By Parag Khanna
Earlier this month, China announced plans to invest an additional $140 billion into 25 new rail projects across the country as part of its massive stimulus campaign aimed at creating jobs and modernizing national infrastructure. China lays more than 5,000 miles of new railway track each year domestically (and by 2020 should have more high-speed rail than the rest of the world combined), and is sponsoring the modernization or deployment of new rail lines across Eurasia towards Europe as well, which has long led the world in mass transit with 24 of 27 countries featuring high-speed rail already. By comparison, the U.S. has failed to muster even the modest $50 billion proposed by President Barack Obama for rail projects. The resulting portrait is appears bleak: while America licks its wounds at home, Chinese blood is pumping through Eurasian veins as the more populous and important hemisphere unites into an organic whole.
