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In China you can zoom out and see that wages / household income is quite depressed, both to keep the exports flowing and power the reinvestment, so the larger point stands fine.

Major lines like the one between Beijing and Shanghai are profitable and publicly-traded, therefore doesn't require government subsidy.

Of course, Beijing-Shanghai line is the first and only to go public, just at the beginning of 2020, and we can get their financial numnbers easily.

Many other lines are not necesarrily profitable, but few of them require government subsidy besides the initial capital investment, that is their income is more than the operational cost.

That's a fair call, I'm not sure how you'd even try start comparing it to the West, I doubt western countries can even be compared to each other that well.

See people in here talk about land area and population while completely ignoring things like topography/zoning/protectionism. Building 100km of rail in Switzerland is never going to be comparable to building 100km on flat plains elsewhere.