To travel on one of China’s high-speed trains as I did recently, is to experience China’s rapid industrial advance. We cruised from Nanjing to Shanghai at speeds of which Amtrak’s service from New York to Washington can only dream.

If CSR Corporation, the Chinese company that built the train, has its way, the US will get a taste of the technology in the next decade. This week, CSR struck an agreement with General Electric to bid jointly against Siemens and Alstom for the high-speed rail services intended for Florida and California.

On the face of it, the high-speed train is a shining symbol of China’s intended shift from being the world’s manufacturing plant to being a high-skilled, innovative economy. It is tooling up in other ways – it emerged this week that 15-year-olds in Shanghai outperform their counterparts in 65 countries in reading, science and maths.