Restructuring the Chinese Freight Railway: Two Scenarios

Abstract

Twenty years of debate regarding the restructuring of the Chinese freight railway have failed to yield a consensus. Early policy statements favoring the creation of above-the-rail competition over a monopoly infrastructure – the “European” model of rail restructuring – have broadened into a lively policy and scholarly debate that includes as an alternative the division of the system into competing vertically integrated railways – the “Americas” model of restructuring. To date, however, there have been no tangible reform steps beyond organizational restructuring, the construction of new coal railroads, some with private-sector participation, and the introduction of scheduled container service between China and Europe. In this paper we argue in favor of the Americas model as a basis for restructuring and offer two alternative scenarios for the creation of multiple vertically integrated freight railways. Both plans enable competition between independent firms and routes for import/export traffic, one a southern, One Belt, One Road path, the other a northern path via the Trans-Siberian Railway.