Guess what? Being an authoritarian government means never having to ask permission to steal someone’s land, rip up a pristine habitat or demolish an entire village. Those types of considerations are what make infrastructure expensive in democratic countries.
You mean the principle of eminent domain? China is legally required to pay fair market value and rehouse displaced peoples, but it's also just the right thing to do for political stability. The key is that China doesn't really have the concept of private land ownership (only leased government and collective-owned land). That's the primary driver behind why China's costs are lower than the rest of the world in this domain, but doesn't explain how Japan and France and etc. are also so cheap.
For large government projects the principles tend to be followed (for example, China HSR and Shanghai's subway expansion). There's corruption that happens at the local (rural) government level that sometimes requisitions farmland for commercial or industrial use, and the systems there are usually less robust, but when talking about regional, provincial or national projects there are better systems in place to handle things with minimal risk and it's seen as more politically expedient to just pay the piper than it is to deal with the civil unrest.
China's land ownership system means that land is split between being owned by the national government and being owned by small collectives. The greatest corruption (requisition without proper compensation) usually occurs at the collective-level. At a higher administrative level, it's not like China is missing housing that it can use to rehouse people lol.
Guess what? Being an authoritarian government means never having to ask permission to steal someone’s land, rip up a pristine habitat or demolish an entire village. Those types of considerations are what make infrastructure expensive in democratic countries.
You mean the principle of eminent domain? China is legally required to pay fair market value and rehouse displaced peoples, but it's also just the right thing to do for political stability. The key is that China doesn't really have the concept of private land ownership (only leased government and collective-owned land). That's the primary driver behind why China's costs are lower than the rest of the world in this domain, but doesn't explain how Japan and France and etc. are also so cheap.
Lol.
For large government projects the principles tend to be followed (for example, China HSR and Shanghai's subway expansion). There's corruption that happens at the local (rural) government level that sometimes requisitions farmland for commercial or industrial use, and the systems there are usually less robust, but when talking about regional, provincial or national projects there are better systems in place to handle things with minimal risk and it's seen as more politically expedient to just pay the piper than it is to deal with the civil unrest.
China's land ownership system means that land is split between being owned by the national government and being owned by small collectives. The greatest corruption (requisition without proper compensation) usually occurs at the collective-level. At a higher administrative level, it's not like China is missing housing that it can use to rehouse people lol.
The minister in charge of HSR was sentenced to death for corruption.