As we all know, high-speed rail is the most beautiful scientific and technological business card of the mainland, and it has almost made Europe, the United States and Japan powerless to fight back. However, since March this year, high-speed rail, which has been praised by overseas netizens as one of the "four great inventions of the 21st century", has repeatedly encountered "Waterloo".
Earlier, Russia released a big order: the Moscow-St. Petersburg high-speed railway project worth 20 billion US dollars. At that time, the honeymoon between China and Russia was thick, and most people felt that this big order must be "in the bag" of Chinese enterprises. To the surprise of domestic netizens, until March this year, Russia officially announced the start of the first high-speed railway, and no shadow of Chinese enterprises was found at the scene.
The "truth" behind it was also exposed, it turned out that Russia handed over the high-speed rail construction project to a Spanish company, and the other party's offer was higher than that of the Chinese side. And this undoubtedly tells us that cheap labels seem to be becoming a kind of original sin for mainland high-speed rail. In fact, this is not without purpose, but there is an endless stream of evidence.
In the eyes of the outside world, mainland high-speed rail companies did not learn from this, and this led to the next "tragedy". Recently, Bulgaria also wanted to join the "high-speed rail national camp", so the former launched a global bidding wave. The participation of the Big Mac CRRC pushed the bidding to a climax.
Originally, Bulgaria had high hopes for the high-speed rail project and released an intended price of 610 million euros. Then, when it came to the middle driver, it seemed that Wang Bo in the Tengwang Pavilion more than a thousand years ago was possessed, and as soon as he made a move, he was "shocked": the cabbage price of 310 million euros was directly quoted, and the project included 20 push-pull electric EMUs and 15 years of maintenance.
Obviously, witnessing the offer of the "King of Volumes" CRRC, the EU has obviously been prepared for a long time, and directly sacrificed the "Foreign Subsidies Regulations" introduced in 2023 to block the gun. Then, while expressing concerns that CRRC's low-price bid might affect Europe's local high-speed rail industry chain, Bulgaria directly blocked CRRC from the door.
In the eyes of foreign media, although Bulgaria's approach seems to be trade protection, from the perspective of the European Union, it is also to protect the long-term development of its high-speed rail industry, "our last chance".
After all, in the eyes of the European Union, the low-price market grabbing model of Chinese enterprises is very likely to damage the interests of local enterprises, and even cause a considerable degree of resistance and rejection in the market.
In fact, if it were not for the sudden realization of high-speed rail in Chinese mainland, high-speed rail would undoubtedly be another "hole card" in the hands of Europe and the United States that is no less powerful than chips, however, Chinese mainland has completely rewritten this industry pattern in just a dozen years.
Relying on the strategy of "two peaches killing three soldiers", the mainland high-speed rail only staggered. Subsequently, China's manufacturing ushered in a big explosion, and domestic high-speed rail technology also had a blowout: such as EMU research and development, railway engineering construction, train control technology, etc. By the end of 2023, Chinese mainland has opened more than 45,000 kilometers of high-speed rail, establishing the world's longest high-speed rail system, almost more than all countries in the world combined.
Obviously, with the blessing of "Made in China", the high-speed railway, which is regarded as the crown jewel of industry by Europe and the United States, was beaten to the price of cabbage overnight. And this is also the fundamental reason why CRRC suddenly opened a 310 million euro offer, but Europe and the United States, which have always been over-eyed, do not seem to like this. In this regard, Bill Gates once said that the other side of the ocean will take away our high-paying jobs.
When you are weak, the West will bully you together, but when you are strong, they will complain that you are unfair competition and that the wages paid to workers are too low. As the saying goes, weakness is not an obstacle to survival, arrogance and ignorance are, what do you think about this?