China is set to open two new high-speed rail lines this month, raising to 12 the total number of provinces where every city is fully connected to the network.
The new lines will expand high-speed rail coverage in southeastern Guizhou province and northeastern Liaoning province via routes running from Panzhou to Xingyi (in Guizhou) and Shenyang to Changbaishan (in Liaoning), Yicai Global reports.
The latter route will form part of a longer line between Shenyang and Jiamusi, Heilongjiang province. The Shenyang-Changbaishan section’s opening will bring high-speed rail to Tonghua and Baishan in Jilin province, and Fushun in Liaoning province.
The rollout marks China’s ongoing transition from building backbone routes to creating a dense, integrated high-speed rail network – which was the world’s largest by far at 48,000 kilometres by the end of 2024, according to the South China Morning Post. It’s on track to cover 50,000 kilometres by the end of this year, and the current plan is to have it connect all mainland cities with populations exceeding 500,000 by 2035.
[See more: High-speed rail passenger trips between Hong Kong, Shenzhen and Guangzhou top 20 million year to date]
Last year, Hubei and Guangxi joined the list of fully covered provinces, alongside Fujian, Anhui, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Hebei, Guangdong Henan and Hunan. In 2023, Jiangxi became the first province where every city is served by high-speed trains capable of reaching 350 kilometres per hour.
Some observers have criticised China’s high-speed rail ambitions due to the amount of debt the network is taking on – a sum that stood at 6.2 trillion yuan (US$863 billion) at the end of 2024. According to researcher Zhao Zhijiang at the Beijing-based think tank Anbound, the “risks associated with a debt level at such a scale cannot be ignored” – particularly with the rail’s relatively modest profitability.
Zhao Jian, a professor at Beijing Jiaotong University, has also criticised the project for prioritising passenger travel over freight, as the high-speed rail isn’t suitable for heavy loads.
