This is a truly incredible article that criticizes China's plans to build high speed rail to under-served parts of China by taking the angle that it won't make money, and therefore is stupid. Amazing that infrastructure projects that help rural Chinese gain access to a high speed rail network is criticized from the angle of profit-making when making a profit is never the point with infrastructure projects. The NYC subway system wasn't built to "make a profit," but that doesn't mean it was a bad idea. But China bad so somehow them building a crazy amount of high speed rail is bad.
China understands reality, Anglos don't
If you build it, they will come. You build railways into the rural West and more people will go there, and it will eventually increase business and population in those areas.
Also it has the pleasant side effect of making the Chinese population harder to nuke down.