Unlike tourists in many places, those visiting China for the first time often consider subway stations in major cities attractions in themselves for their sheer beauty, innovative designs, or simply their novelty. Hell, if nothing else, they are sparkling clean!
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Those such as Panda Avenue station in Chengdu and Rainbow station in Guangzhou are mentioned in tourist guides as places to visit. Several stations in Shenzhen look more like the halls found in many of Asia’s ultra-modern airports.
From subway trains to high-speed rail, the nation’s integrated transport seems like the stuff of science fiction. It took the United States a century to complete its transnational railroad and interstate highway system. China compressed the time taken to build their equivalents into two decades.
Whether it’s dams, bridges or high-rises, China has built bigger and more of them than anyone else. It is in fact obsessive-compulsive in building huge public works, often too excessive for its own good.
Of course, it’s not just civil engineering. There is electrical and nano-engineering for semiconductors, as well as computer engineering, solar engineering, space engineering … all of which are considered matters of national security and priority.
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China’s STEM graduates outnumber those of the US by more than eight to one. Most of the nation’s top officials are engineers. In the US, their counterparts are inevitably lawyers.
Dan Wang, one of the most astute observers of contemporary China, has taken to calling the country the “engineering state” and the US the “lawyerly state”.