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In recent years, relations between Russia and China have been very close.
In particular, after Russia decided to develop the Far East to the east, it has reached a number of cooperation agreements with China.
In particular, the port of Vladivostok was opened to China in June 2023, the "Arctic Route" was opened to China in July 2023, and an agreement was reached with China on the joint development of the Far East in September 2023.
Therefore, when Russia proposed to plan the construction of the first high-speed rail project, many Chinese enterprises or Chinese people believed that Russia should most likely choose to cooperate with Chinese enterprises.
After all, in the field of high-speed rail, China has the world's leading scientific and technological capabilities, and at the same time, China accounts for two-thirds of the total mileage of high-speed rail in the world.
However, when Russia finally announced the construction company, it was Russia's own "Sinara" electric locomotive company, which was somewhat surprising.
About the Russian high-speed rail project
You must know that Russia has repeatedly revealed its intention to cooperate with high-speed rail projects to China on many occasions. It is precisely because of such expectations that I am somewhat melancholy after losing the election.
According to relevant news reports, the bidding for the Russian high-speed rail project is the Moscow to St. Petersburg section, with a total length of 708 kilometers and an estimated total investment of 17 trillion rubles. After completion, the original journey of more than 4 hours will be shortened to 2 hours.
At present, the speed of rail transport in Russia is very different from that of our country. In the first place, the speed of all commercially operated trains does not exceed 200 kilometers per hour, so the construction of the high-speed railway is of great significance to Russia.
Regarding the planning of this high-speed railway, in fact, Russia has been planning since the beginning of the 21st century, and it has been highly anticipated from the beginning.
The project was originally scheduled to start in 2017, but was postponed due to multiple factors; In 2019 and 2021, Russia again proposed a construction plan, which was estimated at a cost of 17 trillion rubles.
Later, with the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the plan was again forced to be shelved. It was not until August 2023 that the Russian side officially announced the official implementation of the project.
At that time, China's cooperation with Russia was in the honeymoon period, and everyone agreed that Russia would choose Chinese enterprises for cooperation. However, what I didn't expect was that Russia finally gave up China, which was leading in both capital and technology.
Why did the Russian high-speed railway choose Sinara?
Although it is surprising that the Russian high-speed rail project chose Sinara, there is actually a lot of helplessness behind Russia.
In the opinion of Wen Shijun, there are three core reasons why Russia has given up Chinese enterprises:
, technical autonomy
Previously, Russia should have thought about cooperating with Chinese companies, or there was a strong inclination to cooperate with Chinese companies.
After all, in the field of high-speed rail, China has a number of completely independent technologies and strong economic strength, which Russia needs the most. Choosing a Chinese company can save Russia a lot of resources and time in tackling key technological problems.
You must know that China's high-speed railway, after the successful completion of the construction of the Beijing-Harbin high-speed railway in the severe cold area, and the construction of the new high-speed railway in the extremely arid Gobilan, the valuable experience accumulated in the harsh environment is the ability that many high-speed rail enterprises in the world do not have.
Russia is in a difficult place, and there are many technological breakthroughs that need to be made to build high-speed rail, and choosing China will avoid this difficulty.
In the end, they still chose their own enterprises to undertake the construction, the core reason is that Russia is worried that it will completely rely on foreign technology, and will be controlled by others in the future and lose the opportunity for independent research and development.
Especially after the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, Russia is deeply aware that it has no independent technical capabilities, and it will be extremely passive in future competition and even war. Perhaps it was this that made Russia finally change its mind.
, stimulate domestic demand
Russia's domestic economy is already bad, and the nearly two-year Russia-Ukraine conflict has made the Russian economy even worse.
It is conceivable that under the shadow of war, Russia's domestic employment and domestic consumption will certainly not be good. In such an environment, Russia's first priority is certainly to protect people's livelihood.
If the construction of the high-speed rail project is handed over to domestic enterprises, it will not only create a large number of jobs during the construction period and reduce the domestic unemployment rate, but also effectively stimulate domestic consumption and add vitality to the weak domestic economy.
, protect and nurture domestic industries
Russia has a vast territory and a huge span, spanning 9,000 kilometers from east to west. In addition, in the future, Russia will vigorously develop the Far East, and there will certainly be no shortage of railway construction or high-speed rail construction.
If Russia's future high-speed railway network can reach the level of our country today, its mileage will definitely be more than double that of our country. Such a huge high-speed rail project, what a huge wealth and driving force it will be.
It is precisely on this basis that Russia has to do everything possible to make a breakthrough in high-speed rail technology.
By allowing domestic companies to undertake large-scale infrastructure projects, it is not only a good opportunity to promote technological capacity improvement and technological innovation, but also an effective way to reduce dependence on external technologies and services, thereby enhancing national autonomy and security.
It is worth mentioning that Russia's first high-speed rail project, although it did not choose to cooperate with Chinese companies, rejected Chinese technology.
But in fact, in the process of building high-speed rail, they still leased a large number of equipment and equipment from China, just because these equipment in China are not only of high quality, but also have proven their strength in many high-speed rail constructions.
Governing a big country is like managing a small family. Behind every decision, there is its own thinking and consideration, and we need to be calm about whether to cooperate or not. Finally, I hope that China and Russia can maintain good cooperation and jointly safeguard world peace.
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