Shoddy Chinese Construction?

Dr. Ed's Blog, via Ritholtz:

All these developments certainly explain why the Shanghai-Shenzhen 300 stock price index dropped last Wednesday to the lowest readings since March 3, 2009. On Friday, it rebounded by 5.3% on news that the government approved 25 new subway and inter-city rail projects worth $126 billion.

That’s not much, really. Why aren’t China’s leaders spending much more as they did in late 2008 and 2009 to boost economic growth? It might be because much of what they built was defective as a result of widespread corruption. The 8/4 issue of the London Times reported there were 99 road cave-ins in Beijing between July 21 and August 21 of this year. Roads and bridges are collapsing in other cities as well. Most are relatively new including a bridge that was built just 10 months ago.

The country's former railway minister, Liu Zhijun, was expelled from the Communist Party of China for corruption in May following the high-speed train collision that left 40 people dead and 172 injured near the eastern city of Wenzhou last year. In March of this year, part of a high-speed railway line due to open in May between the Yangtze river cities of Wuhan and Yichang collapsed after heavy rain. Engineers working on some projects have complained of problems with contractors using inferior concrete or inadequate steel support bars. Consider this excerpt from the 2/17/11 issue of the NYT:

“The statement underscored concerns in some quarters that Mr. Liu cut corners in his all-out push to extend the rail system and to keep the project on schedule and within its budget. No accidents have been reported on the high-speed rail network, but reports suggest that construction quality may at times have been shoddy. A person with ties to the ministry said that the concrete bases for the system’s tracks were so cheaply made, with inadequate use of chemical hardening agents, that trains would be unable to maintain their current speeds of about 217 miles per hour for more than a few years. In as little as five years, lower speeds, possibly below about 186 miles per hour, could be required as the rails become less straight, the expert said. Strong concrete pillars require a large dose of high-quality fly ash, the byproduct of burning coal. But the speed of construction has far exceeded the available supply, according to a 2008 study by a Chinese railway design institute.”

I've linked to previous stories about shitty construction in China.  I really wonder how much of it is true.  It is pretty hard to get worried about China and India taking down the U.S. when getting bridges to stand up and keeping the power on are real challenges for them.  We have some of the same problems, but not nearly on the same scale, and we don't have the outrageous poverty those countries do.  Maybe things aren't as bad here as we tend to believe.  Of course it would help if it looked like there was any way we could start fixing our comparatively modest problems.