Indonesia is inaugurating Southeast Asia's first bullet train, a significant component of China's Belt and Road infrastructure initiative. This project is set to drastically reduce travel time between Jakarta and Bandung from three hours to 40 minutes. The high-speed rail, named "Whoosh," is of Chinese make and will seamlessly link Indonesia's capital, Jakarta, with Bandung, the densely populated capital of West Java province, reported the Associated Press.
  • zephyreks@lemmy.mlM
    ·
    9 months ago

    $7.3 billion for 142km of HSR THROUGH THE JUNGLE during the COVID-19 pandemic is honestly incredibly affordable.

    The UK's HS2 and California HSR are both substantially more expensive (both on a per-km basis and on a per-time-saved basis), for example.

    • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
      ·
      9 months ago

      Chinese engineers are cheap, Indonesian workers are cheaper. Chinese workers are cheap too if they used a lot of those.

      • zephyreks@lemmy.mlM
        ·
        9 months ago

        Chinese engineers in top cities (Beijing, Shanghai, etc.) get paid comparably to the West. An entry-level SDE at Alibaba in Beijing gets offered like 80k USD, which is close to the compensation in Toronto (~110k USD for an entry-level at Amazon), Berlin (~70k for the same position at Amazon), and London (~80k for the same).

        • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
          ·
          9 months ago

          Huh. That's impressive, but I guess poor countries are also often unequal countries. Does that go for civil and mechanical engineers as well?

          • zephyreks@lemmy.mlM
            ·
            9 months ago

            No idea, that's not my industry. There's a reason Chinese people value education so much. It's a key driver in upwards socioeconomic mobility.