The Initiation of Maglev Project

Foreigners who visit China with a certain interval would be astonished by its rapid improvement in public infrastructure. Behind such achievements implies an iron fist of the public administrator that guarantee to sweep out the obstacles or opposition to the construction of the public projects in an effective manner. For the same reason, nevertheless, one will be curious to find out that the magnetically levitated train (maglev) line that China has been so proud of and is supposed to provide convenient ride between Shanghai Pudong Airport and downtown stopped in the middle of nowhere, being idle for so many years. Together with the famous demonstration against its construction in late 2000s, one would be puzzled about what has happened to the public authority in China.

From the perspective of Chinese governments, the importance of having a maglev line in commercial

operation manifests in different aspects. First, from a symbolic perspective, it serves to raise the pride of the nation, promote modern image, and therefore enhance the legitimacy of communist regime. While several other means have been serving the same purpose, such as breakthrough in nuclear weapons or aerospace technologies, Maglev has its distinctive status in ranking China another number one in the world. Since there had been no maglev train in service when China approved this project, this high-tech transportation system shows how China might be able to out-beat other advanced countries in this specific field of technology. Ideally it was scheduled to be completed by the Shanghai World Expo in 2010 so that there could be synergetic effects of propaganda for both. The failure of having it completed on time indicates an essential defeat of the seemingly mighty government.

The second rationale for the Maglev is its commercial value. Since the inter-city rail system tended to be overloaded since late 1990s,² the demand for great capacity had been strong for Chinese governments. Two alternatives were considered, a traditional high-speed wheel-rail system versus a maglev system. While the former has been well developed and thus is relatively risk-free in terms of commercial operation. In contrast, the latter enjoys essential advantages in high speed, high safety, low energy consumption, and low

environmental impact. These characteristics render it a promising potential to become an ideal long-distance transportation system for next generation. Although the construction cost could be higher and its technology is still on the verge of maturity, China as a late-comer in mass transportation technology enjoys advantage of taking the most advanced system without too much sunk cost. The huge domestic market in China also guarantees a competitive economy of scale, e.g. a much lower average cost in obtaining or developing germane technologies for commercial operation. In the long run, China might eventually control key technologies and know-how so as to dominate the international market and become the major exporter of this state-of-art system.

For above reasons, the Primer Zhu Rongji (ever been the Mayor of Shanghai City) and Mayor of Shanghai City Xu Kuangdi showed their great interests in Maglev when they had chance of test-ride in their official visit to Germany. They requested a loan and technology transfer from German government and Maglev company (TRI) to promote this system in China. A demonstration (experimental) line, running between Shanghai Pudong Airport and Longyang Road Station,³ was soon planned, constructed, and put into

operation in the beginning of 2003. After the high-profile ribbon-cutting ceremony by Primers of China and Germany, the public authority started to propose formal commercial lines, connecting Beijing and Hangzhou respectively.

In addition to the rhetoric that the central government has advocated, local governments and public officers had their own agenda. From the perspective of Shanghai, maglev train is a symbol of modernity and fashion that can tract tourists. Although it is very expensive, Shanghai City has very big size of budget to handle the financial issue. In the meantime, many investments have been made by businesspersons in Shanghai to explore the opportunities of this lucrative industry. Although economic elites in China might not as powerful as those in western world, they are still a symbiotic alliance with the public officers in promoting economic growth in the metropolitan area. The leadership of the public officers in such public-private partnership has been evident by the formation of Shanghai Maglev Transportation Development Co., in which the city government has been the major investor.

2 Specifically, the rail capacity connecting Beijing and Shanghai had been the main concern.

3 Longyang Road Station is a subway station on southeastern outskirt of Shanghai City. Since it is not a hub for public transportation and thus not convenient for the passengers reach different corners of the city. In addition, the fare is too high to be affordable for citizens. This line seems to serve more touring than transporting purpose since its formal operation, with an overall ridership at only about 20% of capacity. For this reason, opponents criticize that it is mere a very expensive toy for the city.

For those cities that the maglev line proposes to connects, quite different concerns involve. Since Shanghai city has been a regional growth engine and thus a high speed transportation system connecting to it is

expected to further attract the spillover investments, talent workers, and tourists of this city. While both traditional and maglev trains serve the same purpose, the cost becomes the key determinant. On the one hand, there could be heavy subsidies by either central or provincial governments so that the costs could be substantially externalized. On the other hand, the share of matching fund matters. Since the construction costs of the maglev have to be shared with Shanghai city, when the total costs soar because of the enlarged scale of compensation for relocation in Shanghai, their interests in this project for these cities will decrease accordingly. For such cities as Chiaxing and Hangzhou, the budget sizes have been substantially smaller and thus the crowding-out effect of Maglev budget tends to be more intimidating.

Given above reserved opinions, the maglev project might still be worthy of engagement from the perspective of local political leaders. It is eye-catching project involving technology transfer from an advanced country.

It gained endorsement by the top national leaders who have thus stakes on this project. It has been a

common sense that taking good care of such item would earn not only intensive media spotlight, but also gain favorable notices from critical superiors and extraordinary credits in personal political records. In contrast, falling to accomplish this task might create powerful enemy and hurdles for local leaders in surviving fierce competition in climbing up their ladder of political career.

With the supports from both central and local leaders, the maglev project connecting Shanghai and Hangzhou was officially approved by Commission of Development and Reform in March 2006.⁴ This 200-kilometer maglev line can be divided into two parts with roughly equal length, one in Zhejiang Province and the other in Shanghai City. While the former was relatively no less disputable in theory,⁵ the latter encountered actual resistance because it had to go through heavily populated area and thus triggered pollution concern of electromagnetic wave as well as intensive relocation of residents. It planned to extend the demonstration line from Longyang Road Station to the center of World Expo, Shanghai South Railway Station (hereafter South Station), and further to Hongqiao Airport, rather than turning south to Hangzhou directly from Shanghai South Station.⁶

4 The other proposal, connecting Shanghai and Beijing, was not approved because the authority worried that too many train systems on the same rail line would be too complicated to operate.

5 Actually an alternative of the project, a traditional high speed rail, has been initiated in February 2009 and put into operation in October 2010. Since travel time of this alternative between two cities has been reduced to 45 minutes, it makes no sense to spend another 22 billion RMB build another system that saves less than 20 minutes.

6 It makes more sense to start from South Station where the original Shanghai-Hangzhou railway. Probably because of the intention to secure the maglev project from the competition of the high-speed-rail proposed by Ministry of Railways in roughly the same time, Shanghai City government incorporated the project to the mega project of World Expo under the title of “public rapid transportation system,” in which a maglev line serves to connect two airports and the expo venue. In this way the City got funds to initiate Maglev project even though some disputes regarding this projects still remained to hamper its progress.