China's pride in its successful high-speed rail project is considerable and it has made incredible achievements in installing a network around the country that has provided real competition for flying and made commutes between cities like Shanghai and Beijing an easy option instead of a lengthy chore.
Now China is considering plans to build a high-speed railway line to the United States, the country's official media has reported. Travelling at an average speed of 350km per hour, the entire trip would take two days.
The line, which has the working title “China-Russia-Canada-America”, would run for 13,000km, about 3,000km further than the Trans-Siberian Railway, and is expected to cost about €150 billion.
It would start in north-east China, run through Siberia, through a tunnel underneath the Pacific Ocean then cut through Alaska and Canada to reach the continental US.
The project would be a giant engineering feat, crossing the Bering Strait between Russia and Alaska and involving about 200km of undersea tunnel. A tunnel underneath the Bering Strait would be the world's longest undersea tunnel – four times the length of the Channel Tunnel.
'Already in discussions'
"Right now, we're already in discussions. Russia has already been thinking about this for many years," Wang Mengshu, a railway expert at the Chinese Academy of Engineering, told the Beijing Times.
"China has mature high-speed railway technologies, plenty of technicians and workers. The diversified geological conditions in China have helped Chinese engineers and workers accumulate the necessary experience in handling different construction conditions around the world. The great project can also help digest China's serious overcapacity in the iron and steel industries," ran an editorial in the China Daily.
“The project connecting China and south-east Asia is only the first step to transform the plan from words to reality.”