Source: washingtonpost.com    Date: May 19, 2010

Last year, China surpassed the USA as the world's largest automaker. The country is aggressively making jets to compete with Boeing and Airbus. And in recent years, with little outside notice, China made another great leap forward in transportation: It now leads the world in high-speed rail.

High-speed trains were once the preserve of Japan and France, but now China's trains are the world's fastest, its network of tracks the longest and its expansion plans the most ambitious. By 2012, just four years after it began its first high-speed passenger service, China will have more high-speed train tracks than the rest of the world combined.

After years of major investment in highways, China is now investing billions in a cutting-edge network of trains and subways designed to boost exports and revolutionize the flow of people and goods in the world's fastest-rising economic powerhouses.

"This will pay huge dividends for China to years to come," said Mr. Tim Schweikert, chief executive of GE Transportation China, which signed a deal last year to invest in China's rail expansion in exchange for using Chinese trains and technology to bid on high-speed rail projects in the US. Chinese officials said exporting to the US is part of a broader goal of becoming the chief high-speed train supplier to the world, as well as serving China's vast domestic market.

China is trying to sweeten its bid by offering low-interest financing. And to counter resistance to Chinese incursion into the railway business, the GE deal stipulates that the locomotive components would be 80 percent American and 20 percent Chinese, and all of the final assembly would be done in the U.S.