Infrastructure puts nation on track to greater prosperity
Almost 150 years ago, Leland Stanford, a railroad magnate now better known for founding Stanford University, swung a sledgehammer to drive in a golden spike in Promontory, Utah, completing the last link in the first transcontinental railroad across the United States.
China's huge infrastructure investments over the past 15 years and President Xi Jinping's Belt and Road Initiative for spreading modern infrastructure links across Eurasia, remind me of the golden ages of building rail, road and canal links across North America. China will gain similarly vast benefits - in many ways we can't know in advance.
My wife tells me that, in her youth in the 1980s, it took 57 hours on uncomfortable trains to go from her hometown in Yunnan to Beijing. Now, it takes 13 hours and 40 minutes on luxurious high-speed rail, or about three-and-a-half hours on a not-too-uncomfortable plane. But, is this increased convenience worth the massive costs of infrastructure projects?
