China To Merge High-Speed Train Makers To Cut Competition 88
hackingbear writes China has two high-speed train makers, the China Northern Railcar Corp. (CNR) and China Southern Railcar Corp. (CSR). Despite both being state-owned companies, the two are really competing with each other in the international high-speed train market, undercutting prices. Now, the Chinese government is set to fix that by asking the two to merge. [More details in a paywalled article at the Wall Street Journal.] Such a deal also would raise questions about China's determination to enforce monopoly laws that have been under a microscope in recent months as foreign companies including dairy makers, car makers including Volkswagen AG 's Audi, and technology companies Microsoft Corp. and Qualcomm Corp. have been investigated by antitrust authorities. However, as we haven't been complaining about China's low prices hurting our business, shouldn't China raising the price be good for other train makers?
Dreamteam Siemens and Bombardier (Score:2)
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Both Bombardier and Siemens are products of Capitalism, and both are free to choose any business partner they want
If, like you say, combining Bombardier and Siemens are such a DREAM TEAM they would have done it a long long time ago already
After all, which shareholder doesn't want the company that they invested in become part of a DREAM TEAM?
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Damn right. If history teaches us anything it's that there is no waste or mismanagement in private industry. This is why no new products are ever invented because, if the market was there, the products will have been there since the need emerged.
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Bombardier is from Quebec, Canada, so it's French-Canadian.
We don't have any problems with the germans.
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Worst: They're in Montreal, the capital of slack and corruption.
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What troll? I live here. I know, I don't troll.
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So they hate English-speaking Canadians, a rather small demographic in global terms (FWIW, my father used to work for Bombardier).
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Yeah, sure, impossible for German and French to work together. Tell that to Airbus, ESA and its Rosetta and Ariane programs which are co-ruled by those two (and other countries, including UK, which French "hates" too, if you go that way). Besides, Bombardier is not French, Alstom (which is the TGV builder) is.
The Dutch railway company surely prefers to buy from as many different vendors as possible (who doesn't), but I fail to see how they would get a say in a hypothetical Siemens/Alstom merger. Just divers
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I too ride bombardier train cars daily (GO transit) and they are actually pretty really nice. I would say it is fairly rare that they have "Door" issues (doors fail to operate correctly). Not bad considering in the winter you sometimes find them covered in ice and snow as people get on and off the train and the cold weather outside.
Flip side, I have taken the "metro north" more then once (NEW HAVEN LINE) and some of those cars are terrible (old, smelly, dirty, broken, etc). and also bombardier leading aga
Bullshit. (Score:4, Interesting)
China's "antitrust" push is a very easy way to steal trade secrets. Antitrust investigations let you seize corporate hard drives, which means you can share them with competitors whom you happen to like--i.e. your companies.
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Please remind me where he said there was no corruption in his country, or how it's relevant. You're not one of those people who thinks that if someone complains about country X doing Y when that someone's country does it too, that that means they should never criticize other countries for doing evil shit, are you? Because that is just a simple logical fallacy, and an individual needn't agree with everything their own country does.
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Please remind me how their is no corruption in your country again.
Please remind me why it matters what goes on in another country. Unless of course you see humanity as a race to the bottom.
Hear hear
Re:Bullshit. (Score:4, Informative)
Please remind me how their is no corruption in your country again.
Easy, we give the politicians the power to define what is corruption and what isn't.
So what else is new? (Score:2)
Please remind me how their is no corruption in your country again
Easy, we give the politicians the power to define what is corruption and what isn't
Since we already gave the politicians the power to define what is Liberty what isn't, why not?
Next they can get to define what is wealth, what is poverty; Who we are allowed to mingle with; What we are allowed to think; What kind of life we deserve to have; What is war, what is peace; and before we know it, George Orwell yells from his grave, "I TOLD YOU SO ! I TOLD YOU SO !!!!"
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Please remind me how their is no corruption in your country again.
^^^ The textbook definition of an ad hominem.
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this isn't corruption, this is exactly what the chinese government intends. corporate espionage is state sponsored.
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The summary notes that the merger would raise questions about China's commitment to its recent wave of antitrust investigations. It does not say China is investigating the two train companies it owns already.
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It's much more sporting to have your NSA or equivalent do it.
The NSA does espionage for the state; my understanding is it generally does not do espionage for private companies. Why *that* is the line they chose not to cross, who knows, but there it is.
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because one is ostensibly for safety, and the other is out and out for greed.
How does this work? (Score:3)
However, as we haven't been complaining about China's low prices hurting our business, shouldn't China raising the price be good for other train makers?
I don't see how this is good for any other train makers other than China. China's train maker will still undercut the price, and now will simply have one less company that it is betting against when doing so, ensuring that it undercuts the price by the least amount needed to win the contracts. The only one that wins in China in the long run when it forces all the other train manufacturers out of business and then wins the contracts by fiat as the only entity.
This ain't a $0.99 coffee mug ! (Score:1)
If both companies in China can undercut everyone else anyway, China is going to win the market regardless of whether it merges those two companies or not. However, with the companies merged, the undercutting will be reduced, which means there is more of an opportunity for foreign companies to underbid and stay alive
Sometimes I wonder if you guys are talking about the subject at hand, or not
Guys, this ain't 99cent coffee mug that we are talking about. It's multi-million dollar (sometimes in the BILLIONS) infrastructure investment, and when governments have to spend such an amount of money, price isn't everything !
But of course, China still has a trump card that others may not have ... China can FINANCE the deal with ridiculous no-question-ask and no-string-attached loan
"Good news for X industry" often bad for consumers (Score:3)
If China's prices undercut our own train makers, that is great news for our *consumers* - companies that run trains or use trains for transport and individuals who use trains for transport. Contrariwise if China raises the price of trains that almost certainly hurts more Americans than it helps, just like most other price increases.
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Strange that we've got Bombardier and Alstom locomotives and Bombardier passenger cars in NJ, then. Also Kawasaki MUs. None of those companies is American.
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Until it crashes.
Do the train companies also make bulldozers?
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WO... [cnn.com]
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Point me to where it says that the countries *you* mentioned put hiding the wreckage to avoid embarrassing officials ahead of rescuing potential survivors and finding the cause of the crash.
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You're an idiot. Please don't bother posting any more. Thanks.
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Source: I'm a Chinese American currently in China
I am an American Chinese currently in America, and unlike you, I was born in China, and knew China from inside and out so much so that I ran away from it
The current China is more capitalistic than the United States of America - in China you won't see nonsense like the Obamacare because, according to the Chinese culture everyone is supposed to taking care of one's own life, and health
The government's job is to protect the country and to ensure that the society doesn't falter. It ain't the government's job to
Political reality (Score:2)
The current China is more capitalistic than the United States of America
I've been to China. They are quite entrepreneurial, I'll grant you that. I wouldn't go so far as your statement but the impulse is certainly there.
you won't see nonsense like the Obamacare because, according to the Chinese culture everyone is supposed to taking care of one's own life, and health
Even if that were true (which I doubt) that won't fly in the face of economic and political reality. You really think the emerging Chinese middle class will not demand some form of health care program (private or public)? If you have a heart attack and have no health care then you'll either be dead or bankrupt and possibly both. It will be virtually impossib
Small editorial matter... (Score:2)
Same old, same old (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not just China. The US does the same thing, as do many, many other countries just not with the same methods.
Marvellous... (Score:2)
China To Merge High-Speed Train Makers To Cut Competition
Plutocrats throughout Europe and the USA would have a spontaneous orgasm if they read headline like that.... "US and EU agree on transatlantic effort to merge all internet service providers and media outlets to solve the problem of competition..."
Never heard of it (Score:4, Funny)
What is a "high-speed train"? I live in the US and am not familiar with the term.
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Actually, most cities in the eastern half of the US are close enough to support high-speed rail between them. In fact, a privately funded high-speed rail project is currently being planned between Houston and Dallas. High-speed rail already exists over much longer distances in countries like France, Spain, and Russia.
http://texascentral.com/the-fa... [texascentral.com]
The rail lines are the easy part (Score:4)
Actually, most cities in the eastern half of the US are close enough to support high-speed rail between them.
There are plenty of places where high speed rail is a possibility but there are lots of economic and logistical problems. The problem is that the supporting infrastructure just isn't there. You need to have basically all the amenities of an airport at both ends for it to be viable. (Parking, ground transportation, etc) After all, what good does high speed rail do you if you are stuck at the terminal at the other end of the trip? Passenger rail depots have been mostly neglected and/or dismantled in the US. I used to live in Saint Louis and the train station there is now a mall [stlouisunionstation.com]. Good luck converting it back for high speed rail use.
High-speed rail already exists over much longer distances in countries like France, Spain, and Russia.
France is almost exactly the same size as the state of Texas. Big area but WAY smaller than the US. Russia is far more similar and they have a few high speed lines but not many. I'd love to see some high speed rail lines but I don't really see it happening in a meaningful way in most of the US. Too much cost for the right-of-ways, too little political will, neglected infrastructure at the destinations, etc. I'm sure we'll see one here or there but mostly I think the US will continue to rely on cars and airplanes for better or worse.
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Wikipedia claims "Minimum 200km/h as normal speed, for European Union Directive 96/48/EC, Annex 1".
So that is what the term means. As a Norwegian, I do know that we would not be familiar with the term either, since most Norwegian trains operate with a speed limit of 80-90km/h due track speed limit.
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It is an artifact of communism. Real Americans would not be interested, especially considering that the French like them.
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You joke, but many commentators on the Right say exactly that. "Trains are socialist/Cars are capitalist", despite the fact that auto travel has been subsidized by the government to a greater extent than any other form of transportation.
Fixing the problem (Score:3)
Now, the Chinese government is set to fix that by asking the two to merge
Obviously by "fix that" they mean price fixing. Competition is not allowed there.
Enforce Monopoly Laws (Score:2)
Clearly China is looking to enforce the monopoly law, that there shall be one and only one state controlled supplier of any good.
Could it be tied to anti-corruption campaign? (Score:2)
Xi Jinping has been rolling on an anti-corruption campaign.
Is there any chance that while this may have some kind of economic benefits for China that it might be some kind of backdoor move against corruption or have some kind of anti-corruption benefit at least equal to its economic benefits?
IIRC, the rail industry has been tied to corruption in the past and merging two big players is a convenient and public way to sideline bad apples without some of that unpleasant scrutiny the Chinese don't like.
Dairy makers (Score:1)
Re-merge (Score:2)
RTFA - the two company were original one and the same - China National Railway Locomotive & Rolling Stock Industry Corporation (LORIC), which was founded in 1986 (as a commercial enterprise and successor of the govermental Industry Administration of the Railway Ministry) and then split up into two in 2000 at the order of the central government.
The reason for the split-up was to break up monopoly and encourage competition, which it did. However, it also created new problems: waste of resources (duplicate