Why China Is so Good at Building Railways

You're assuming HSR is a "good" decision versus the alternatives, but who's to say it is? Further down this thread is a link to this video called, "Why is China so good at building railways?" [this video] The presenter and quite a few commenters seem to have a built-in bias towards rail. Don't get me wrong. I love a good train journey and prefer it to flying when it's competitive. But the video tries to be an optimistic take on what a cold eye could only describe as totally mad and dysfunctional government. The situation according to the video can be summed up like this: • China has built tons of high speed rail very fast, this is amazing! • But they do it because their internal airlines suck incredibly badly. • There are only three carriers, none of which are budget. Planes are on time only about 65% of the time, which is a staggeringly low figure. The cause is enormous congestion in the air leading to air traffic control frequently denying takeoff rights. • This bizarre situation occurs because the Chinese Army controls almost all the airspace above China and refuses to let civilian flights anywhere except a few corridors. • Rather than get the army under control and open up flying to competition, China decided to build tons of railways instead. • These railways are all heavily subsidised. Theoretically some in the east are profitable, but this is more than offset by railways built along totally unviable routes. For one route the ticket sales don't even cover the cost of electri