Friedman and Cohen Marvel at China's Train Service While Sidetracking Human Rights

In recent New York Times op-eds, both Thomas Friedman and Roger Cohen marvel at Communist China's bullet train service. In "Who’s Sleeping Now?", published on January 9, Friedman writes:

"Meanwhile, China last week tested the fastest bullet train in the world — 217 miles per hour — from Wuhan to Guangzhou. As [The Times’s local bureau chief] noted, China 'has nearly finished the construction of a high-speed rail route from Beijing to Shanghai at a cost of $23.5 billion. Trains will cover the 700-mile route in just five hours, compared with 12 hours today. By comparison, Amtrak trains require at least 18 hours to travel a similar distance from New York to Chicago.'"

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/opinion/10friedman.html

In "Google vs. China", published on January 14, Cohen similarly observes:

"I took the new high-speed train from Chongqing to Chengdu across the rolling hills of Sichuan with their patchwork of vegetable plots. The distance is about the same as New York to Boston but this train service (one of hundreds projected) has cut travel time below two hours — dream on, East Coast commuters! Everywhere the countryside is being gouged open as workers heave some new project into being. Yes, China is leaping ahead!"

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/15/opinion/15iht-edcohen.html

China is "leaping ahead"? Oh, really. Wouldn't it be nice if Friedman and Cohen could tell us how many political prisoners and people in "involuntary job placements" are busy "gouging open the countryside" to make these bullet trains a reality?

Poverty in China? (Or maybe we shouldn't be asking if there are bullet trains?) Not too long ago it was observed in Friedman and Cohen's newspaper:

"China has moved more people out of poverty than any other country in recent decades, but the persistence of destitution in places like southern Henan Province fits with the findings of a recent World Bank study that suggests that there are still 300 million poor in China - three times as many as the bank previously estimated.

Poverty is most severe in China's geographic and social margins, whether the mountainous areas or deserts that ring the country, or areas dominated by ethnic minorities, who for cultural and historic reasons have benefited far less than others from the country's long economic rise.

But it also persists in places like Henan, where population densities are among the greatest in China, and the new wealth of the booming coast beckons, almost mockingly, a mere province away."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/world/asia/13iht-poverty.1.9172195.html

But I suppose I should also note my own prejudices, and trains have never figured into my calculations involving morality. Excuse me, Messrs. Friedman and Cohen, but wasn't it Mussolini who was famous for making the trains run on time?

I also recall the economic "miracle" of Hitler's Third Reich, which was built upon stolen property and slave labor, and the "marvel" of Nazi Germany's death trains, which ran like clockwork throughout World War II.

A shorter train ride from New York to Chicago or Boston? Sure sounds nice, but not at the expense of freedom of speech. Never!