-speed rail in every city".

Jingmen West Station will have three high-speed rails of Jingmen-Jingzhou High-speed Rail, Xiangyang-Jingmen High-speed Rail, and Yangtze River High-speed Rail, accepting the radiation of the Yangtze River economic belt.

This is a historic leap.

For underdeveloped areas, the "last dance" of high-speed rail construction is to "keep up with the pace".

Hubei, known as the "crossroads of the nine provinces", with high-speed rail connecting the east and west, and the north and south, will also make further progress in development.

More symbolically significant are the Hangzhou-Taizhou High-speed Rail and Hangzhou-Wenzhou High-speed Rail.

These are the earliest two privately-owned high-speed rails in China.

In 2022, China's first privately-owned high-speed rail - Hangzhou-Shaoxing-Taizhou Intercity Railway was opened.

Its operating entity, Hangzhou-Shaoxing-Taizhou Railway Co., Ltd., is led by Fosun Group's Zhejiang private joint venture, holding 51% of the shares.

In this September, the G9505 train slowly left from Hangzhou West Railway Station and headed to Wenzhou, and the Hangzhou-Wenzhou High-speed Rail officially started operation.

It is also the first "double demonstration" high-speed rail project in the country, which is the pilot of mixed ownership reform of the State Council and the demonstration of social capital investment by the National Development and Reform Commission.

Hangzhou-Wenzhou High-speed Rail is also the first 350-kilometer-per-hour high-speed rail in Wenzhou.

After the opening of the line, it takes only 59 minutes from Wenzhou North to Tonglu without stopping at a station.

It marks that the "one-hour traffic circle" on land in Zhejiang is about to be closed, and a series of cities will benefit from it.It's worth noting that Yiwu is also on this high-speed rail line, reaping the huge benefits of the high-speed rail opening.

According to media estimates, the annual passenger flow at Yiwu Station in the future may exceed 100 million people, ranking in the top ten in the country.

The Hangzhou-Wenzhou High-Speed Railway and the Hangzhou-Taizhou High-Speed Railway have opened up the imagination for private capital to participate in high-speed rail construction, ushering Chinese high-speed rail into a new era.

You might be curious, is it necessary to build such a dense high-speed rail network?

When will China's high-speed rail construction "stop"?

In fact, China's high-speed rail trains have been delivered on a large scale since 2007, and it has been 17 years so far.

The "era of large-scale infrastructure construction" is indeed turning a new page, and the "era of large-scale maintenance" is coming.

In 2016, the state issued the "Medium and Long-Term Railway Network Plan," which clearly proposed to build an "eight vertical and eight horizontal" high-speed railway main channel based on the "four horizontal and four vertical" one.

Up to now, about 80% of the "eight vertical and eight horizontal" high-speed railway network main channel has been completed.

But this does not mean that the construction of high-speed rail will completely stop, but a new posture, continuing to move forward.

At present, China's high-speed rail technology has established a reputation as "world-class," with high-speed, plateau, cold, and heavy-load railway technology reaching a world-leading level, and intelligent high-speed rail technology has fully realized autonomy.

In the "great navigation era," high-speed rail has also become a sharp weapon for going abroad: the Jakarta-Bandung High-Speed Railway has become the "golden signboard" of China-Indonesia's joint construction of the "Belt and Road" cooperation, with a cumulative passenger flow of nearly 5 million people; the China-Laos Railway is thriving in both passenger and freight traffic, becoming an international "golden corridor"; the Hungarian-Serbian Railway's Serbian Belgrade section has been operating safely and stably, with a cumulative passenger flow exceeding 8.8 million people...

Looking at the world, maybe no field can reflect the differences in the system and economic development model between China and the United States like high-speed rail.

The competition in the field of high-speed rail will be a symbolic observation window, conveying the trend of the game between great powers.