Chinese train sets speed record

HERE.

It’s one thing to say (like everyone else) for 20 years that China is the coming power, but quite another to start seeing signs of it, and I see more and more signs of it.

The first step, about 5 years ago, was when Cairo bazaar merchants (who always love guessing your nationality) asked every Asian they saw if they were Japanese, and for the first time I heard them being wrong in almost every case. They were almost all Chinese tourists. That was a new phenomenon in Egypt, and on all my flights this summer there were dozens of citizens of China, which was unknown a decade ago. And not just Paris, but even on my flight to Warsaw.

In my case the bazaar merchants usually guess German, secondarily English, and third Dutch. One time someone guessed Swedish, but that was a strange outlier. None of them ever guess American for some reason.

But back to Chinese trains… The last I heard, Chinese contractors were in a very good position to win the bid for the new high-speed rail corridors in the U.S.

And yes, on my recent trip to Sub-Saharan Africa I did notice what everyone is talking about: the rising Chinese presence in Africa.

One other, slightly related point… Cairo is the only large city I’ve ever visited without any Chinatown to speak of. Perhaps that will change.