China's Stimulus Payoff

Yesterday I compared China's stimulus plan with our own. China made a major investment in public infrastructure but a key strategic part of that was that they focused on developing strategic industries.

For example, because China's government has invested heavily internally in high-speed rail, China is now in a position to bid on our own high-speed rail projects. China Is Eager to Bring High-Speed Rail Expertise to the U.S.,

The Chinese government has signed cooperation agreements with the State of California and General Electric to help build such lines. The agreements, both of which are preliminary, show China’s desire to become a big exporter and licensor of bullet trains traveling 215 miles an hour, an environmentally friendly technology in which China has raced past the United States in the last few years.

“We are the most advanced in many fields, and we are willing to share with the United States,” Zheng Jian, the chief planner and director of high-speed rail at China’s railway ministry, said.

China is not alone, of course,

China is not the only country interested in selling high-speed rail equipment to the United States. Japan, Germany, South Korea, Spain, France and Italy have also approached California’s High Speed Rail Authority.

Which country is missing from that list? It is a country whose whose government has been held back by "free market" ideology for the last decade or so, and consequently doesn't have an industrial policy and didn't invest in developing their own high-speed rail industry. See if you can guess which country that is?

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