Keith Bradsher of The New York Times reports on the boom in infrastructure structure projects in China:
In an effort to hold back the domestic effects of the global downturn, China is starting to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on new highways, railroads and other infrastructure projects.
The stimulus plan, one of the world’s largest, promises to carry the modernity of China’s coasts deep into the hinterlands, buying the kind of great leap forward it took the United States decades — and a world war — to build, and priming China for a new level of global competition.
As President Obama and Congress draft an $825 billion stimulus plan for the United States, China is already two months into its effort. And while Democrats have put aside calls for big transportation projects, with the House bill allocating less than 5 percent of spending for the construction of highways, rail lines and mass transit programs, China is furiously pouring concrete and laying rails.
