You're right, but it's still relevant to note whether something is successful on its own accord, or whether it's being propped up by the government. If something can't be profitably done in a country as dense as China, there's no hope of it ever working in the US. At that point you might as well go with planes and spend the savings on carbon sequestration methods instead.
Rail is publically funded pretty much everywhere (i.e. it doesn't make a direct profit if you factor in infrastruture costs). Just because the market won't pay for it doesn't mean that it isn't worthwhile.
Japanese rail is almost all privately owned and operated, to the best of my knowledge. It makes its profits off of capturing the increase in land value by being the landlord around its rail stations. That model is illegal in the US so rail has to be subsidised.
>Rail is publically funded pretty much everywhere (i.e. it doesn't make a direct profit if you factor in infrastruture costs).
You could argue that there are positive externalities to building high speed rail that make the public funding worth it. For commuter trains it's reduced congestion and cheaper housing (allowing people to move to the suburbs). Thus a train service can operate at a loss while still making money at a societal level.
What purpose does high speed rail serve that isn't mostly covered by planes?
The big problem with planes is that an hour long trip takes three hours. 1 hour to enter the airport, 1 hour to fly, 1 hour to exit the airport.
Sometimes you can drive somewhere faster than you can fly there, entirely because of all the setup and teardown implied by a flight. It’s this intermediate distance travel where high speed rail really shines.
Anything can be said to be “worthwhile,” a political rather than an economic characterization commonly followed by handwavy appeals to unidentified stakeholders, intangible dividends, and vague but supposedly urgent need.
If customers are unwilling to pay the asking price for an offering, the value proposition is off. Perhaps the model is bad, the price too expensive, or the terms old-fashioned. “The market” is individuals seeking mutually beneficial trades: greedy capitalists and greedy consumers. If the trades aren’t happening, the necessary mutual benefit is not present. Forcing people to render services or accept services for terms they wouldn’t voluntarily agree to is not freedom.
> If the trades aren’t happening, the necessary mutual benefit is not present.
Then why does the US governement fund roads? Because there's a collective bargaining / coordination problem. It benefits us overall if we have them, but that doesn't mean that a profit could be usefully generated from maintaining them, or that this is the best way of running the system (we want to maximise use of the infrastructure, not discourage use with high usage tariffs).
The is fundamentally an economic argument, albeit one that recognises value beyond monetary value.
In the early days of the U.S., privately funded roads run for profit definitely existed. There are government-run toll highways that make money in excess of their maintenance costs, which suggests it should still be possible, if the government didn't already have the prime routes.
At any rate, the interstate highway system was a project to make the transportation network more robust for the purposes of national defense, inspired by the German autobahn. Centrally planned solutions to make the U.S. more like Europe won't always have the expected consequences.
Second, China's population density is not high compared to inhabited parts of the U.S. Eg. even though most of California is uninhabitable, it has 50% higher population density.
I'll file that under "being propped up by the government"
> China's population density is not high compared to inhabited parts of the U.S.
I have no doubt that there are profitable HSR lines in china, just like there are in europe. The question is whether we would still get an "impressive" number if we cull all the non-profitable ones (the one stretching to xinjiang come to mind).
