beyondbrics

China’s railway ministry boasts that the country’s rapidly multiplying, state-of-the-art high speed trains are now completely homegrown, having been created by armies of Chinese engineers.

But, it now seems the engineers who have come up with all this authentic intellectual property are even smarter than the ministry would have us believe. After designing and building the new high-speed trains proliferating across the country they apparently decided to write the instruction manuals for train drivers in English, instead of their native Chinese.

This little fact was revealed in a glowing piece of propaganda published by the Chinese Communist Party that profiled “China’s Number 1 high speed train driver” – a man called Li Dongxiao.

In the interview with state media, Li brags about making a bet with a German engineer who said there was no way Li could learn to drive the new “home-grown” Chinese high-speed trains in time for the first pre-Olympics trial of the Beijing to Tianjin express line in 2008.

But Li said through tireless work and indomitable persistence he and his team were able to translate the English instruction manual into Chinese on their own and learnt to drive the new trains within just nine days.

Li won the bet with the German engineer, whose involvement in the “home-grown” high speed train project is not explained.

However, Li’s account does make one wonder why the Chinese engineers who came up with such advanced high-speed rail technology decided to write instruction manuals in perfect technical English for Chinese drivers, who only speak Chinese.

Another possible explanation is that in the rush to adapt and “digest” foreign rail technology from companies like Siemens, Alstom, Bombardier and Kawasaki somebody forgot to translate the instruction manuals before they re-branded the trains “Chinese”.

The railway ministry has said in a statement long ago that there is absolutely no doubt about the origins of its technology: “China Railways has already grasped the core technology for trains that operate at speeds over 200kmh…and China Railways has the autonomous intellectual property rights for such trains.”

Now that the Chinese market is dominated by state-controlled domestic companies, the big international train producers are trying to catch a ride with them as the Chinese manufacturers start to peddle their technology overseas, with the help of cheap credit from Chinese banks. We’ll have to wait and see what language the training manual will be in for American, Australian, Brazilian, Thai and Saudi Arabian drivers when those countries start to buy “home-grown” Chinese trains.

Related reading:
China: Siemens and BASF make money…but for how long?, beyondbrics