High-speed rail a symbol of tech gap
The rapid development of highspeed railways in China is a rarity in the world. High-speed rail is indeed a calling card for China, but it is a pain point for the Chinese manufacturing industry. The rapid development of China’s high-speed rail has greatly benefited the world’s manufacturing industry, with a considerable part of the money flowing to international manufacturers in obscure ways. Meanwhile, the world is attacking China’s trade surplus.
According to an engineer, China has little or no technical information about high-speed railway cars, even when it comes to the most basic and essential matters.
After years of work, China has established large-scale manufacturing capacity for bullet trains. However, what are described as independently manufactured bullet trains by Chinese companies are actually imported and only assembled in China.
In eyes of a Siemens technician, there are only three major parts to a bullet train’s core technology: traction systems, bogies and braking systems. Among them, the key is the traction system, which is “the heart of the train.” Foreign countries or companies will neither transfer nor lower royalties for these technologies.
A technician in northern China said that when it comes to the so-called independently developed CRH380B series of bullet trains in China, any time there is an operational problem, it’s necessary to resort to Siemens. The software upgrading is done by Siemens, the test data must be fed back to Siemens’ headquarters and the modification cycle is often pretty long, the technician said.
How much do key technologies such as traction systems account for in the total price of an bullet train? As much as 20 percent to 30 percent.
Of this, the automatic train control system accounts for more than half of the entire traction system and brings the highest profit. A former staff member of Siemens’ procurement department said that the department made most of its money by
selling traction systems. It’s the same at Alstom.
Like the traction system, the braking system that is regarded by the foreign companies as critical also has not been transferred. Instead, it is produced by a joint venture plant in China. There is no technology transfer at the joint venture plant, and China may even have no access to the blueprint.
The high-speed rail braking system is monopolized by Knorr-Bremse, and this core technology also was not transferred. The only technology transfer in the contract involving the three major systems was for the manufacture of bogies, but this only includes installation drawings and does not speak about design principles at all.
An insider revealed that Siemens experts had pretended to be ignorant of the core technologies when consulted by Chinese.
It is said that China is forcing the transfer of intellectual property rights. Actually, looking at the example of the introduction of high-speed rail technology, China has created and yielded a huge market, but it is still the foreign companies that are at the top of the pyramid and really make high profits. They took the initiative by controlling the core technology and the key parts.
Years of manufacturing have proved that the actual products bearing the “Made in China” mark are still at the middle stage. But this kind of low-end manufacturing already has excess capacity, and it relies on low prices to take market share.
As to advanced manufacturing, there are still many gaps, with domestic companies having inadequate ability to conduct independent research. Yet China is being wrongly blamed by the world for grabbing the benefits of globalization and causing unemployment in other countries. The unreasonable blame deserves contemplation.
However, what are described as independently manufactured bullet trains by Chinese companies are actually imported and only assembled in China.