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this post was submitted on 14 Dec 2025
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What's it with these railway based China propaganda posts?
Yes the US sucks.
Yes you can get a lot done in a totalitarian system.
But: China also sucks.
Other democratic countries all manage to have perfectly fine rail systems, it's not solely the domain of totalitarian governments- just functioning governments.
Much like healthcare, it's literally just the US government that fucks it up.
For those who want to go the "well Europe/Japan/Korea/China/etc had the advantage of being bombed flat in various wars which made rebuilding for rail easier", we STILL have plenty of unused, unmaintained rail in the US. We could do this. Hell, you wanna solve unemployment numbers going up? Public works to rehab the right-of-ways that the big companies aren't using, rehab the rails they ARE using, and suddenly we can AT LEAST enable 100mph trains across the country in less than a decade, and probably bring back passenger rail if we wanted to invest in more rolling stock.
Of course, this means we'd have to lift the steel tariff. And rehab steel mills. And also nationalize good portions of the railway (I'd suggest the entire rail network, and lease usage to the freight companies).
A really sad fact is that rail lines used to connect even the most rural of communities. Many cities removed rail lines to put in roadways.
You can still find rails to a lot of farms in Idaho because that's how produce used to be shipped.
The big rail companies are a major reason rail sucks in the US. They were given the land for their lines nearly for free with the promise they'd provide public transit. Well, they stopped that. So the US created Amtrak to relieve them of the obligation of public transit with the promise that Amtrak trains would get priority. Well they constantly break that law which makes Amtrak suck with constant delays.
Heck, these companies are at least supposed to be in charge of maintaining the lines, and they don't do that either. The US has a crazy number of derailments and a big reason for some of them is that the tracks receive little maintenance.
These are still multi billion dollar companies and they do what all giant companies do and nickel/dime everything.
It's actually worse than that- amtrak was a reagan thing, which was meant to intentionally fail so they could give the passenger rail lines to big freight companies as well.
It was literally meant to fail so they could privatize it, but Amtrak pulled off a miracle. Amtrak is actually really, really good in places they can own their own rail- it's why they're really not allowed to build or own their own rail anymore.
Yeah but China’s authoritarian system is how they went from no high speed rail to the most high speed rail in the world in just 25 years. It took Japan 70 years to get where they are now and many European nations more than a hundred.
Maybe also having the largest population in the world had something to do with it. They have way more people to do the work. They also have way more money than Japan to do the work.
And that's not even considering how they have a lot more land to work with. Easier to put high speed rail through some farmland than to redevelop several urban blocks to create rail infrastructure.
Well, the perk of being an authoritarian regime is that you don't really have to put the high speed rail on farmland. Urban blocks are fine too if it's a better path.
Don't know if you read my comment very well. Regardless of the state's authority it's still way easier to develop land that's not densely populated versus that which is.
Japan is significantly more densely populated
Where's that picture of the one house in the middle of a highway because the owner wouldn't sell/move?
You mean the places that did the actual research and development on how to effectively build (high speed) trains and rail networks took longer to get where they are than the place that could just use already well-established technology? No way!
Don't get me wrong, there can absolutely be political barriers to having a good rail network (as evidenced by the US), but let's not pretend you're comparing apples to apples here.
There's a stark difference between Chinese propaganda and information about positive things in China.
You can post about good aspects of the Chinese society without mentioning the government, let alone glorifying it. Same goes for the USA. If I post that I like American national parks, does that constitute American propaganda? Are we only allowed to hate on those two countries?
Just because the Chinese model is incompatible with the European or American ones, doesn't mean there's nothing we can learn from it.
Except hostile architecture exists in China, too, so it is actually propaganda..
Actually, yes. Fuck Yellowstone and fuck Yogi the Bear. I'm gonna go ahead and hate everything in the US and everything in China. EU rules, other places drool! Downvote me if and you dare! I've got a baguette and I'm not afraid to use it!
His name is Yogi Bear, not Yogi the Bear
You don't have to be authoritarian to accomplish these things. Even the US built some truly amazing infrastructure very quickly following WW2. They just chose to make it all car based. It was impressive from an engineering perspective, but not very smart
Yeah. Can we take Japan as an example perhaps? They've got excellent high speed rail too. Also better urban planning in general.
In Fact, China uses the same kind of hostile architecture:
Cope
Right? There are other examples.
Because Americans have been complaining "but America is big" when you try to compare other countries, so an example for a equivalent science should be used. Also another notable thing with China is their development is recent enough to show that it's never too late to start the change.
People moaning about tankie propaganda are missing the point that it’s not about how amazing China is, it’s about how American politicians are letting their people down.
The “because totalitarianism” argument is a non-starter - plenty of functioning democracies have built effective high speed rail. China is being given as an example because they’re a similar size while having much less money; it’s a counter to the “we’re too big” excuses usually made for why small European and SEA countries are also able to do it.
I feel like you can make the point without felating dictatorships and making the false statement that they don't do the same shit.
Saying something good about a country = Propaganda (???)
Propaganda doesn't mean false, it's used to manipulate public opinion whether true or false.
So, was this used to manipulate public opinion? I dunno, kinda
If it'll manipulate public opinion into demanding good public transport then great.
This example is also false because China also employs hostile architecture. Hell, they manufacture the stuff for the US.
How does the USA have immense road infrastructure then?