Really Fast Trains in and from China

August 13, 2010

Devin Coldewey at Crunch Gear writes about plans for future-trains in China that may run at speeds of 1000 kilometers or 620 miles an hour.

China is looking into increasing speeds for longer distances by using maglev trains without air resistance by building vacuum-sealed tunnels. Today’s maglev trains with air resistance are capable of hitting speeds of about 500 km/h.

Darren Murph at engadget.com also wrote about these super-fast trains.  Darren mentions that China says they will have maglev trains ready in three years.  In fact, they have one now outside Shanghai. I have ridden the maglev train that runs from Pudong Airport to Shanghai. It seldom hits its top speed for the short trip, but it is smooth and fast—a few minutes compared to more than forty in a taxi or bus.

To reach speeds of 1000 km/h means more money. Each kilometer to build these vacuum tubes will cost an extra $2.95 million American. I have a question. What happens if the vacuum tube springs a leak?

Darren ends with “Pony up, taxpayers!”, but that’s not how the Chinese raise money.  Most money in China comes from the profits of state-run banks, industries and duties on imports and exports not on income or property, although that may be changing as China studies how the US government raises money.

China is also planning to build high-speed rail from Beijing to London. Source: The Sydney Morning Herald Traveller

See China On the Fast Track

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

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China’s Future Lock on your Next Auto Repair

August 8, 2010

“In China, automotive industry workers are striking for higher pay. In the U.S., auto-industry workers are agreeing to pay cuts — and then their employers are being sold to Chinese companies.” Source: Salon.com

Striking for higher pay isn’t the only thing the Chinese are doing. They are also buying sections of the US auto industry.

Bertel Schmitt at The Truth About Cars writes about Chinese investors buying up Western Auto Parts manufacturers.   He says that 70% of China’s $160 billion auto-component makers are foreign companies.

It appears that due to the sick global economy, which hasn’t hit China as hard, many of these foreign auto parts companies are hurting as profits shrivel.

Schmitt says that some deals have already been made as Chinese bought Australian gearbox maker Drivetrain Systems International, a supplier to Ford and Chrysler, and GM sold Nexter to a Beijing Consortium who had government backing. 

Similar sales took place in 2009, and today struggling U.S. Firms like Delphi, Lear and Visteon may be up for sale soon.

If Chinese investors buy enough Western auto-parts manufacturers, China may add that industry to solar panel and wind-turbine manufacturing along with the country’s monopoly on refining rare-earth mineral necessary for hi-tech products and weapons systems.

See Holding a Vital Key to Humanity’s Future

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

China Ends July with another First

August 7, 2010

China already leads the world in high-speed rail, solar power and wind turbine manufacturing.

Now, Spencer Swartz and Shai Oster report in the Wall Street Journal that “China has passed the U.S. to become the world’s biggest energy consumer, according to new data from the International Energy Agency (IEA), a milestone that reflects both China’s decades-long burst of economic growth and its rapidly expanding influence as an industrial giant.”

China disagrees with the IEA’s announcement but that doesn’t matter.

Even if China were correct, it wouldn’t be long before China did pass the US in energy consumption since the latest five-year plan is extending the electrical grid into rural China to send electricity to 700 million more people.

In fact, as China modernizes and catches up with the US and Europe, more energy will be required to power all those rural homes. Even if the Chinese do not consume as much as those in the US, that is still a lot of electricity.

This begs an answer for the question the Slate asks with How Communist is China? After all, General Motors sold more cars in China than in the US in the first half of 2010. And let’s not mention the Golden Arches, KFC, Pizza Hut and Starbucks.

Since China abandoned Maoism and Marxism, the Middle Kingdom has been rewriting the rules for capitalist growth. The irony is that politically, China is ruled by a single political party with an unpopular name in the West—a name that doesn’t fit any longer.

Maybe China’s government should call itself the People’s Collective Party.

See Volting all of China into the 21st Century

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Defector / Traitor (4/4)

August 5, 2010

We have a friend who came from China to the US to study in the 1980s. She thought about defecting but didn’t. She loved her family and friends too much to hurt them, so she went back to China. Years later, she returned to the US legally and become an American citizen without defecting, and no village in China suffered for her act.

In China, every defection is considered a loss of face by the government.  In a collective society like China, the individual is not the only one to carry the burden of guilt.  The family, friends and comrades left behind also carry that burden.


Defecting is a two-way street Joe Dresnok – U.S. Army Defector one nation’s defector/hero is another nation’s deserter/traitor

When defectors from China arrive in the US, they are often treated as heroes and the media splashes the defector’s story on TV, newspapers and magazines. Many defectors are rewarded and they prosper in their new country. In fact, until 1988, Taiwan paid defectors a handsome sum in gold.

However, whatever the reason for defecting, in the ideological war between the “isms” (Communism versus Capitalism), those left behind often become collateral damage. See Media Slugfest Using Taiwan

Merriam-Webster’s Online dictionary defines “traitor” as one who betrays another’s trust or is false to an obligation or duty

Return to Defector/Traitor – Part 3 or start with Part 1

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

To subscribe to “iLook China”, look for the “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar, click on it then follow directions.

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Defector / Traitor (3/4)

August 5, 2010

The most famous Chinese defector/traitor may have been Sun Tianqin, a fighter pilot in the People’s Liberation Army Air Force, who flew to South Korea in 1983 in an advanced fighter aircraft.

From there, Sun went to Taiwan to live. He left behind his mother, Mrs. Liu, his 18-year-old son and 13-year-old daughter.

While Americans see these defectors as heroes, the Chinese see dishonorable and selfish individuals. While Americans help one Chinese man or woman defect, an entire village in China pays the price.

Before defecting, Sun’s mother was so proud of her son that she displayed a large picture of him in uniform at their home and after learning of her son’s defection, she was so devastated that she fell ill and never recovered, finally dying, for which Sun’s family members put the blame on him.

Sun eventually married another defector, Ms. Li Tianhui, a musician. The sad fact is that all Chinese defectors leave knowing that those left behind related to them will pay a price. After all, they are Chinese and they grew up in the same collective culture.


Chen Yonglin, a former Chinese Diplomat, defected and liberated his spirit, but how many suffered in China for that act?

Sun Tianqin was not the first PLA fighter pilot to defect. Soon after the 1989 Tiananmen Square protest, Jiang Wenhao, defected to Taiwan. Wiki lists the first PLA pilot defecting on January 12, 1960 and the last in August 1990. Source: Wikipedia

Since the standard of living has improved in China and people have more personal freedom, defections have decreased and it is much easier to travel to the US.

Return to Defector/Traitor – Part 2 or go to Part 4

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

To subscribe to “iLook China”, look for the “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar, click on it then follow directions.

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