Germany-France-Japan Competition Intensifies for Chinese Railway Contract

As competition continues heating up for providing a technology for a new railway linking Beijing and Shanghai, anti-Japanese sentiment in China is expected to affect the last decision by China.

Germany, France and Japan are leading foreign competitors for the 12-billion-dollar project to equip the 1,300-kilometer (810-mile) rail line before 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Japan is stressing the fact that its Shinkansen line has not had a single accident since the launch of operations in 1964. France is pinning hopes on TGV, which had won large contracts in Korea and Spain. Germany is highlighting the fact that Shanghai installed the 430-kilometer-per-hour (260-mile-per-hour) Maglev for a line between the city`s Pudong airport and downtown.

The three countries have been lobbying aggressively Chinese high-ranking officials to win the lucrative contract since last year.

Germany seemed like a forerunner at first as German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder visited Shanghai in December last year to get in the magnetic levitation train with then his Chinese counterpart Zhu Rongji.

Since Zhu`s retirement in March this year, however, Chinese Ministry of Railway has been considering adopting the traditional Shinkanken technology, citing that Germany runs no Maglev trains itself.

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi asked China to adopt the traditional technology while he met with Chinese President Hu Jintao in Russia in late May to mark the 300th anniversary of Saint Petersburg.

A number of Chinese people, however, have began to oppose the government`s plan to adopt Japanese technology. More than 80,000 Chinese have signed an online petition against China buying Japanese technology, according to an anti-Japanese Web site called `The Patriotic Alliance`.

France has not given up its hope, either, given the fact that Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin won the heart of Chinese people in April this year by visiting the country amid the SARS fears.

Yoo-Sung Hwang yshwang@donga.com