| Author |
Message |
bleucheese
Veejay
Joined: Aug 01, 2003
Posts: 1993
Location: this side of the tracks
|
 Posted:
Aug 10, 2007 - 03:20 PM |
 
|
| Post subject: people power: maglev to hangzhou on hold |
good for them! a 4.5 billion dollar white elephant.
i wonder how many years chen will spend in the slammer.
Ire Over Shanghai Rail Line May Signal Turning Point
SHANGHAI, Aug. 9 — “I have a dream,” Chen Liangyu, Shanghai’s disgraced Communist Party secretary, was fond of intoning before his aides, consciously echoing the words of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. And as the leader of China’s richest city, Mr. Chen had the power to make most of those dreams come true.
The “hai” in the word Shanghai means ocean, but the city had no beach, he would lament. So city officials built a six-mile beach in Shanghai’s suburbs, using 128,000 tons of sand shipped in from southern China.
Mr. Chen liked tennis, too, so a world-class tennis complex was built at a reported cost of $290 million, even though few Shanghai residents play the game. In a city where relatively few can afford personal cars, Mr. Chen’s government built a $300 million racetrack that critics say is the fanciest on the Formula One circuit.
Most fatefully, perhaps, he strongly backed a $4.5 billion expansion of a magnetic levitation, or maglev, rail line to Hangzhou, a neighboring city, a widely criticized project that raised something relatively new for China: a storm of public prοtest.
Along the way, Mr. Chen openly defied calls by the central government to rein in growth in Shanghai and, in keeping with President Hu Jintao’s emphasis on a “harmonious society,” to pay more attention to the widening gap between China’s rich and poor. The drive for wealth, he said, was more important.
The government came down on Mr. Chen last September, arresting him on suspicion of involvement in a huge municipal fraud scandal. He was expelled from the Communist Party in July and simultaneously removed from his position as a delegate to China’s People’s Congress, stripping him of immunity in preparation for what is expected to be a swift, secret trial.
But for many here, the symbolic end came in May, with the suspension of the maglev project, his greatest, and certainly the Chen era’s most extravagant dream.
For many, the suspension in the face of widespread public opposition signaled the end of an era of top-down, megadevelopment, with attendant opportunities for high-level corruption, and the beginning of an era one in which the voice of China’s growing middle class can no longer be ignored.
“The public is concerned with the electromagnetism of the train, and the government is studying this, and that is one of the reasons the project has been stopped,” a People’s Congress official was quoted as saying in The China Business Journal in one of many news reports that suggested that residents’ complaints had played a major role in the suspension.
Under Mr. Chen, as the Shanghai government raced to complete a basket of gigantic projects remaking the central city before the World Exposition scheduled for here in 2010, public discontent steadily mounted.
Tens of thousands of inner-city residents were evicted, relocated in most cases in remote, unfinished suburbs and offered compensation well below the market value for their property.
In recent years, as rumors of high-level corruption spread, Mr. Chen’s government could not convene without large security deployments worthy of a visit by a foreign head of state, because of the persistent turnout of demonstrators.
Unlike the crowds of poor and elderly people who often braved repeated arrests to prοtest the evictions, the opponents of the maglev line have mostly been members of Shanghai’s new and fast-growing middle class who live along the proposed train route, in the Minhang District.
Residents of the area, which is already heavily laced with train tracks and highways, had petitioned the government against the project, complaining about the supposed dangers of magnetic radiation, noise pollution and the effect of yet another transportation line on property prices.
When their petitions had no effect, they stepped up their prοtests, blocking roads in the area, demonstrating outside of their district’s government headquarters and hoisting banners on their residential high rises that were visible from miles away.
Eventually, some also began raising questions about how state revenues were being spent, a subject that had scarcely ever entered public discussion here. In this case, that meant questioning the start of a costly high-tech train project to Hangzhou the very year that another expensive, high-speed line similar to Japan’s bullet trains linking Shanghai to Hangzhou entered service.
Many of them also pointed out that the existing maglev route has been a commercial failure. Attaining a top speed of 259 miles per hour, it takes only seven minutes to cover the 19 miles from the city’s international airport to a spot on the opposite side of the Huangpu River from central Shanghai. But ticket prices are high and passengers have been few.
“This maglev is not a necessity at all,” said Chen Qi, 36, an account executive with an online trading company who lives along the line and has worked with neighbors to oppose the project. “It is not clear who is going to benefit from it. If it is for the World Expo, what happens after the Expo, and who would go straight to the Expo from the airport? People go to their hotels from the airport.”
Others have denounced the planned railway as just the kind of prestige project that the city needs to avoid. Why would people spend around $25 for the maglev when they could spend just $2.65 to get to Hangzhou comfortably in two hours, asked Zhao Huiyu, an environmental law professor who lives along the proposed line. “If this isn’t something for the people, then what is it? Is this a monument for a leader? It has brought us nothing but trouble.”
Although the government’s long-term intentions toward the train route remain unclear, many here are hopeful that the suspension of the maglev project represents a turning point in the way this city operates.
“If Chen Liangyu were still in power, he would have paid whatever it takes to do whatever he wants,” said an expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences who spoke on condition of anonymity because he had advised the city on planning matters. “The clearance between the proposed route and the nearby buildings is too narrow. Widen it. Decide how much money is needed, get the big companies to shoulder the cost, and give them other payoffs in exchange.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/10/world/asia/10train.html?hp |
|
|
|
|
wolfy
Fire-eater
Joined: Sep 13, 2004
Posts: 2510
|
| Posted:
Aug 10, 2007 - 03:56 PM |
|
|
| Quote: |
| Of the 3 major NY Times reporters on China (Jim Yardley, Joseph Kahn and French), French is afflicted with the most obvious signs of expat chauvinism. While all three parrot the NY Times official editorial stance on constantly criticizing China, Kahn and Yardley offer valuable and sympathetic information on the social ills, while French seems to pretend he's a wannabe Nicholas Kristof, assiduously glorifying himself. I remember one of French's earliest (if not first) article about a year ago on China. He inserted himself as a confidante to a 'beleaguered'' group of Chinese female flight attendants. He portayed the Chinese fliers as uncouth and uncivilized, establishing a clear tone that those stewardesses delighted in the 'luxury' of conversing with your American correspondent. However, unlike Kristof, French comes off as nothing better than a stereotypical Western asiaphile, the imagined lead in a James Cavell novel as a heroic Western man with superior morals, justice and humanism. Unfortunately, the NY Times and the American public prefer their reports on China from this less objective reporter, especially as French's articles serve to reenforce positive images of Americans for themselves, not as genuine attempt at understanding China. |
http://uleewang.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!1plke0ePVdFBdO0ie_eGo5Gw!655. entry |
_________________
Good old English spirit! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MG27BKwjaI |
|
|
|
*CheerLeader*Mao
Post Roaster
Joined: July 07, 2004
Posts: 4678
Location: frenCh belgiuM
|
| Posted:
Aug 11, 2007 - 11:39 AM |
|
|
That Maglev to Hangzhou would have been really cool. The same can be said for the Tennis Stadium, which has been used for concerts and the World Aquatic Championships.
I will never forget my trips to the F1 track, what an amazing racing venue.
No matter what Chen did, in a lot of ways he has left an incredible legacy. I am involved with some people from the Chinese streetball association here. Chen was going to build 300 streetball courts across Shanghai so kids had places to play and develop there games. It has now been scrapped with Chen being throw in prison, but really this was a good initiative, and it would have been managed privately.
Chen will be in prison for life if he is not hung. But these venues, F1, The Masters Tennis Championship, the Maglev to Hangzhou really were impressive in a lot of ways.
The maglev from the airport to LangYang station is really just kind of dumb though.
The |
_________________
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
Forum FAQ
Search
Preferences
Watched Topics
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
