Wang Xixi still remembers her first experience with Germany’s trains 21 years ago. It left her with a question: how could a railway be so empty, clean and punctual, and still make money? The carriages were bright, the toilets almost spotless and the fittings modern. During four years as a student in Bavaria, travelling on a regional rail pass, she barely remembers a delay. At the time, China’s high-speed railway network was just getting started, while Germany was a major exporter of the...