FROM BEIJING to London by high-speed train in two days – through Burma, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Iran and Turkey. From London to Singapore in three days – via Vietnam and Malaysia. And from Shanghai to Berlin in three days – through Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Siberian Russia and Ukraine.
These romantic prospects are opened up by the news that China is planning to extend its intensive railway construction programme internationally to create a transport network linking it to southeast, south and central Asia – a new iron Silk Road.
The network would link up with Europe’s high-speed rail (HSR) system under development in France, Germany, Spain and Italy for the past four decades, building on Japan’s pioneering Shinkansen project of the 1960s. It would also be the greatest infrastructure project in world history, and China hopes to complete it in 10 years (for map and details see www.thetransportpolitic.com/2010/03/09).
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