Almost any European country has, with a much smaller economy, better social wellbeing/coverage and a better high speed rail infrastructure (perhaps with the exception of the UK, unless they commit to HS2) so I'm not sure the comparison you should be making is China.

You don't need a totalitarian regime to get modern infrastructure. That's just a ridiculous statement.

Even without the HS2 the UK's train system is quite good. The main gripe from users is it costs a lot.

Eg. looking just now London to Manchester takes 2hr and costs £88 single. I think most brits think I'm not paying £90 for a single I'll drive (3 or 4 hrs), rather than I need it to be 30 min quicker - lets drop $100bn on a new line.

Few years back there were stories about officials removing graveyards to give way for industrial developments. It's really easy to get things done when one only need to answer to above, not below.

I've tried to dig for references, but it's very difficult to find discussions 2+ years back, let along official news.

Removing graveyards for developments both residential and industrial was a big thing in Singapore post-WW2. It worked out very well for them.

There was a time in the west when we build the infrastructure we watch decaying today. I don't think we had totalitarian regimes, concentration camps and involuntary organ harvesting back then.

Which regime do you think built the Autobahn? The American railroads also weren’t built by the nicest, human rights-respecting, non-genocidal, people.

Large parts of the German infrastructure were in fact not built by Hitler, or were destroyed in the war and rebuilt afterwards.

that's a false dichotomy.

The USA's rail system is shit because of lack of investment, and misaligned incentives. It's cheaper to fly, or drive, than to invest in rail, even though rail is very efficient (and i suspect, more environmentally friendly than either of the above).

Rail, at the utilization rate that is observed in the real world in the US, is actually less efficient than a 2-passenger automobile, per passenger-mile.

Note that average real-world occupancy rates of vehicles is 1.5, so that is not to say that rail is more efficient than automobiles. But merely 33% more efficient per passenger-mile than automobiles at the current fleet mpg of 25mpg, which to me was very surprising.

At 60mpg and above (EVs in particular) the automobile at existing occupancy rates is more efficient than rail per passenger-mile.

Part of the challenge with rail efficiency is that it's a fixed point-to-point transit and not a dynamic door-to-door transit. So getting from Point A to Point B has significant wasted overhead distance traveled.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/features/carbon-fo...

Is it because China is a totalitarian regime, you can just state untruth about it without feeling guilty or using your brain?