Hmmm.. didn't someone in this thread explained very well that there is a huge difference in between driving something like 350km/h and 380km/h on regular connections, and that without clear knowledge of the technology (meaning, not just copying, but understanding and improving) such step wouldn't work..

I've tooken some high speed rails in China during the last years, and the quality didn't really look shabby. Compared with rail travel in anywhere in the world but Switzerland (which don't have high-speed) and Japan (where it costs a fortune) the Chinese train network didn't really seem bad or crappy built. I think more of the North American tracks when I read "badly built".. isn't it that the American "high speed" trains can't even drive close to their max. speed because the track conditions are so bad by now?

And about the CRH trains, only one modell was produced with support from Japan, the others were built with German and other countries support, with the newest (the 380km/h average) being now a Chinese product. Sure, they had engineers who worked on previous train products working it as well, but what did you wanted? That they let some farmers build it from scratch? This is how industry works in every country, worldwide. Again, if they would have just re-engineered the product and built the same trains, yes, it wouldn't be acceptable. But they used their own knowledge of high speed trains to build a new set, which is clearly different then from Japanese train sets. I think the Japanese are realizing the Chinese are quickly overtaking them, and this seems to be their reaction on it, trying to blackmail their products as both players are looking to sell their respective products into other countries.