“Japan’s ambassador to the United States, Ichiro Fujisaki, was in Los Angeles from Washington, DC for the conference. Ambassador Fujisaki’s opening remarks to the conference were a forceful call for us to use Japanese know-how and equipment for our high speed rail. Most extraordinarily, the ambassador stated that he believes Japan will pay for up to half of the cost of the California’s HSR. [...] Basically our Japanese allies are begging us for the chance to build our train because they know it’s going to profitable.”
—California High Speed Rail Blog, via Infrastructurist.
Last month, I met him in MIT.
ReplyDeletehttp://shass.mit.edu/calendar/13573200
I think we (Japan) should not make the reason why we will invest in it complicated.
Yes, Japan and US have a strong relationship in several areas, and we bought huge amount of US national debt.
But this theory definitely mislead the real value of California HSR.
Personally, I'm super happy if the Japanese government decide it.
But we should be more careful for US HSR projects.
It is not an universal medicine for US.