不惜代价的中国高铁 China’s railways

Raw data on China’s high-speed railway investment would bring out the trainspotter in anyone. The current 7,531km of track is more than the rest of the world put together. A journey from Wuhan to Guangzhou that used to take more than 10 hours by the 1,068km conventional route, now takes less than three. (A similar-length journey in the US, from Washington DC to Chicago, takes 18 hours on Amtrak.) Within a decade or so, the government wants to connect 70 of China’s main cities, servicing more than 90 per cent of the population.

有关中国高铁投资的原始数据，会让所有人都成为火车爱好者。中国目前7531公里的高铁里程比全世界其它地区加起来都要多。武汉与广州相距1068公里，过去乘坐普通火车需要10多个小时，而现在只要不到三个小时。（从华盛顿特区到芝加哥的里程与此类似，但乘坐美国铁路公司(Amtrak)的火车需要18个小时。）中国政府希望，高铁网络能在十年左右的时间里覆盖国内70个主要城市，为超过90%的人口提供服务。

Amid the excitement it seems almost impertinent to ask whether China really needs this, but it is a good question. Investment in the existing rail infrastructure criss-crossing the mainland has already been heavy, increasing sixfold since 2005 to Rmb823bn ($124bn) this year. Heavy but not excessive: network capacity seems to have done little more than keep pace with economic development. Freight traffic density has increased by an average 1.3 per cent a year; passenger density by about 2.4 per cent a year.

在一片兴奋声中，若是质问中国是否真的需要高铁，似乎有些鲁莽，但这是一个很好的问题。对于纵横全国的现有铁路基础设施，中国的投资力度已经相当之大——自2005年以来增长了6倍，今年达到了8230亿元人民币（合1240亿美元）。投资巨大但不过度：路网能力似乎基本上与经济增长同步。货运密度年均增长1.3%，客运密度每年大约增长2.4%。

The real question, then, is not whether China has over-invested in the past, but whether it will. Last week a usually reliable news source reported the government’s next five-year plan, to 2015, includes up to Rmb4,000bn of rail network investment. In other words, the current pace of infrastructure spending – increased to smooth over the global financial crisis – will be sustained. This might make sense, even if China’s listed rail companies, which already produce low aggregate returns on capital, do not prosper. Good rail connections bring all sorts of hard-to-measure gains to the country. Still, when it comes to the grand projet, Beijing seems no more fond of cost discipline than every ascendant civilisation before it.

因此，真正的问题不在于中国过去是否已投资过度，而在于未来是否会投资过度。上周，一个通常可靠的消息来源报道称，中国政府的下一个五年计划（到2015年）包括最高可达4万亿元人民币的铁路网络投资。换言之，中国为舒缓全球金融危机而加大的基础设施投资步伐，将会持续下去。这或许是对的，即使中国上市铁路公司的业绩并不看好——它们的总资本回报率已经很低。四通八达的铁路网络会为中国带来各种难以衡量的好处。不过，就宏伟规划而言，中国政府看上去和之前所有上升中的文明一样不惜代价。

Lex专栏是由FT评论家联合撰写的短评，对全球经济与商业进行精辟分析