REFLECTIONS IN A CHINESE EYE

Cycling on Crazy Chinese Roads

Everytime I get out on the bike, whether its training or racing, its like playing a game of Frogger.  You have to be on your absolute alert at all times to survive here in what seems to be a bizzare set of rules that are employed by the Chinese traffic and pedestrians.  When you survey what happens on the street, you just wonder how it is possible that they all survive. Miraculously, there are very few accidents that occur on Chinese roads despite some of the road users seemingly totally ignorant of road rules.

Every training ride its like an adventure in itself and I’m constantly having to avoid traffic that cross my line, even when I have right of way. I find that the most dangerous of them all is the pedestrians. They seem to wander onto the roads, completely oblivious to what might be coming past. I have had more close misses with people walking on the roads then I have with the motorcar drivers and electric scooters combined. Have even managed to knock one Chinese person down on the seat of his pants! It was shocking. I was cruising along one of the roads that fringe the West Lake, and saw this middle-aged man about to cross the street. However he was looking in the other direction and then without looking my way, he stepped into my path. It was also wet on the road, so I could not slam the brakes on and the best I could do was yell out my warning. He still kept going and there was nowhere really for me to go, I managed to swerve and lessen the impact on him. It was still enough to knock him to the ground looking completely stunned. Since I veered off the path away from him, I had careered into two heavy cones and knocked them both down too. I miraculously stayed up-right, but my left hand was hit hard. Immediately a swarm of Chinese people formed around me and the man that was still seated on the ground. There was even a policeman on scene. They all tried to blame me for the incident, even though I could explain it clearly enough in Chinese that it was the man’s fault for not looking both ways.  One particular woman was yelling at me and saying that I was going too fast and therefore it was my fault (in fact I was only cruising along at 20km/h). Arguing with them was no use, so I said that I was sorry and left the scene to continue riding.

The above scenario could happen quite regularly if I am not on the alert. It gets tiring though and it feels good to be able to ride on roads that don’t have so many moving obstacles.  The other main threat is the large fleet of Chinese on e-bikes, their maximum speed is only around 30km/h, but most of them potter along like there is no tomorrow and they have a tendency to zig-zag. This increases the chances of getting side-swiped as you pass them. It is best to ride on the actual road where possible – its safer to ride with the main body of traffic and not in the bike lane. If you are just interested in cruising along at slow speeds – then the Hangzhou bike lanes are perfect for that. They are all over the city and make cycling for regular people somewhat safer as it is divided from the main traffic.

I recently found a fellow cyclist’s blog who writes about his experiences on the crazy Chinese Roads – alot of I completely agree with. Very interesting in-sights to living in the land of the Middle Kingdom. You can check out his blog Waffles & Steel – China Watching from the Seat of a Bike

BIKEDAN IN ASIA

Why the Pigeon Couldn’t Fly

After a few calls to bike shops, it became clear: No one wanted to put the Flying Pigeon together.

I bought the big black city bicycle, a classic from China imported via a shop in Los Angeles, as a gift for my wife’s 30th birthday in early May. Yet as June loomed, it still sat unassembled in its rectangular box in my living room.

Josef Bray-Ali, the West Coast shop owner who sold me the bike for $599 (the special saddle was an extra $70, and the shipping was $80), had warned that it would be hard to put together — “You need someone good” — but I figured finding a skilled mechanic in New York City would be no problem. In this bike-friendly city, how hard could it be to find someone who could build a simple machine that hundreds of millions of Chinese have been riding since Mao’s day?

“No, oh no, no,” said a mechanic at one downtown shop that Mr. Bray-Ali had recommended. It was the spring rush, the mechanic told me, and he was too busy. He recommended finding a shop in Chinatown on the notion that someone Chinese might be better equipped and knowledgeable.

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” said Chung Pai, the Chinese-American owner of Landmark Vintage Bicycles on the Lower East Side. The bike is notorious, he said, because the nonstandard parts are hard to come by. That might have explained the reaction I got from shops: some said they would do it, only to turn it down later when I called back to confirm.

I had thought the gift would be both romantic (we had recently spent time in China) and practical (she could more comfortably bike in her work clothes), but the big brown box was neither.

I began to worry that the bike’s charm — its easygoing ride and springy seat, like a Barcalounger on two wheels, and that moniker — had overwhelmed my street sense. Had I fallen into the increasingly familiar trap of putting bicycling form ahead of bicycling function?

The classic look of the Flying Pigeon, whose design emulates midcentury British bicycles, is certainly part of its appeal.

“It’s the style that attracts people,” said Ian Cunningham, a former art director for Brooks Brothers who has been importing Flying Pigeons from Tianjin, China, for three years. “They’re the iconic bike.” He said the bikes sold far better in Manhattan (form) than in Brooklyn (function; or, perhaps, form of a pared-down variety).

Mr. Cunningham said he currently had a waiting list of 40 people — that’s why I went to Los Angeles in the first place — and was expecting two shipping containers packed with 500 bicycles to arrive by early July. He said that he and his fiancée, Victoria, planned to open the city’s first dedicated Flying Pigeon shop on Canal Street in the fall.

So where are all those people getting their Pigeons put together? Mr. Cunningham recommended Toga in Chelsea, Bike Works on the Lower East Side, or a “master mechanic” named Dennis Healy at 504 Canal Street.

But before I had the chance to call them, my partner in the Spokes column, Sean Patrick Farrell, who had worked as a bicycle mechanic for 10 years, said he would give it a try.

Read more and view photos at The New York Times

Bus operator pays 500,000 yuan for vehicle all in 1-yuan notes, bank complains

A Chongqing bus operator that purchased a bus decided to pay for the RMB500,000 purchase in cash--the kind of cash that bus operators are in no shortage of: RMB1 notes. 

"We've been dealing with them for a long time, and we often do business with them," said an employee of the vehicle supplier. "They always settle their accounts directly via bank transfer." But on April 5, an employee of the Chongqing bus company called the vehicle supplier and said that this time they'd be paying in spare change. "We didn't really know why they didn't want to go through the bank this time, but we weren't going to not accept their offer. It's all money in the end."

The money filled 13 burlap sacks that weighed 30 kilograms each. Put together, they occupied 9 square meters. When the time came to pick up the money, the supplier drove an eight-seat van to Chongqing. "We only left the front row of seats intact, all the seats in the back we had to take out in order to fit the money in," the employee explained. "We thought that there would at least be some 5s and 10s. We never imagined it'd be all 1s."

Read more at GoChendoo

The trouble with getting takeoff and landing slots in China

It's easy to beat up on American Airlines for its decision to delay its Chicago-Beijing service on the day it was to be launched.

But several have pointed us to a South China Morning Post article in which the Hong Kong newspaper says top Chinese aviation officials "have been accused of illegally selling sought-after landing slots to the country's major carriers."

Other U.S. airlines currently flying to Beijing have favorable times, along the lines of what American expected to receive. Looking at their experience, American expected similar treatment.

United Airlines flights arrives from Chicago at 2:40 p.m., from San Francisco at 3:15 p.m. and from Washington at 2:20 p.m. Continental Airlines' flight from Newark arrives at 1:50 p.m. So American had reason to expect it would get better times that the middle of the night.

Read more at The Dallas Morning News

China's super-rich are driving luxury car sales boom

It is difficult to take your eyes off an £800,000 automobile, which perhaps explains why the Rolls-Royce Phantom at this week's Beijing Auto Show was that rare thing, a car attracting more avid attention than the skimpily-clad models preening over the bonnets of lesser brands.

"We sold that car this morning," Rolls-Royce's new German chief executive, Torsten Muller-Otvos observed casually. "I can't say who bought it, but a client known to our Beijing dealership will take it after the show."

It is this kind of impulse-purchasing power that brings the top-brass of the European and American car industry to China this week in the hope of capturing a slice of the world's fastest-growing car market.

At a time when sales are stagnating at home, car sales in China surged by 45pc last year to 13.6m vehicles, easily eclipsing the 10.5m sold in the US and the growth story has continued this year with first-quarter sales up 63pc on 2009.

The vast majority of these will be the identikit, knock-off saloons that clog the roads of all China's major cities, but for super-luxury brands like Rolls-Royce the boom in Chinese car sales is, if anything, even more spectacular.

Read more at The Telegraph

Better Place in China deal

Better Place, the electric car infrastructure company, has announced its first deal with a carmaker in China, potentially the biggest future market for battery-powered cars.

The US company signed a memorandum of understanding on Saturday with Chery Automobile, China’s biggest independent carmaker, to develop prototypes for electric vehicles to be used in regional state-sponsored pilot projects.

The cars will have switchable batteries that can be removed and replaced with recharged ones at swap stations of the type Better Place is building in countries including Israel and Denmark.

Read more at Financial Times

Asia: Best airports in the world

With the recent opening of Hong Kong airport's new state-of-the-art SkyPier, arriving passengers can now step off their plane, take a four-minute ride on an "automated people mover" to a the eastern side of the airport where they board hovercraft or high speed ferries for 30-90 minute voyages across the South China Sea to destinations such as Guangzhou, Macau and Shenzhen. Cathay Pacific calls Hong Kong International its "Superhub."

Imagine what it would be like if you could land at SFO, then jump on a high speed ferry to the Embarcadero, or over to Oakland, or up to Wine Country?

Maybe one day...but for now, Asia's got us beat when it comes to the world's best airports.

Hong Kong is one of three "Five-Star" airports in the world according to SkyTrax, a well-respected international organization that ranks both airlines and airports based on surveys of thousands of frequent international business travelers from around the world.

Read more and watch video at The San Francisco Chronicle

The Ford Start Concept

Ford is looking to increase its brand presence in China. GM and other Asian brands have already pegged the market there, but Ford is making steps towards this rapidly growing segment. At the Beijing Auto Show, the brand assembled their largest ever display in China. The interactive setup featured something we haven't seen from Ford in quite a while, an all-new concept car.

The Ford Start Concept takes cues from other current industry trends- presenting a small urban oriented commuter that promotes efficiency and connectivity. As Ford describes at length, it should essentially cover all the concerns of the modern urban commuter and first time buyer. The hassles of parking, traffic, and fuel cost should be mitigated by the Start's small yet functional size. Four occupants can ride in the car at once, though comfort would likely be at a premium. City cars like the Smart Car and and Scion iQ are direct competition.

Read more and view slideshow at the College Driver

In China, every ding has a silver lining

Peter Hessler

A foreign resident in Beijing decodes the process of hiring a car and dealing with dents in the bustling capital

FOR my road trip, I rented a Chinese-made Jeep Cherokee from a Beijing company called Capital Motors. It was a new industry; even five years earlier, almost nobody would have thought of renting a car for a weekend trip. But now the business had started to develop, and my local Capital Motors branch had a fleet of about 50 vehicles, mostly Chinese-made Volkswagen Santanas and Jettas.

They are small sedans, built on the same basic model as the VW Fox that was once sold in the US. At Capital Motors, I often rented Jettas for weekend trips, and there was an elaborate ritual to these transactions. First, I paid my $US25 ($41) a day and filled out a mountain of paperwork.

Next, the head mechanic opened the trunk to prove there was a spare tyre and a jack. Finally we toured the Jetta's exterior, recording dents and scratches on a diagram that represented the shape of a car. This often took a while; Beijing traffic is not gentle, and it was my responsibility to sketch every door ding and bumper dent. After we documented the prenuptial damage, the mechanic turned the ignition and showed me the gas gauge. Sometimes it was half full; sometimes there was a quarter tank. Occasionally he studied it and announced: "Three-eighths."

Read more at The Australian

This is an edited extract from Country Driving: A Journey through China from Farm to Factory, by Peter Hessler (Text Publishing, $36.95).

China Key To Carrier Comeback

The business jet market seems wrapped in a Chinese fortune cookie these days.

Plane makers and servicers are recovering from 2009's hard landing.

Demand is tepid in the key U.S. market due to corporate cuts and tight credit. Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine says plane deliveries fell 34% to 870 in 2009. Many companies are leery of letting honchos soar at shareholder expense.

Plane makers see China possibly rising to the No. 1 market spot for company jets in the next decade. Here, Gulfstream aircraft wait in Hong Kong. AP View Enlarged Image

The Federal Aviation Administration says business flight operations plunged 30% in February.

"It's certainly been a very challenging 18 months," said Ed Bolen, chief executive of the National Business Aviation Association. Then again, conditions have "quit getting worse" in the past two months as the industry tries to pull up.

Jet makers such as Textron (TXT) unit Cessna Aircraft and Montreal-based Bombardier see 2011 as a turnaround year.

And China seems to hold the key.

Read more at Investor's Business Daily

The New Age of Travel: Blimps and Beyond

The Icelandic volcano that disrupted global air travel last week raised a concern: should we be thinking of alternative ways to move masses of people and goods? Scientists warn that more eruptions may cause new turmoil in the months ahead, a prospect that has generated discussion of future — even futuristic — modes of transportation.

Can anything replace the plane? If so, what is exciting to dream about, while waiting in the airport departure lounge?

Kat Hannaford, Gizmodo.com

Simon Winchester, author of “Krakatoa”

Mark Frauenfelder, founder of boingboing.net

Robert Poole, Reason Foundation

Read more at The New York Times

BMW confirms Megacity electric car for 2013

BMW has used the Beijing Motor Show to announce that it will have its much-talked-about Megacity electric car on the market by 2013. Previously, the German automaker had only hinted that it would produce the urban runabout in the first half of the decade. Also of note is that the Megacity EV will be launched under a new sub-brand, much in the same way that the automaker has used its Mini branch to enter into lower-market segments without taking the chance of tarnishing the well-earned reputation of its corporate roundel.

According to BMW, its upcoming electric vehicle will be the first mass-produced vehicle that relies heavily on the use of carbon fiber for its structure, which should help keep the vehicle lightweight, thereby improving its performance and range. BMW has indicated that it hopes to earn valuable information from its 600-plus vehicle fleet of Mini E electric vehicles, 50 of which will be delivered to Chinese customers before the end of 2010.

In related news, BMW has also said that it will show off an electric 5 Seriessedan in Beijing. Called the Echo, the electric vehicle was assembled at BMW's Shanyang plant in China with cooperation from the government-backed Tongji University. There are currently no plans to put the vehicle into production, but the automaker hopes to gauge how advanced China's homegrown electric vehicle technology is at present.

REad more at autoblog green

More than 200 Spanish caught in Beijing because of flight cancellations due to volcano ash cloud

Various Spanish groups who travelled temporarily to China have been trying to return home since last Friday, most of them with Chinese airlines, Air China and Hainan Airlines.

More than 200 Spanish caught in Beijing because of flight cancellations due to volcano ash cloud

The Spanish are among up to 7,000 European Union citizens who are in identical circumstances in China.

Spanish Two hundred have been in contact with the Consulate of Spain in Beijing for help and information on the extension of their visas due to the cancellation of flights as a result of the volcano ash cloud.

Read more at Barcelona Reporter

Gr-r-r-r! Why I hate China’s e-bikes

Call me a Luddite, but sometimes I feel like destroying a piece of machinery.

 

In this case, it’s the electric bicycles that have taken China by storm.

 

I know all the arguments in favor of them. They’re convenient. They’re inexpensive. They’re good for the environment. (Supposedly; more on that later.)

 

They’re also silent.

 

And deadly.

 

At least the way people ride them in Beijing.

 

About the only great reason to work late in the office is the opportunity to cycle home in the evening.  In the winter especially, the streets are wonderfully quiet, and there’s a poetry in watching the air frosting over. In the summer, after the dinner hour, cyclists pedal side by side at a leisurely pace, sometimes three or four across the path. The bicycle ride is the Beijing equivalent of the Brooklyn front stoop -- a time to catch up on gossip with friends or neighbors as the day winds down.

But increasingly, cycling at night is fraught with near-death experiences, thanks to the e-bike, a vehicle whose popularity grows leaps and bounds every year. (Recent estimates put the number of electric bikes at 140 million on China’s roads.)

Read more at msnbc

Hard to quibble with anything the lady has to say on this subject.  I've come close to to losing my life several times when unexpectedly encountering these silent killers while walking or riding my mountain bike.  Of course, it isn't the bike itself that is the culprit - the idiots that ride them are the concern.  Beijing is more structured and law abiding than where I live.  It safe to say that car, truck, and motorcycles operators pay no more heed to traffic laws and pedestrians than do the e-bike and bicycle riders.  

China's Failed "High" Speed Rail - An Update

Yesterday, I reported on a New York Times story that said a high-speed rail service in China's Fujian province had failed due to competition from air. After querying this further with our contacts in China (with credit due to the intrepid Wendell Cox), we discoverd the service that was taken off line was not true high-speed, but a higher speed conventional rail service. So, the Times (and Associated Press) apparently erred in its reporting.

That said, the point is still relevant to the discussion in the United States. Most of the federal funding for so-called "high-speed" rail is in fact moderate-speed rail as my colleague Bob Poole has noted over and over again. Trains in the U.S. will reach speeds of 110 mph, not the 150 mph considered the minimum threshold for true high-speed rail service.

China relies heavily on rail to move people across its vast continent. Rail serves a broad customer base of moderate income households and passengers with low personal mobility. Simply speeding up conventional rail apparently doesn't work in China when faster and increasingly cost effective alternatives are available to reach the growing middle class.

Reason Foundation

Lamborghini opens Shenzhen store to win China market

Shanghai, April 21 (Gasgoo.com) Italian supercar manufacturer Lamborghini held a spectacular opening ceremony to celebrate the establishment of the Shenzhen Lamborghini dealership on April 20. The new outlet will offer exclusive VIP services to Lamborghini's clients in Shenzhen and the surrounding areas, as a powerful supplement to the existing Hong Kong and Guangzhou dealers.

The new Shenzhen dealership as one of the important parts of the company's global sales networks is located in the core area of Shenzhen CBD (Central Business District). In addition to Shenzhen, Lamborghini has established dealerships in Guangzhou, Shanghai, Beijing, Chengdu, Hangzhou and Hong Kong, totaling six dealers, and it is setting up the eighth dealership in Xiamen, a tourist city of southern Fujian province on April 21.

Read more at Gasgoo

The Cost Of Driving In China

Toll roads prohibit the nation from enjoying the economic benefits of its vast highway network.

HONG KONG -- China will spend $300 billion on high-speed rail lines over the next 20 years. The world has seen nothing like it, and China-watchers have responded by drawing analogies to America's transcontinental railroad, built in the 19th century, or its interstate highway system, built and expanded throughout the 1950s and 1960s.

High-speed rail is not the only thing on the nation's infrastructure to-do list. China's General Administration of Civil Aviation has budgeted $62 billion to build 100 new airports by 2020. All of this new infrastructure is being seen as the signs of progress, but what has been missed is how high-speed rail and the new airports are a way for China to get around a major problem it faces--an exorbitant, toll-based road system.

Read more at Forbes

Rails to riches

The Wuhan to Guangzhou Highspeed Railway starts operation in December last year. Photo: IC

Once a gold mine for a select few foreign railway construction companies, China is now looking to compete with the global conglomerates that helped build its rail lines in the first place.

Chinese firms are already building high-speed rail links in Turkey and Venezuela, but the railways ministry has said it wants to export "Chinese technology" to North and South America as well as Europe.

In Saudi Arabia, the German giant Siemens is said to have forged an alliance with a Chinese consortium for a high-speed rail link between the holy cities of Medina and Mecca, after realizing it could lose the tender to the consortium.

The move highlights the emergence of Chinese firms as major players on the railway scene, helped along by government financial support

Read more at Alibaba

Reflections of life in China’s fast lane

Published: April 19 2010 01:50 | Last updated: April 19 2010 01:50

If you have read River Town or Oracle Bones, you can only open the final part of Peter Hessler’s trilogy on modern China with a sense of expectation. His first two books – which capture a breakneck lunge for modernisation with empathy, humour and a poignantly lyrical style – established his reputation as a consummate chronicler of the nation’s transformation. Country Driving does not disappoint.

Hessler’s approach is to visit the same places and the same people (many of whom he befriends) over time, allowing him to build up a nuanced picture of change. Thus, over six years in a village near Beijing, he witnesses city life spill over into the countryside, forcing changes – social, political, monetary and even dietary – on its inhabitants.

In the factory town of Lishui, he chronicles the establishment of a manufacturing plant that churns out the wire loops used in bras. He recounts how, in the space of a few years, the factory owners buy machinery, hire workers, build up inventory, find buyers and then dismantle the whole operation to move to a different city. Such is the warp-speed of China’s industrialisation.

Above all, Hessler writes about the effects of compressed time on people, especially the peasants wrenched from the land. “Newspaper stories about China tended to focus on the dramatic and the political, and emphasised the risk of instability,” he writes. “But from what I saw, the nation’s greatest turmoil was more personal and internal.”

Read more at Financial Times

European Diary: Long Road Back to Beijing

A volcano erupts in Iceland and a lunch is canceled in Beijing.

At 12.15pm on Monday, Duncan Clark, the chairman of tech consultancy BDA China, was scheduled to meet us for lunch in Beijing. A table had been booked at Spanish restaurant Mare in eTower.

Getty Images

A cloud of volcanic matter rises from Iceland.

None of us had counted on a volcanic eruption in Iceland.

We heard from Duncan on Saturday: He was stranded in Paris. “Worse things have happened, of course,” he told us, but he wouldn’t make it for lunch. “I’m booked via Abu Dhabi Wednesday, arriving Thursday morning. Worse case is Paris-Beijing by train, in which case we’re looking at end of the month, but I don’t think it will come to that!”

We’ve been tracking Duncan’s progress to our lunch by email as he meanders across Europe in a rental car from Paris to Madrid, where his flight to Dubai originates.

Luckily, he found a travel companion — Stefan, who lives in Shanghai. Their misadventures offer a glimpse into the travel chaos now gripping Europe that’s led to economic disruption around the world and, more frivolously, cancelled lunch appointments from Buenos Aires to Beijing.

Read more at ChinaRealTimeReport

Auto show feeds China's lust for flashy cars

China's largest automotive event kicks off this week as news breaks that the nation is now the world's leading market for luxury cars.

Auto China 2010 - or the 2010 Beijing International Automotive Exhibition (http://www.china-autoshow.com) - will run from April 25 to May 2 at the China International Exhibition Centre and the world's leading carmakers are expected en masse.

And while the event's organizers have been quick to point to China's own auto industry - one of the nation's biggest carmakers, SAIC, for example will be debuting its all-electric concept car, the E1 at the show - there is little doubt that for most people attending, the bling will be the thing.

Read more at The Independent

Air China resumes flights to Moscow, stranded tourists leave

The Air China air carrier resumed flights to Moscow on Tuesday, the Russian embassy in Beijing said.

Russia has not closed its airspace over a volcanic ash cloud which halted air traffic across Europe. Air China, however, has cancelled all flights from Beijing to Europe, including Moscow, leaving hundreds of Russians stranded.

"As the Chinese Foreign Ministry told us this morning, Air China resumed flights today," Chief of Consular Division Leonid Ignatenko said.

He said the air carrier will make three flights on Tuesday, one on schedule and two extra.

"Tourists are leaving without problems, even those who have their group visa expired leave Beijing without any difficulties," the Russian diplomat said.

A cloud of ash from an eruption on the Eyjafjallajokull Glacier in Iceland, which began on April 14, has disabled air traffic throughout central and northern Europe, leaving thousands of travelers stranded and forcing more than 20 European countries to close their airspace.

RIANOVOSTI

China's high-speed-rail wizards have the answer

When China's rail authorities recently announced plans to build a high-speed rail link connecting Beijing with London I had to pause and wonder who would be booking passage on this Eurasian super express?

Would it be a shuttle for Chinese seamstresses heading off to work in Italian sweatshops? Perhaps it might position itself as a pimped up version of the Orient Express catering to Japan's ever-greying tourism market? Or maybe it would turn a profit by selling seats exclusively to train-spotters.

Having spent the better part of the past weekend in Hong Kong trying to figure out how I am going to get 12 colleagues back to London, I reckon the rail wizards in the People's Republic are on to a winner if they can persuade other nations along the proposed line to play ball and they make the journey comfortable enough.

Rather than dreaming up elaborate routings (Hong-Kong-Auckland-Santiago-São Paulo-London was one option on the table), checking the price of chartering a jet fit for 12 or trying to predict the direction the winds might blow in, it would have been easier to get everyone to a rail platform in Beijing, pack some lunchboxes and send them on their way. Goodness knows, they all would have been back at their desks by now.

Read more at Financial Times

Rolls boss drives China strategy

China's market for luxury autos is unlike any in Europe or North America, says Ian Robertson, chairman of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars.

There are complex regulatory challenges and different fashions but there is also a rapidly growing appetite for luxury goods, including high-end autos. And while sales of luxury cars still lag behind those in the West, the complex China market is of growing importance to the brands at the upper reaches of the industry, Mr. Robertson says.

BMW AG, whose brands include Rolls-Royce, BMW and Mini, recorded sales in China of 90,563 vehicles last year, far fewer than the 241,727 vehicles sold in the U.S.

"The American market is older and more established, with millions of drivers already in the premium segment and loyal to the brand," says Mr. Robertson, who is also a member of the board of management at BMW responsible for group sales and marketing.

But China became the world's largest car market by sales in 2009 and the growth in China's appetite for luxury autos is compelling. It represents a boon for an industry that has faced serious challenges in other markets during the global financial downturn.

Read more at The Wall Street Journal

Train History in China

TRAINS IN CHINA

 

China has 74,438 kilometers, or 46,235 miles of train track, compared to 486 miles in Ethiopia and 21,160 miles in France. Of this 20,151 kilometers is electrified. China is the world’s most prolific railway builder. It adds between 6,000 kilometers of track a year. As of 2005, 82 percent of China’s railroads were controlled by the central government. The remainder were under the control of local governments. The Chinese train system employs 212,000 people.

Trains are the most popular means of long distance travel in China. They carry twice as much freight and passengers as Russian trains and three times as much as the U.S. trains. China's railways carried 1.36 billion passengers in 2007. The number of train passengers is growing by about 15 percent a year. 

Railways are vital to the Chinese economy. China moves 54 percent of domestic trade by train, more than any other major country. Around 2.5 billion tons of freight is carried every year and the rate is growing at a 11 percent rate a year. Most of the coal and oil is moved by train. Iron ore and coal are carried in by train to steel mills and the steel is transported out by train.

China's railroads are having a hard time keeping up with demands put on it by China’s growing economy (See Coal, Energy). China plans to spend tp $205 billion on railroads and build 100,000 kilometers of new track between 2006 and 2010.

Read more at Facts and Details