Subscribe to EIR Online

PRESS RELEASE


China Is Considering Building a High-Speed Rail Connection to the U.S. under the Bering Strait; Helga LaRouche Discussed It in 2007

March 9, 2016 (EIRNS)—The alternative news website beforeitsnews.com, today reports, citing the Beijing Times, that "China is considering building high-speed rail line from Beijing to the United States. The entire trip would take two days and run through Siberia. China is considering plans to build a high-speed railway line to the United States, the country’s official media has reported. The proposed line would begin in Northeast China and run up through Siberia, pass through a tunnel underneath the Pacific Ocean, then cut through Alaska and Canada to reach the continental United States.

Crossing the Bering Strait between Russia and Alaska would require about 200 km (125 miles) of undersea tunnel, the paper said, citing Wang Mengshu, a railway expert at the Chinese Academy of Engineering. "Right now, we’re already in discussions. Russia has already been thinking about this for many years," Wang said. The project—nicknamed the "China-Russia plus America line"—would run for 13,000 km, about 3,000 km farther than the Trans-Siberian Railway. The entire trip would take two days, with the train travelling at an average of 350 km/h (220 mph).

On Sept. 15-16, 2007, Helga Zepp-LaRouche’s Schiller Institute held an international conference in Kiedrich, Germany, titled "The Eurasian Land-Bridge and Bering Strait Tunnel Project," which drew an audience from Europe, Russia, and the United States.

Today, China has both the will and the ability to fund such a great project. But Beforeitsnews.com then editorializes pessimistically: "The reported plans leave ample room for scepticism. No other Chinese railway experts have come out in support of the proposed project. Whether the government has consulted Russia, the U.S., or Canada is also unclear. The Bering Strait tunnel alone would require an unprecedented feat of engineering—it would be the world’s longest undersea tunnel—four times the length of the Channel Tunnel which connects France and England. According to the state-run China Daily, the tunnel technology is "already in place" and will be used to build a high-speed railway between the Southeast Province of Fujian and Taiwan."

Back to top

clear
clear
clear