In February this year, a group of Chinese commentators said a report by the National Audit Office (NAO) had found that China’s high-speed railway saw an “about 100 billion yuan of total loss” in the nine months ending December 31, 2024. NAO’s website did not officially announce this widely reported figure.
Since then, Chinese commentators have started debating the matter. Some said the country should not have extended its high-speed railway to remote places without calculating the costs over the past two decades. Others said China’s high-speed railway has value as a public facility that connects people in less developed areas to large cities.
