Still waiting for the stimulus
GUIYANG, China — The heart of China’s bustling manufacturing zone and the capital of one of its poorest, most remote provinces, are worlds apart.
Guangzhou is hip, modern and wealthy, an old hand at international trade.
Guiyang, the government seat of Guizhou Province, is one of the few cities its size in China too remote for even a single Starbucks cafe.
The rail journey between the two cities is long and slow, on creaking trains often late by hours. Seats can be hard to come by. Passengers creeping along on the final leg toward Guiyang carry an air of resignation — the tracks are so jammed with freight and passenger trains it’s impossible to get anywhere on time. They play cards, sleep stretched across seats and tell stories to pass the hours, mostly ignoring the clock.
This will all change in a few years. Dozens of construction crews have begun blasting their way through the untouched mountains of eastern Guizhou, laying initial tunnels and tracks for what will be — in some stretches — one of the fastest trains in China at 124 miles per hour. The new, electrified railway, in planning for at least three years but now billed as part of China’s $587 billion economic stimulus package — will cut the rail journey between the Guangzhou and Guiyang from 24 hours down to five. The World Bank recently approved a $300 million loan for the $12.5 billion construction, lauding its aim to link the wealthy Pearl River Delta with one of the poorest parts of China.
“Of course it’s a good thing. The new line will be so much faster,” said Chen Jun, a railway worker selling loud toys and hand-powered flashlights to bored passengers toward the end of the journey in Guiyang.
With its mass labor force, ability to move people and property at will, nobody undertakes a major public works project quite like China. Think huge, fast and ambitious, with little or no public discussion or dissent. In largely untouched, rural Guizhou Province, this means potential for widespread conflict over the 530-mile line, now being built in tandem with a new highway that will further develop the area.
Locals in ethnic minority Dong and Buyi villages throughout the mountains say they’ve seen few economic benefits from the railway construction. Workers, mostly Han (China’s dominant ethnic group), have been shipped in from other provinces to blast the tunnels and build the lines.
In Tongle, a classic Dong town of two-story wooden houses, a local man who would only give his surname, Qin, said 16 families were being moved for the train and they were being compensated fairly for losing their houses.
In the three provinces the train will cross, more than 43,000 people will be relocated to make way for the tracks. The project, however, won’t leave any lasting economic impact on this town.
“If the boss is from Henan, he brings workers from Henan,” Qin said. “The construction workers will leave after three years, but there won’t be a station here for the new train, so we won’t be able to use it.”
In other towns across eastern Guizhou’s lush mountains and rice paddies, crews come with contracts for their own food and supplies, so there is little chance even to make money by selling to them.
“We expected it to be better,” said Chen Dan, a Buyi woman selling fruit at the Dayu village market. “They buy nothing from us. They go to the next big town where they have contracts to buy all their food.”
More than that, Chen and other villagers said, the work crews and their massive trucks are flooding the once-pristine mountain village with menacing dust and noise, posing serious danger to people and animals walking along the narrow roads. Chen and a group of women speak across filthy fruits and vegetables, coated by the clouds of dirt kicked up by passing trucks.
“The trucks throw mud and water all over the people and our houses,” she said. “It wasn’t like this before.”
As if to prove her point, bands of villagers from outlying areas begin making their way up the main road into Dayu just before twilight for a funeral. They carry gifts for a celebration of the departed — huge jugs of home-brewed alcohol, a live pig and baskets of goods for a feast.
Traditional flute players lead each band of mourners to the commemoration site, but their notes are drowned out by the grinding roar of passing trucks throwing noxious dust on the funeral procession. As the trucks roll past, the women reach down for protection with their aprons, covering their faces from the filth.
More dispatches by Kathleen E. McLaughlin, off the beaten track in China:
It’s like Lake Placid, with wild tigers