(Source: CGTN "Global Watch" column 2019-12-30)

December 30, 2019,Professor Yang Hangjun, w88 casino of International Economics and w88, w88 casinoIn a live interview with China International Television's "Global Watch" column, he said: I am very excited and proud to witness the opening of another modern high-speed railway in our country. The Beijing-Zhangjiakou High-speed Railway is the world's first high-speed railway with autonomous driving function. As we all know, the world’s first high-speed rail was Japan’s Shinkansen opened in 1964, and my country’s first high-speed rail was the Beijing-Tianjin intercity railway in 2008. But as of today, the total mileage of my country’s high-speed rail operations has reached 35,000 kilometers, accounting for more than two-thirds of the total mileage of global high-speed rail operations. In July 2016, the National Development and Reform Commission issued the "Medium and Long-term Railway Network Plan", proposing that in the future, "eight vertical and eight horizontal" high-speed railway main corridors will be built. The total mileage of high-speed railway operations in my country will reach 38,000 kilometers in 2025. Judging from the current construction situation, the actual progress is obviously much faster than the original plan, so I estimate that the National Development and Reform Commission will release a new "Medium and Long-term Railway Network Plan" in 2020.

Professor Yang Hangjunsaid that generally speaking, the opening of high-speed rail has many potential benefits, including: making people's travel more convenient, promoting the development of local tourism and economy, reducing unbalanced development between cities or regions, and reducing environmental pollution from other modes of transportation. Specifically for the Beijing-Zhangjiakou High-speed Railway, first of all, in the short term, the Beijing-Zhangjiakou High-speed Railway will provide high-quality transportation service guarantee for the 2022 Winter Olympics jointly hosted by Beijing and Zhangjiakou. The competition venues for the 2022 Winter Olympics will be divided into three areas: urban Beijing mainly provides indoor competition venues and holds the opening and closing ceremonies, Chongli District of Zhangjiakou City hosts most outdoor competitions, and Yanqing, a suburb of Beijing, provides some outdoor competition venues. The Beijing-Zhangjiakou high-speed railway allows athletes and spectators to travel quickly between the three competition areas, basically in about an hour. Secondly, in the long run, the Beijing-Zhangjiakou high-speed railway will better promote the integrated and coordinated development of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei. As Zhangjiakou enters the "one-hour living circle of the capital", travel between Beijing and Zhangjiakou will become more convenient in the future, greatly promoting the exchanges and connections between the flow of people, logistics, capital and information between the two places. Yanqing and Zhangjiakou areas have always been areas with relatively dense distribution of tourism and cultural resources in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. With the opening of the Beijing-Zhangjiakou high-speed railway, its resource value, ecological value and tourism value will be more recognized and developed. Among the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban area, Zhangjiakou has huge development potential. It has the opportunity to take advantage of the 2022 Winter Olympics to become the "Salt Lake City of China" in the future, thereby upgrading it to a world-class ski resort or even a tourist destination.