Ever since China’s much-vaunted high-speed rail line between Beijing and Shanghai opened on June 30, it has been open season for criticism. Much of the criticism has stemmed, of course, from very real malfunctions and delays, which have happened daily since July 10, and have been reported in real time on Chinese social media.
The other problem has been extremely poor public relations and transparency on the part of the Ministry of Railways. Only on July 13, after days of crippling delays that left passengers stranded in hot cars without air conditioning, did the ministry step out with an apology. But the apology seemed insufficiently contrite to many Chinese. It was just a single line: “As for the inconvenience caused to passengers by late train arrivals, the railway ministry expresses regret.”
It was the brevity and inadequacy of that apology that actually made many headlines, like this one at QQ.com: “Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Rail Again Experiences Malfunction: The Ministry of Railways Apology is Only One Sentence.”

The malfunctions and missteps continue this week. Consider, for example, this article in today’s Legal Mirror, in which railway ministry spokesman Wang Yongping (王勇平) — who on July 7 said emphatically that Chinese high-speed rail technology was far superior to Japan’s — suggests it is normal for the rail line to experience difficulties for 2-3 months while it is working out the kinks. Web users asked on social media whether the ministry thought Chinese passengers are lab rats.
Beyond all of these questions about technology, service and public relations, however, looms the much larger question of government responsibility and corruption. The powerful former head of the Ministry of Railways, Liu Zhijun (刘志军), was knocked from his perch back in February and jailed on corruption charges. Zhang Shuguang (张曙光), a deputy chief engineer of the Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Rail, who has been called “one of the founders of Chinese high-speed rail technology,” was removed from his post shortly after to face corruption charges — and it has since been alleged in Chinese media that Zhang has 2.8 billion US dollars in overseas bank accounts.
I’ve wondered in recent days how Chinese media have been able to report with such relative impunity on the perceived failings of such a high-profile national project, which was linked in no uncertain terms last month with the prestige of the Chinese Communist Party itself. The answer may lie, somewhat strangely, in the fact that this is now such a political hot potato. In other words, in China’s topsy-turvy political climate of the moment, where various factions are vying for power and for the heart of the agenda, it may be that no one is ready to come to the defense of the embattled high-speed rail line.
So it may be that, within reasonable limits, it is now open season on the high-speed rail. And that the railway ministry is very much on its own.
On that note, we turn to a recent in-depth report published in Guangdong’s Southern People Weekly. The piece looks at how former railway minister Liu Zhijun was able to push through his own objectives, however wasteful and unnecessary, and disregard dissenting expert opinion. While one expert in the piece notes the more open atmosphere for expression in China today, the story of China’s high-speed rail does yield unfortunate comparisons to the way the Three Gorges Dam project was pushed ahead decades earlier against strong opposition from experts.
And it is now generally known, of course, that the bill for the Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Rail surpasses that of the Three Gorges Dam.
Enjoy.

“High Speed Under the Shadows”
July 18, 2011 (posted July 21)
By Chen Yanwei (陈彦炜) and Liu Xinran (刘欣然) in Beijing and Chengdu
Intern, Xiao Siyu (肖斯予)
The most basic problems with the high-speed rail aren’t about the ins and outs of the project, about whether it is fast or slow, or about the length of the operating line. They are about the level of openness and secrecy in the process of decision-making and debate.
In 1964, the world’s first high-speed passenger train line opened between Tokyo and Osaka in Japan, its top speed reaching 200 kilometers per hour. The high-speed rail became a symbol of the rise of the new Japan. Shinji Sogō, the man who was called the “father of high-speed rail” ultimately did not attend the opening ceremony of the Shinkansen, as he had resigned his position [as president of Japan National Railways] owing to “deception and neglect of duties.” [NOTE: Sogō resigned over concerns about cost overruns for the Shinkansen.]
Before this, the 1950s had brought the heyday of air and automobile travel, and railways were seen at the time as “a sunset industry.” Japan’s high-speed rail project had faced opposition from a number of forces domestically. As the fourth president of Japan National Railways, Shinji Sogō employed underhanded means to get things done, concealing much information [about the project] and utilizing resources for other projects, forcibly pushing through the building of Japan’s Shinkansen.
A half century later, this same drama was replayed in China. China’s fierce proponent of the high-speed rail, the former head of the Ministry of Railways Liu Zhijun (刘志军), who has been dubbed the “father of China’s high-speed rail,” failed in the same way to appear at the opening ceremony for the Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Rail. Four months earlier, he had experienced a dramatic change of fortunes, falling from his high post.
A road maintenance worker by background, Liu Zhijun was bold in thinking and in action. In March 2003, he was formerly appointed as minister of railways, and as secretary of the ministry’s Party committee. On assuming office, Liu Zhijun introduced the idea of “leap-forward development” (跨越式发展). His eight years in the position can be regarded as the era of the Great Leap Forward for Chinese railways. Some have even called Liu Zhijun “Great Leap Liu.”
It was Liu Zhijun who famously raised the idea of the “eight hours plan,” which meant that with the exception of Lhasa, Urumqi and other far-flung cities, the entire country from Beijing to all provincial capital cities, Hong Kong [SAR] included, would be linked by rail journeys not exceeding eight hours. The idea was that “by 2012, that the scale of railway lines in our country would increase from the current 80,000 kilometers to around 110,000 kilometers, with electrified and double-track lines accounting for 50 percent of the total. By that point, a comprehensive railway system will have begun to take shape in our country, with tight supplies of railway transport capacity being initially relieved. The phenomenon of ‘having difficulty in finding trains or tickets’ will have effectively been turned around.”
By the time 2011 rolled around, however, the problem of train ticket scarcity had still not been solved, and during the Spring Festival rush we saw many migrant workers taking motorbikes to return home. Shortly after the Spring Festival, Liu Zhijun fell off his horse. [The term “fall off the horse,” or luo ma (落马), is used in Chinese to talk in a non-specific way about officials, or executives, removed from or resigning from their posts].
How was it that these doubts [about how things were being handled within the ministry] could not be revealed openly while Liu Zhijun was in his post? As a major strategic national infrastructure project whose budget surpassed that of even the Three Gorges Dam project, how was it that there was no need to put it to a vote within the National People’s Congress? Even further, why was it that information about this project, with direct concern for the national welfare and the people’s livelihood, and expending massive resources drawn from taxpayer monies, could not be made public during the decision-making process and we subjected to public discussion? Why is it that even such basic figures as seat occupancy rates for the high-speed rail have remained a secret, so that even researchers in this area cannot access this information?
On January 7, 2004, after an executive meeting of the State Council passed in principle the “Mid to Long-term Plan for the Railway Network” (中长期铁路网规划), railway construction [in China] entered the fast lane. This included the construction of “four horizontal and four vertical” special passenger lines, and the later controversial high-speed rail was also kicked off from this point. In fact, these special passenger lines or inter-city fast trains were really high-speed rail lines, but to avoid sensitivities the Ministry of Railways called them “special passenger lines” (客运专线).
According to [official] figures, in the past five years China has made capital outlays of 20.6 billion, 120 billion and 50.1 billion yuan for three lines respectively, the Beijing-Tianjin High-Speed Rail (京津高铁), the Wuhan-Guangdong High-Speed Rail (武广高铁), and the Zhengzhou Xi’an High-Speed Rail (郑西高铁). Meanwhile, with a total investment of 220.9 billion yuan, the Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Rail has surpassed the 203.9 billion yuan spent on the Three Gorges Dam project, becoming the country’s biggest engineering project. And 220.9 billion yuan is just an unrevised general estimate. Generally speaking, the revised estimate should be even higher.
When the the Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Rail was formally approved, ten years had already passed since the original 1997 feasibility report on the project had come out. Within those ten years the debate continued over whether to utilize wheel-on-rail technology or maglev technology for the Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Rail.
In the early 1980s, Shen Zhiyun (沈志云), an academician both of the Chinese Academies of Science and Engineering, attended an academic conference at Cambridge University and had the opportunity to take the high-speed rail [in England], and only then did he realize “just how many years behind others China was.” France, Germany, Italy and other European countries all followed Japan in a wave of high-speed rail construction.
Shen Zhiyun still remembers that after 1994 the Ministry of Railways used three years to revise the “Feasibility Report for the Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Rail,” and this was passed in principle by an executive meeting of the State Council in 1997. “At the time we talked about sending the feasibility report up right away for approval, so that the next session of government could approve and initiate it. The premier at the time, Li Peng (李鹏), and the vice-premier, Zhu Rongji (朱镕基), both signed off on it. The result was that at the next session, Zhu Rongji became premier, and I remember very clearly that at the June 6 general meeting of the Chinese Academies of Science and Engineering, he came to give a report and suddenly started talking about ‘why the Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Rail needed to use thirty year-old rail technology rather than using the latest maglev technology.’ From that time on there were two camps on the Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Rail — the wheel-on-rail camp and the maglev camp.
Shen Zhijun couldn’t understand those who advocated the building of maglev trains as building maglevs would require much higher investment that high-speed rail, power dissipation would be much higher, prices would be three times that of the high-speed rail and transport capacity would be about half. “There was no reason at all in the contest between maglev and wheel-on-rail over ten years. Not even Germany bothered with maglev. Later, Shanghai built a maglev line and incurred losses of around 300 million yuan. “Right now, this is the only commercially operating maglev train line in the world.”
Shen Zhijun is one of the high-speed rails biggest supporters.
Shen Zhijun is now 82 years old, and he is an academician at both the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering. He lives at the foot of E’mei Mountain on the campus of Southwest Jiaotong University. “Before long the time you waste on [train] journeys will be cut in half,” Shen Zhijun says, pointing off to an empty plot of land outside the university gate. “The Chengmianle High-Speed Rail will have a station here, and as soon as outsiders step off the airplane they be able to get on it directly. In just 20 minutes they can get to E’mei to relax and have a cup of tea.” In the plan, the journey from Chengdu to Beijing will also take just eight hours.
After Liu Zhijun fell from his post, the questions and criticisms of the high-speed rail came out in droves. One question has been why the high-speed rail has not relied on [China’s] own proprietary technology but has rather spent massive amounts to bring in technology from overseas.
Shen Zhijun mentions that the “Star of Cathay” (中华之星) brought in technology from [Germany’s] Siemens, but China was working on its own train called the “Star of the Plains” (中原之星). “Various factories were all producing [trains for the “Star of Cathay”], perhaps around 25 different types, and all had their problems. All of these trains have been tested with me here. There was a [train] by one factory that could reach 250 km/hr, but we tested it here and at 120 km/hr it was not OK. At various factories [producers], if it’s not this problem it’s that problem, so in the end we didn’t use the “Star of the Plains.”
When Shen Zhijun learned that [railway minister] Liu Zhijun had brought a number of high-speed trains back to China to “digest, absorb and make a transition,” he sought Shen Zhijun out and asked “whether or not [he] could spare a train to allow our lab to conduct research and development.” Liu agreed on the spot, saying “I’ll give you two trains.” After this, Shen again suggested that Liu create a national expert group spanning academies and [government] departments to focus on the research of high-speed train technology. Again Liu agreed immediately and demanded that Shen himself serve as head of the group. Ultimately, Liu Zhijun decided to invite participation under market rules from the latest technology [all over the world, including] Japan and Germany, and add to this “homegrown innovation.”
Seven years later, when Liu Zhijun fell from his post, a clamor of debate arose over “whether or not China’s possesses proprietary intellectual property rights” [for high-speed train technology]. Zang Qiji (臧其吉), a researcher at the Rail Technology Center (铁科院) of the Ministry of Railways, concluded that “proprietary intellectual property rights for high-speed rail [technology] is less than 20 percent.” The deputy chairman of the High-Speed Rail Office, Zhou Yimin (周翊民), who previously served as deputy chief engineer at the Ministry of Railways directly under Liu Zhijun, said: “Right now we are still far from true independence in development [of high-speed rail technology].” Another deputy chief engineer from the Liu era, Zhang Shuguang (张曙光), who also served as head of the Transport Bureau and had been called “the deputy chief engineer of China’s high-speed rail” and “one of the founders of Chinese high-speed rail technology,” once announced that “China had full proprietary intellectual property rights for high-speed trains.” This engineering official has subsequently been investigated for economic improprieties [NOTE: Some have alleged that Zhang embezzled funds from the high-speed rail project].
Shen Zhiyun is furious: “”We import the new technology as a whole, standing at the very front of in this field, and then we develop it. After our developments, we lead the world. Is there anything wrong with this? This does not lose face for us. They don’t have [trains] that can go 350 km/hr [overseas], but we can get up to 350 km/hr. Where can we copy a 350 km/hr train?”
Many people opposed the building of the high-speed rail. Shen Zhiyun doesn’t understand this. He sighs: “If we have something that’s faster, why wouldn’t we use it? If we have something that is better, why wouldn’t we use it? Migrant workers also need an increase of speed.”
“Developing third-generation train technology with speeds of 350-400 km/hr is the global tide of the development of high-speed rail in this century. So when some people say there’s no need to go that fast, that’s not actually the case. Increasing speed is an everlasting issue in transportation. Of course faster is always better, so long as you ensure high efficiency and safety.”
Of course, Shen’s views are rebutted by Zhao Jian (赵坚), a professor at the Management Institute of Beijing Jiaotong University, one of the most stalwart members of the party opposing high-speed rail.
[Zhao Jian says:] “France’s Concord had a speed of 2,000 km/hr, and you could travel leave Paris at 6pm and arrive in New York in six hours, so it was only 3pm, with time savings translating into high economic savings. So why was the service suspended? Because France and England provided subsidies to the project for 27 years, and it couldn’t continue to be subsidized.” [He adds:] “France’s high-speed rail claimed last year that it was profitable, but it was subsidized by the government to the tune of one billion Euros, so these profits are meaningless. So [we can see that the rule of] faster is better doesn’t hold for transportation.”
“Not a single high-speed rail line should be built in China!” Zhao Jian says.
In 1993, Beijing Jiaotong University organized the research of a high-speed rail line from Beijing to Shanghai, and the university brought together teachers from various institutes and departments. “They all believed it should be built, but I thought it shouldn’t be built,” [Zhao Jian says]. In 1994, Zhao Jian published an article in China Railways magazine opposing the construction of the Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Rail. “At that time things were still pretty democratic in China’s railway sector, so different perspectives could still be voiced. And perhaps at the time no way paid any attention because I was only an assistant professor.”
In 2005, [railway minister] Liu Zhijun began working on “special passenger lines.” [Zhao Jian says:] “No one was really clear about what the special passenger lines were or what their target values were. At the end of 2005, the Beijing-Tianjing High-Speed Rail was almost ready to go into service, and there were a number of issues they wanted our institute to spend some time one. It was only then that we discovered that they were building it with a speed of 350 km/hr in mind, and this was incompatible [with existing tracks].”
“At the time we thought there were problems, and we later contacted the railway ministry about this and learned that the problems were pretty substantial (问题比较大). So I wrote an article published in China Business Herald and Comprehensive Transport offering a different view on the building of high-speed rail. I sent this at the same time to the State Council and the Ministry of Railways, but there was no response at all.”
In building the Beijing-Tianjin intercity line, [railway minister] Liu Zhijun consulted no one at all. According to Zhao Jian’s understanding, in the beginning Liu Zhijun’s special passenger lines were to have a top speed of around 200 km/hr, but this was constantly adjusted upwards, until finally it became 350 km/hr.
After 2008, Zhao Jian’s articles [criticizing the high-speed rail] could be seen only in a handful of publications, including Caijing magazine, New Century [under editor-in-chief Hu Shuli after she left Caijing and launched New Century] and Comprehensive Transport.
But many foreign media referred to Zhao Jian’s viewpoints, including The New York Times, the Washington Post, Time magazine and the Financial Times, so that Zhao Jian’s views did attract the attention of high-level government officials. An exclusive interview [Zhao did] with Hong Kong’s Yazhou Zhoukan was given an official reply by vice-premier Zhang Dejiang (张德江) and sent directly to the Ministry of Railways.
In early 2009, as high-speed rail was the subject of much talk in China, Zhao Jian went on a trip to India. India was a country, like China a major developing nation, that was generally recognized as a railway giant (铁路大国), with a railway network far surpassing that of China. Moreover, India was one of just two countries in the world operating its railways under a joint government-enterprise system (政企合一体制), the other such country being China. But all major investment projects in the railway sector in India, and even end-of-year business programs (年度经营计划), had to be submitted for deliberation by the Indian National Congress to await approval or rejection.
Zhao Jian learned that India’s Ministry of Railways planned to build a high-speed rail line from [India’s] largest city, Mumbai, to Ahmadabad [in the state of Gujarat], with a speed of close to 250 km/hr, forming an important part of the line from Mumbai to the capital of New Delhi, similar in length to the Shanghai-Nanjing section of the Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Rail.
But a study by the well-known [infrastructure] consulting company Rites [under the Government of India] had found that this special passenger line was not commensurate with India’s national needs, with average incomes not sufficient to support the ticket prices [necessary for] the high-speed line; but if a special freight transport line were built, the return on investment would be around 11 percent. The Indian National Congress had ultimately approved a budget proposal for the construction of a 10,000-kilometer freight transport line. After he returned to China, Zhao Jian put the lessons he had learned in India into a published article, suggesting that China follow the lesson of India, building a special freight transport line rather than a special passenger line.
The article drew the attention of [railway minister] Liu Zhijun. On two occasions, Liu Zhijun sought Zhao Jian’s supervisor, former Beijing Jiaotong University President Tan Zhenhui (谭振辉) to ask, “What is all this about?” The old president had responded: “First of all, I did not encourage him to write [the articles]; second, we must permit scholars to express different views.” Unable to come to any understanding, Tan left [Liu’s office] just 10 minutes later.
Tan Zhenhui didn’t discuss the exchanges with Zhao Jian after he got back, but after some time had passed said to him: “If you write things like this, it will affect the ability of the university to get [research] topic [grants from the government].” To which the unbending Zhao Jian responded to the university president: “Compared to the damage to our country, this impact is something that should be borne, don’t you think?” The president said nothing more.
“University leaders were probably under a lot more pressure than me. Liu Zhijun mentioned my name at many meetings,” Zhao Jian says.
Eventually, Liu Zhijun invited Zhao Jian personally for a chat. Zhao Jian recalls that Minister Liu was very polite, but he didn’t listen to the opinions of others. “He spoke himself for a whole hour about why China had to build special high-speed passenger lines. He wouldn’t even let you get a word in edgewise.”
Just as Shen Zhiyun cannot understand those who oppose high-speed rail, Zhao Jian cannot understand the way his academic contemporaries have “jumped on the bandwagon” to support high-speed rail and kept their silence: “Something so crystal clear, and why is it that only a few of us have said anything at all?” The opposing camp also includes Hua Yunzhang (华允璋) and Yao Zuozhou (姚佐周), who have served as chief engineer of the Shanghai Railway Bureau and vice-chairman of the Special Design Institute (专业设计院) of the Ministry of Railways respectively.
“Liu Zhijun provided research grants to Peking University, Tsinghua University, various transportation universities and the Development Research Center of the State Council, and as a condition of media exchanges he demanded that no none speak out against high-speed rail,” Zhao Jian says.
[He adds:] “Liu Zhijun encouraged me to go and understand and research high-speed rail. He didn’t specify a research area, nor did he interfere in any way, but he provided no materials whatsoever relating to this research.” Zhao Jian later got in touch with the Science and Technology Office (科技司) of the Ministry of Railways to define his research topic. That topic was: The cost of building and operating high-speed special passenger lines against their operation efficiency and benefits. “I think this is how scholars should be,” [Zhao Jian says]. “They should have their own viewpoints.”
Zhao Jian’s research report was submitted to the Ministry of Railways in March this year. By this time Liu Zhijun had already fallen from his post as minister and become a prisoner.
“The speech environment today is a lot more relaxed than in the past. It can’t be compared to the era of Huang Wanli [when Huang and others tried to oppose the building of the Three Gorges Dam]. And after all I’ve been able to affect unfolding developments. The new minister has assumed his post. Now the [projected] speeds for a number of high-speed rail projects have already been reduced, and high-speed rail lines already in operation are using a mixed operational mode [high-speed and normal speed].”

A scandal broke out in China on July 14 when web users alleged that two ordinary citizens in the city of Chengdu selected randomly to take part in public hearings on government policy were in fact “professional actors.” By July 15 the story had boiled over into traditional media, and four alleged government-backed “citizens” were the focus of angry questioning. Sichuan’s Huaxi Metropolis Daily, one of the province’s biggest commercial newspapers, reported that “citizen” Zhang Jianyuan (张见远) had appeared in numerous media reports about public hearings on various policy issues, always with a fake identity. While Zhang has been identified as “a chief physician at Huaxi Hospital” (华西医院主任医师), an investigation by the newspaper showed that he is not listed among that hospital’s more than 7,000 registered personnel. He has reportedly participated in scores of public hearings, beggaring government claims that citizens are randomly selected to voice their views on various policies. He has responded to such issues as public transportation pricing, water prices, anti-smoking policies, and adjustments in taxi fares, and media reports have variously dubbed him a “citizen representative”, a “consumer representative” and a “physician representative.” Another focus of attention was been Hu Litian (胡丽天), pictured below, a woman whose “rate of selection,” web users say, has been remarkable given the government’s random selection policy. Hu, it seems, is something of a permanent fixture at government public hearings. Read more about the scandal here.

In the above cartoon, posted by artist Kuang Biao (邝飚) to his blog at QQ.com, a tea kettle resembling Hu Litian and labeled “expert public hearing [participant” is set down on an empty seat at a public hearing, ready to whistle the government’s tune.

China has had its share of scandals over fake products endangering the lives of citizens. But how about a scandal involving, well, fake citizens?
A scandal cropped up yesterday on (where else?) China’s microblog platforms when web users alleged that two ordinary citizens in the city of Chengdu selected randomly to take part in public hearings on government policy are in fact “professional actors.” Today, the story has boiled over into traditional media, and four alleged government-backed “citizens” are the focus of angry questioning.
Sichuan’s Huaxi Metropolis Daily, one of the province’s biggest commercial newspapers, now reports that Zhang Jianyuan (张见远), pictured below, has appeared in numerous media reports about public hearings on various policy issues, always with a fake identity.
While Zhang has been identified as “a chief physician at Huaxi Hospital” (华西医院主任医师), an investigation by the newspaper showed that he is not listed among that hospital’s more than 7,000 registered personnel. He has reportedly participated in scores of public hearings, beggaring government claims that citizens are randomly selected to voice their views on various policies. He has responded to such issues as public transportation pricing, water prices, anti-smoking policies, and adjustments in taxi fares, and media reports have variously dubbed him a “citizen representative”, a “consumer representative” and a “physician representative.”

Another focus of attention has been Hu Litian (胡丽天), pictured below, a woman whose “rate of selection,” web users say, has been remarkable given the government’s random selection policy. Hu, it seems, is something of a permanent fixture at government public hearings.

Web users quickly claimed that both of the above-mentioned figures are “internally designated actors” (听证会), and that this undermines the credibility of the government’s public hearing process.
A post on the online Sichuan Forum late yesterday exposed not just Zhang Jianyuan and Hu Litian, but added to the list Liao Binghong (廖冰虹) and Tang Houyi (唐厚义). And the forum posted this photo of all four of these suspected fake citizens sitting together at a local tea shop.

This year, China had 17 top scorers, or zhuangyuan (状元), on the national college entrance examination from various provinces who opted for Hong Kong universities over China’s elite institutions, Peking University and Tsinghua University. Traditionally, China’s top universities have aggressively courted these top test scorers, seeing them as an important measure of their elite status. When asked why they had opted for Hong Kong, the students responded that they wanted to experience a different approach to education. In this cartoon, posted by artist Kuang Biao (邝飚) to his QQ.com blog, an old-fashioned Confucian school master, symbolizing the backwardness of China’s higher education system, reaches for top testers depicted as potted plants flying off into the sky on golden wings. For background on standardized testing in Chinese higher education, see CMP fellow Zhang Ming’s article, “Top testers a distraction for China’s schools. ”

In the past, before universities in Hong Kong had entered the competition for top scorers, top scorers from various provinces generally went to Tsinghua University or Peking University. In recent years, as Hong Kong universities have stepped into the game, Chinese institutions sense a real danger that top scorers will be lost, and the media have also jumped on this story about the threat to the excellence of Peking University and Tsinghua University. This is why we’re seeing this situation now . . .
The University of Hong Kong is a mirror on ourselves that is less distant that other elite universities. Because the admissions and enrollment capacity of HKU is limited, there is no way it can run off with all of our top-scoring students. But this mirror brings our own maladies and deformities into sharp relief. If we do not address our shortcomings, and if we do not wipe away the stains that blacken our own face, but rather respond only with more robust efforts [at the same sort of game], then there is really no way to save us.

China’s much-vaunted Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Rail formally opened on June 30 this year, on the eve of the Chinese Communist Party’s 90th anniversary. Capable of speeds in excess of 300 kilometers per hour, the project is an important showcase for China’s leadership, symbolizing the country’s technological prowess and the Party’s forward-thinking attitude.
On July 7, a spokesman for China’s Ministry of Railways (MOR), Wang Yongping (王勇平), took the tone of rivalry over high-speed rail technology up a notch when he scoffed at accusations that China’s trains used Japanese technologies. “The Beijing-Shanghai High-speed Railway and Japan’s Shinkansen can’t even be raised in the same breath, because many of the technologies employed by China’s high-speed rail are far superior to those used in Japan’s Shinkansen,” Wang said. He added: “We Chinese would never claim that technologies owned by others are ours. Nor will we ever relinquish our right to file patent applications for innovations developed through our own knowledge and efforts just because of the irresponsible remarks of others.”

[ABOVE: China’s high-speed rail system gets ready for operation in December 2010. Photo by “triplefivechina” available at Flickr.com under Creative Commons license.]
But two malfunctions in the space of three days (July 10 and July 12), resulting in late arrivals for scores of high-speed trains, have for many Chinese raised serious questions about the safety, comfort and efficiency of the new high-speed rail line. And so far this week, official state media have noticeably taken a passive, backseat role as social media, notably Sina Microblog, have offered a platform for eyewitness information and a wave of (mostly frustrated and antagonistic) opinion, and as commercial media — the likes of Shanghai’s Oriental Morning Post, The Beijing News, Caijing magazine and Hu Shuli’s Caixin Media — have jumped on the story.
Posts using terms related to “Beijing-Shanghai high-speed rail malfunction” had topped 286,000 on Sina Microblog by yesterday evening (July 12), as the line experienced delays of close to three hours in some cases. In posts aggregated in real time by traditional media outlets such as the Oriental Morning Post, Caijing and Labor Daily, eyewitness social media users shared photos and accounts in real time.
A photo by passenger Tang Yan (唐妍) taken inside a car on the high-speed rail line showed a glass of water on a seat tray with the water clearly leaning in one direction. Tang wrote: “The high-speed rail is creeping along now at a speed of about 5 kilometers per hour, and moreover it’s still going in fits and starts. It’s like a sightseeing car. . . What people find really strange is that the whole car is leaning really severely to the right! I’ve put a glass of water on the seat-back tray, and you can clearly see the incline! . . . I clearly remember it was level when we got on the train.”

A photo in a separate post showed a passenger aboard a stalled Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Rail train fanning himself in a hot, air-conditionless car as workers outside the train continued with repairs.

A report in today’s edition of The Beijing News quoted one microblog user as saying they saw sparks flying past their window on the train, which was followed by a shriek as the train ground to a stop.
But while Chinese social media, predominately Sina Microblog (Weibo), have been an important source of information, commercial media have also spoken to experts, engineers and railway personnel. One of the first rather comprehensive reports came from the Oriental Morning Post, which reached a range of sources on July 10, the day of the first malfunction causing widespread delays, and on July 11. The paper’s report was published yesterday, and made the rounds on the web and in social media just as chatter was taking off about a second malfunction on the line. We have translated that report below.
In a separate report yesterday, Caijing magazine reported that the deputy secretary of the Communist Youth League in Shanghai’s Luwan District, Huang Tan (黄坦), had posted on his own microblog at 11:33 am that high-speed train G212 had stopped for repairs in Anhui’s prefectural-level city of Bengbu (蚌埠) owing to an electrical malfunction. The Caijing report opened somewhat provocatively with the July 7 statement from Wang Yongping about the superiority of Chinese train technology.
One of the most curious things about this story over the past 72 hours has been the way official state media have been virtually absent. This article from People’s Daily Online, posted at the top of Xinhua Online today, turns to a Japanese expert for his remarks following the July 10 malfunction, suggesting such malfunctions are normal and expected, and cautioning (justifiably) that repairs cannot be rushed in such situations. The expert did note that there seemed to have been serious service related breakdowns that had nothing to do with technology.
In addition to the above report, there is this very brief report from the official China News Service. Curiously, the China News Service story on QQ.com, one of China’s most popular internet portals, has drawn just 3 comments from users — that for a story that has prompted hundreds of thousands of posts and re-posts on social media. When it posted the original, very brief, Xinhua News Agency release about the first high-speed train malfunction on July 10, QQ.com added to the release a number of online reports and accounts from social media that seemed to cast doubt on the Xinhua version itself.
Commercial media and social media seem to have led the charge so far on this story, raising numerous doubts about the safety of the high-speed rail and criticizing railway authorities for their handling of both incidents. The finger-pointing continues today, turning now to the official response from the Ministry of Railways, which came in a brief statement yesterday.
A report from The Beijing Morning Post today bears the headline: “Apology from Ministry of Railways Just One Sentence.” The report, which asks a string of pointed questions, including why the passengers were deprived of air conditioning in closed cars and stifling heat, notes that railway authorities said only yesterday that, “As for the inconvenience caused to passengers by late train arrivals, the railway ministry expresses regret.”
We’ll have to continue to watch this story over the next few days to see how continued coverage plays out. Have commercial media taken advantage of a window of opportunity afforded by a lack of direction from propaganda authorities? If such direction is lacking, why? Or, alternatively, have media disregarded or worked around directives?
There are signs controls may have been asserted today, at the very least on social media. Yesterday, a voting feature on Sina Microblog invited users to cast their votes on their views of the high-speed rail, whether they would opt for it in favor of the airlines, etcetera. That feature, which drew thousands of responses within a few short hours, now seems to have been disabled. In the image below, you can see Sina user chatting about the vote and linking to the now inaccessible page, which I visited with no problems yesterday evening. [UPDATE: Voting feature is now (11:50pm HK time, July 13) available again here.]

[ABOVE: Photo of poll results for high-speed rail as of 11:59pm, July 13. 33% say they will still opt for the high-speed rail, 19% say they will take a plane instead, 26% say they will take some other form of transportation, and the rest are unsure.]
The following is a partial translation of the report yesterday from Shanghai’s Oriental Morning Post, which deals with doubts surrounding the first malfunction on July 10.

Three Questions Raised by Mass Delays on the Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Rail
Oriental Morning Post
July 12, 2011
Reporters Shen Liang (沈靓), Chu Jingwei (储静伟), Luan Xiaona (栾晓娜) and Shi Yinsheng (史寅昇)
Three questions raised by mass delays on the Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Rail: Where is the contingency plan?
After 11 days of formal operation, a thunderstorm in Shandong province caused the Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Rail to experience wide-spread delays for the first time. Responding to this accident that caused 19 trains to arrive late, many for as much as two hours, the reason given by railway authorities in Beijing was that “thunderstorms caused the malfunction of the overhead line system” (雷雨导致接触网故障), but no further explanation was given.
Actually, a certain degree of malfunction must be admitted for the high-speed rail, and malfunctions owing to thunderstorms can be understood. But the true measure of the quality of the high-speed rail is shown in how things are handled after malfunctions occur. Train personnel can be taught through repeated training how to have proper postures and smiles to cover up the problems of the high-speed rail service system. But once this system meets with the unexpected, people will be able to see the ineffectiveness behind the smiles.
Judging from the responses of passengers last night, this time around the Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Rail was short of the mark. After trains stopped on the high-speed rail, passengers were shut inside hot and stuff train cars, not knowing what happened, not knowing what they were waiting for, and not knowing how long they would have to wait. Not knowing anything at all, some passengers vented their anger on train personnel, and in this high-pressure situation some personnel were pursued to tears, not knowing what to do.
Train service personnel are just the first point of contact with passengers, and they cannot take responsibility for shutdowns through the entire high-speed rail system. Why did the malfunctions occur? Why did repairs take so long? Why was air-conditioning not working when there was a backup electrical supply? Why were passengers not told specifically what was happening? Why wasn’t more water and food provided after the delays? Why were passengers not compensated? These are all questions that train service personnel are unable to answer.
Media have hotly reported the “battle between air and rail” (空铁之争), and they have at the same time secretly hoped that “Old Man Railway” will show us all in the midst of this struggle that his old way of doing things has changed forever. But the facts this delay incident shows us are cruel.
1. How can thunderstorms caused power outages?
According to related personnel with the Beijing Railway Bureau, “thunderstorms and high winds in the Shandong region were the reason for these train delays, having caused malfunction and power failure along the overhead line system between Qufu (曲阜) and Zaozhuang (枣庄). Moreover, [they said], the power distribution systems for trains on the Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Rail are powered principally through the 25kV high-voltage overhead line system.
Ren Gang (任刚), the chief engineer of CNR Tangshan, has said that the power distribution system for battery chargers on the high-speed rail can enable the provision of power for 120 minutes in the event of that power from the high-voltage overhead line system is lost, ensuring emergency air circulation, lighting and communications. “The trains can still operate as they wait for power suppliers to make rescue repairs,” [he said].
Li Ruiqun (李瑞淳), chief engineer of the CRH380 project, says the Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Rail is a comprehensive project, not just about the trains themselves. These train stoppages had nothing to do with the quality of the trains themselves. Thunderstorms caused the malfunction of the overhead voltage system so that the trains had no source of power to propel them. But the trains themselves had storage batteries [he said] that would allow them to ensure emergency air circulation and electrical power for more than an hour in the event of sudden power outages.
Web users made posts to microblogs saying that after high-speed train number G151 stalled, the entire train experienced loss of power, shutting off the air conditioning and leaving conditions inside suffocating and hot. Well then, if the trains are equipped with storage batteries to provide power, why were the train cars without electricity?
Sun Zhang (孙章), a professor from the City and Rail Transportation Research Center at Tongji University, said that the loss of electrical power in the cars could be due to the failure to put contingency plans into effect. “It’s possible that general contingency training was insufficient, and this can be seen in poor communication with passengers and lack of information transparency,” [Sun said]. As for the suggestion that lightning caused the malfunction of power supply circuits, Sun Zhang says that the trains are equipped with lightning protection systems, and trains and the power supply system should all be equipped with lightning protection systems. “Or perhaps this lightning strike was particularly severe, even disabling the storage batteries.”
2. Why were the train car doors closed tightly? And why did train personnel say nothing?
Mr. Zhang, who was a passenger on train G19 that day said that after the incident occurred nothing was explained over the train’s broadcast system except that the internet signal was weak. Mr. Li, who was a passenger on train G151 also said that after the train experienced a malfunction and stopped in the station in Shandong, it stopped for another half-hour when it reached Xuzhou. Only after we passed the Xuzhou station did the train [personnel] hand out water and crackers, [he said]. But when they asked the train personnel [what had happened], she gave them no response.
In fact, as early as September 2005 the Ministry of Railways sent out a new version of “Methods for Handling Late Passenger Trains” (旅客列车晚点处置办法) to railway authorities throughout the country, and these clearly state: “If trains are later than 30 minutes, the station chief and train conductor should as representatives of the railway authorities issue a sincere apology to passengers; if [trains are] late by more than one hour, [they] must according to rescheduling notices from the railway ministry issue timely statements to passengers to explain the cause of the delay and estimated times of arrival, and work to conciliate the passengers.”
The reporters discovered on microblog platforms that one passenger had stepped out onto the train platform to cool down because it was too hot, and the train eventually departed, leaving him in the station. But [China’s] “Codes Concerning Handling of the Breakdown of Air Conditioning Units on Trains” (动车组列车空调装置故障后应急处置有关要求) stipulate that in order to protect the personal safety of travelers, and according to the staffing situation of trains, 4 to 98 doors should be opened to the platform, safety grids should be set up around the open doors and be staffed by train police, service personnel, meal car personnel and cleaning personnel under the direction of the conductor, strictly prohibiting passengers from exiting the train on their own.
At 8:30pm on July 10, after repairs were carried out, the train temporarily stopped in the Xuzhou East Station and emergency water and bread were provided by the train from the platform, only then resolving the problem of tight supplies of food and beverage.
The Morning Post reporters went to Jinan [Shandong] to cover the issue of food and beverage aboard the train. On train G222, Miss Wang, an employee in charge of sales on the train said that if they ran across the unexpected, the stores of instant noodles and other food and drink on the train could only supply about half of the train’s passengers and, “Generally, the train will resupply itself at stations along the line, but if we run into trouble suddenly and aren’t near a station then there’s nothing we can do.”
Unlike train G151, which experience a malfunction and lost electrical power, more than 10 other trains further down the line on the Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Rail were stopped in various stations, waiting for the line to clear. Although they did not lose electricity, they suffered much unease owing to the lack of a contingency plan.
Shanghai passenger Miss Kuang was on train G21 that day heading from Beijing South Station to Shanghai’s Hongqiao Station. Her train was delayed by close to two hours. Their train was temporarily stopped at Jinan West Station for more than one hour. “In the hour that we waited, the train car doors were closed tight, and if you wanted to get out for some air you couldn’t,” [she said]. What upset the passengers on the train even more was that through all of the stopping and creeping along that personnel on the train never made any notice of the specific reasons for the delays.
Web user “Qing Kou Cai” (青口菜) came across the same situation. He posted on his microblog saying that he was on train G215 and it too was stopped in Jinan for more than one hour. [He said] that train personnel were all hurrying about their business but never made any explanation or attempt to comfort the passengers.
Yesterday, an employee at Jinan West Station told the reporters that on July 10 at least five trains made temporary stops at Jinan West Station. The employee said that because the train station and the trains were under separate controls, even though many trains were stopped at Jinan West Station, there was no way that employees at the station could “interact” with the trains. “As for the difficulties onboard the trains, we knew nothing about it, and we couldn’t be of any help.”
3. Why was there no way of offering compensation for delays?
For passengers, the delays have already become a fact, and what they care about most right now is the issue of compensation. On this issue, the reporter reached the Service Department of the Jinan Railway Ministry posing as a passenger from a delayed train. The employee said that right now there are no relevant laws and regulations on this issue, and therefore there was no way of offering compensation.
An employee from the Division of Passenger Traffic Management of the Transport Bureau of the Ministry of Railways responded that there could be a number of reasons for loss of power resulting in late arrivals, and if investigations showed clearly that errors by railway departments caused loss of power and late arrivals then railway departments would consider offering compensation to passengers. “As the railway ultimately achieved the task of delivering passengers to their destinations, full refunds of tickets are impossible,” [said the employee].

[Frontpage photo by “triplefivechina” available at Flickr.com under Creative Commons license.]