L'Alta Velocità in Cina. Politiche, strategie, territori

High Speed railways in China. Policies, strategies and territories. by Marc Guigon The history of High-Speed railways in China is not a linear one, traced in the course of a rigorous planning process. It has on the contrary experienced moments of rapid surge, only to be followed by periods of slower growth. Fervid action, decision-making and euphoria have been accompanied by scathing failures, against a background of corruption and complex relations with the foreign providers of fundamental technology. The ! nal result is noteworthy however, because China currently has the largest High-Speed railroad network in the world, with a very high level of customer satisfaction, though the cost has been the exorbitant sum of many hundreds of billion euros, which no other country on the planet could a# ord. The lightning-fast construction of the Chinese High-Speed Railway network, directed single-handedly by the Ministry of the Railways, is associated however with a lack of parallel urban strategies.