With the high-speed rail system, geographic distance will no longer be an
obstacle for economic development. By 2012,the high-speed railway will closely
connect the Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta, Bohai Bay and other cities. It
will take only four hours from Beijing to Shanghai, seven hours from Beijing to
Guangzhou, five hours from Hangzhou to Shenzhen, and six hours from Nanjing to
Chengdu. Three urban circles, Jing-Jin, Hu-Ning-Hang, and Guang-Shen respectively
will be finally formed. There are also three relatively small economic circles:
The middle-south urban circle of Zhengzhou, Wuhan and Changsha; The
west-north urban circle of Xi’an and Baoji, and the west-south urban circle of
Chengdu and Chongqing