China’s high-speed rail, as well as online payment solution Alipay, bike sharing, and online shopping, are regarded as the “new four inventions” in China. Though railway is technically not a recent invention, the development of high-speed railway in China has achieved explosive growth over the past 40 years.

Although it stemmed from Japan and prevailed in France, high-speed rail flourished and popularized in China. Today, China boasts some 29,000 km of high-speed rail, more than anywhere else in the world. The massive network of rail connects more than 100 cities in China, from snow-covered mountains to tropical islands.

Back in the 1970s, China’s railway operating mileage was only 51,700 km, with an average speed of less than 40 km/h. By the end of 2018, it registered at 131,000 km, including 29,000 km of high-speed rail, with an average operating speed of 350 km/h.

The Fuxing bullet train, the newest and most advanced D-series (the d stands for “dongche,” which means fast train) train, led by China Railway Corporation, was developed using independent intellectual property rights and is the most advanced high-speed train in the world . It was officially put into use on the Beijing-Shanghai line on June 26, 2017.

By the end of 2019, the Fuxing train on the Beijing-Zhangjiakou line is expected to be fully autonomous with a stop speed of 350 km/h, which can fill the void in automatic train operation (ATO) in the world.

China has vowed to continually enlarge the scale and coverage area of railway and high-speed rail across the nation, aiming to deliver 3.535 billion of passengers and 3.368 billion tons of cargo delivery.