The rail ahead: as high-speed lines saturate China, how far can their global reach extend?

South China Morning Post · Feb 21, 2026 · Collected from RSS

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Chinese railway giants look set to scout Eurasia in the years ahead to build high-speed train lines as the domestic market matures and some countries are more prepared than others for capital-intensive yet transformative ventures, analysts said.Inspired by China-invested projects such as the 142km (88-mile) Jakarta-Bandung high-speed line in Indonesia and the partly finished 350km (217-mile) Budapest-Belgrade railway, Chinese construction and engineering firms are expected to expand their overseas footprint.Projects abroad are now more crucial as giant domestic railway engineering firms, builders and operators are finding diminishing new ground to break in China, especially in cities.“Like any engineering firms anywhere, they’ll be looking for new opportunities, but the fiscal positions of governments around the region will have to be quite careful in terms of how they spend money,” said Song Seng Wun, an economic adviser at Singapore-based fintech firm SDAX.High-speed services are already accessible in 97 per cent of Chinese cities with populations of more than 500,000, the State Council said in December, and China’s high-speed network is the world’s largest.Analysts point to Southeast Asian countries such as Laos, Malaysia and Thailand as the most likely future destinations for Chinese-invested high-speed projects, with Central Asia not far behind as it leverages existing trade-linked infrastructure that China has already helped build there.