I am not discounting the technology, i love high speed train and always travel on it when it is available i am just realistic about where it can be build. China are the only country in the world that build HSR across low density area. the only reason it can do it is massive government support to the rail operator which have gigantic debt and huge operating losses.
At present, most of the country’s high-speed rail lines have idle capacity, with the notable exceptions of the Beijing-Shanghai and Beijing-Guangzhou lines. The indicator that best reflects the efficiency of rail transportation is called “transportation density,” which is the average transport volume per kilometer of railway per year.
In 2015, the transportation density of the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed rail line was the highest in China, reaching about 48 million passenger-kilometers. The Lanzhou-Urumqi high-speed rail line ranked the lowest, with 2.3 million passenger-kilometers. The average transportation density of high-speed rail in China was 17 million passenger-kilometers. By comparison, the average transportation density for Japan’s high-speed rail system is 34 million passenger-kilometers.