NEW YORK, July 25 (Xinhua) -- The bipartisan bills of the United States to ban the procurement of Chinese buses and railcars by using federal funds could "hurt Americans" and were "not well thought out," a U.S. expert has said.
The two versions of the U.S. National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020 that have been introduced in the House on May 2 and reported on July 19 respectively, both proposed to bar the use of federal funds to buy buses and railcars made by Chinese state-owned, -controlled, or -subsidized companies for security concerns.
"I think this (the proposal) is not well thought out. Americans have to sit back and consider what we are doing here. It's going to hurt Americans more than it's going to help them," Sarwar Kashmeri, adjunct professor at Norwich University and fellow of the Foreign Policy Association, told Xinhua in a recent interview.
China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation (CRRC) is a state-owned manufacturer of locomotives and rolling stock, which has established subsidiaries in the cities of Chicago and in Springfield, in the state of Massachusetts, and created hundreds of jobs for the two localities.
"I'm not certain that the Congress has fully thought through what they are doing here and how it might hurt Americans and American cities," he added.
CRRC's branch in Chicago won a 1.3-billion-U.S.-dollar contract in 2016 to supply 846 railcars to the Chicago Transit Authority, where the oldest cars have been serving for over 30 years. By assembling the railcars in Chicago, it is creating some 170 new jobs for local residents.
Its subsidiary in Springfield builds railways for Boston, Philadelphia and Los Angeles, which also means more jobs for the local communities and greater contributions to the aging, poorly-performed U.S. public transit system.
"Railcars supplied by CRRC will begin replacing Boston's aging fleet beginning the end of this year," said Kashmeri, who had a detailed discussion with a senior official in the administration of former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick.
Massachusetts's open bid attracted bids from some of the world's largest railcar manufacturers, including Kawasaki from Japan, Hyundai from South Korea, Bombardier from Canada, and CRRC from China.
CRRC won the bid not only because of its lower bidding price, but also because it was the only bidder that had a perfect record of meeting project deadlines.
More importantly, CRRC offered to transfer its assembly technology to Massachusetts by agreeing to move the final assembly to the U.S. state, including the installation of wiring and electronics. CRRC MA, the Springfield branch of CRRC, sent 30 some U.S. workers to its Chinese plant for training.
"Thanks to CRRC, Massachusetts is creating an entire industry ... and is now starting to see the results of the decision they made," said Kashmeri. "They can export railcars to other U.S. cities."
