 Okay, we're back. We're live. I'm Jay Fidel. This is Think Tech. This is Think Tech Asia, more specifically, at the two o'clock block. And Russell Liu has come back from China. He goes back and forth. And he is a Hawaii lawyer practicing in China and teaching at Beijing Foreign Studies University, otherwise known as the Georgetown of China. Welcome back, Russell. Why do they call it the Georgetown of China? Because I'm teaching at the law school, which should be global lawyers. They all have to speak a second language, and they double major in English or Spanish. Interesting. Spanish. I guess there's a lot of places in the world that new economies are all Spanish speaking. So they're generating a lot of producing out of lawyers. I mean, all these lawyers are law students will graduate, take the Chinese bar, then go to U.S. And a few years ago, they would study and take the alum degree. Now they're taking actual JD courses. And so they go to U.S. law schools, get a JD, and then sit from the New York bar exam. Oh, really, the New York bar exam. Now there's some Chinese firms. I mean, actually, Chinese firms in the U.S. You know what just strikes me as problematic is that they come here, they take masters, they go everywhere, really, Europe also. And we don't send anybody there. There's no American lawyers doing that in China. Now you can say that it's the government, you know, that the American system is welcoming, more welcoming perhaps than the Chinese, you know, professional system lawyers. But I don't think that's really the answer to the question. We're not motivated. We don't have the culture and the profession in the country to go there like you have and practice and set up shop and learn the language, the customs, the business. That's really too bad. We should be doing exactly the same thing that they're doing. I think that that's a really important point, Jay. My observation is in the United States, we're just too comfortable. Everybody's worrying about the tailgate party, the big game on Saturday, the big university game in the NFL on Monday. But I think what's happening in China is that, you know, the Internet has changed things, people have access to knowledge base, they're hungry to learn to gain knowledge, to up their game technology. And what I see now is that, you know, if there are opportunities for U.S., especially in the law students or university students, actually President Barack Obama a few years ago had reached an agreement with China. So their generous scholarships are offered to U.S. students who want to come to. No, they're not. Really? See, that's my point. At our law school, we have a lot of these scholarships, but nobody shows up from the U.S. That's really too bad. And also the top number one law school in China, Renmi University, people are taking that, Americans are not taking advantage of it. So it's a really, it's a one-way exchange. I mean, people from China come in. Would you law school be fun and useful, fun and helpful to an American student? Well, I think it's good because for American students to understand the culture, to understand the thinking, to understand that things are going to change in the next five, 10, 15 years only because the Chinese world, the technology, the things they're doing and what we're going to talk about today, it's going to make an impact in the world. I think more succinctly from what I observe is that many Chinese companies are bringing technologies, new platforms, and their language to a lot of developing countries around the world. The One About One Road initiative is an example where they're bringing in a new technology. Huge, huge, so important. Yes. And then many of these students are coming from these regions, from Europe, along the One About One Road, Europe, Russia, Ukraine. They're all coming to China. Scholarship. Yes, to learn Mandarin. All the Europeans are at that. Invaluable experience and education and opportunity. Anyway, let's go to our principal subject. We've called this show eco-friendly transit in China. And that's because we want to talk about some of the newer technologies that are being used right now in China, in many places in China, for transit and trains. So can you describe what has popped up here in the last year or two? I think what has popped up is China has developed not only a high-speed bullet train, and there's some controversy about the intellectual property coming over from Japan, from Germany, from Siemens, and so forth. But they're taking a different route. They're doing different things in China. And one of the things that they're doing is using the whole idea of smart technology in their transportation system. And so that's what I want to focus on, Jay, today. In fact, one of these pieces of technologies, China has made a train that's driverless. And it's been in use in Hong Kong for a year. And it has replaced, is replacing some of Hong Kong's MTR subway trains. So we're seeing this technology that's employed. It's a China train. And they're going to go around the world and then bring that technology. Ah, it's not just limited to China though. The idea is so good, so workable, that it can go anywhere. So what does this look like, this China train? Well, I think it looks like any other train. There are two types of trains. We're going to talk about the train. There's the rail train, which is being used now in Hong Kong. It's also being used in a number of European cities, the same smart technology. This has rail. You have to build a rail. And this is timely, because there was an accident recently in Amtrak on their new inaugural line that ran from Portland to Seattle. And it was going 80 miles in a 30 mile zone, and it was turning a bend. So the question was, was that possibly human error? So this whole idea of smart technology may be able to prevent those kind of accidents with the trains. We hope so. I mean, theoretically, smart technology would avoid any accident if you program it to avoid the accident. And I think, I think technology today is caught up in many ways, in many forms, so that it's doing a lot of things that people are concerned about being taken over jobs. But however, especially where you're dealing with mass transit, this is an area where the Chinese are getting better at, they deal with large populations and small populations in their country. They're dealing with improving their infrastructure. And what they've done is they've looked and seen the infrastructure around the world, and they've seen that, well, we don't want to invest in old platforms. We need to do new technology. We need to think green. We need to be eco-friendly. And this is the new prevailing thought around all over China. It's not only in technology, but the way people do things. You don't see trash on the road anymore. You don't see people smoking a cigarette. There is no, there are no cigarettes, but people don't smoke anymore. We, people are concerned. And the last show we talked about was pollution, where they have curbed it down, where they really have ratcheted down, where there's no pollution all this winter. I've been there all this winter. And I look at every day. That's terrific. What an improvement. That's virtually overnight. Virtually overnight. It was terrible four or five years ago. Now it looks. So that's all because of technology. You know, latest things you can do, technology. So they've come up with this. First of all, we were talking about the driverless rail train. Okay. That's a different category from your bullet train. And that's what we're focusing on here today. So describe it. Well, but there's a third category. This is driverless, trainless. Trainless. Railless, excuse me, railless. Okay. So three categories. There's the regular rail, high speed rail, that's already deployed between major cities in China. That was a few years ago. And that's working well, right? It's working well. Okay. And it's, it was not that expensive. It is not that expensive to ride it. Yeah. Not expensive at all. And it's preferable to catch the plane now, because when you catch a plane, you have wait time, security checks, airport, a lot of, it takes a lot of stress out of you. Yeah. This is good for long distances. Yes. Long distance now. So that's one category. Second category is rail, but it's smart technology. Smart technology. Yes. Third category is it's no rail and smart technology. And that's the newest technology. So I thought it would be great to introduce it to our audience today. Yeah. City called Jujo, China, but Jujo, China, they are launching, it's in Hunan. They're launching a new rail-less train system. It's called A-R-T, excuse me, A-R-T, autonomous rapid rail transit. Autonomous rapid rail transit, A-R-R-T. That's right. Okay. And this is interesting because the population of Jujo, China is about 3.96 million. Small city. Small city. We got about a million here in Honolulu. Okay. Okay. We have technology everywhere. They're reminding us. And so anyway, their new system, they're developing, it's going to be the initial leg is going to be four miles for inner city rail. And so you're talking about the same size as if we are taking it from Kalihi to downtown. Not much bigger than Honolulu. So they're doing this system and they're coming out with this train where it can carry either a train that has three cabins will carry 300 passengers or a five-cabin, which will carry 500 passengers and travels up to 50 miles an hour. So it's just right for transit. It's for a small city, for a population where you're not talking 21 million people. And we're not talking going 500 miles in a given direction. We're talking about going three or four miles. And what's amazing is that this is employing the latest smart technology. It doesn't require rails to be installed. It doesn't need to require overhead traffic. All it requires is a road. And it's designed so that it follows asserted dotted lines or, excuse me, guideway. Yeah, you've shown me a picture of it. I'm very impressed. Imagine it's kind of like a bike path kind of affair. It's a macadam, black top on the side of the road. Cars don't go there. Not supposed to go there, right? And the train, as it were, follows this dotted line, which is in the center, I guess, of this macadam roadway. There are no rails. There are wheels. And the train has wheels. I guess that makes it kind of like a bus. There's no overhead power supply. The train is powered by batteries, which are recharged at appropriate points during the day or week. And this is the most interesting part. It's autonomous. So it can go by itself, this fabulous kind of bus, autonomous rail, railless bus thing that goes right through the center of the city. And it can go up to 50 miles per hour, that is something. Yes. And it's not like it's not in shape because there are also monitors that go back to Central Station where somebody's watching it all the time. Watching it and making sure there are cameras on it. So it can make sure that if there's anything that you have to know about. Yeah. Well, how do they collect the fares? I mean, that'd be an interesting question. They use a telephone. What did you call that program? Collect the fares. You can collect the fares. First of all, smart card technology. That's out of Hong Kong or out of Japan, no? Well, they had that for Beijing for many years. The subway system, smart cards. You can use the bus, you can use the trains, the subway. Transit card. Transit card. And you just swipe it and you put money into the card. And in Beijing, for example, you can actually, on your smartphone, you can load, there's an app for that. And you can just simply, you don't have to go to a train station to put money. You can do it on your smartphone and then just swipe it over. Yeah, or you use your Samsung smart watch like this one. That's right. Holding it up. There it is. I see it and I don't see it yet. There, that's smart. You could use this because I can use this with a credit card machine. It will run the charge on the credit card machine. Whether the clerk knows it or not, I can do that. And so I suppose the future is smart watches like this for the same purpose. I'm sure it's going to happen. It's going to happen. And it's amazing, but there are so many things that, there's so much flexibility in a system like this. Because it's using the latest technology. You can put onboard entertainment, all digital things. It'd be a wonderful experience for the passengers. And you can also very easily or able to track your demographics. Because of the smart card. Of the smart card. Because it can make a record of everybody who's coming and going and how long they stayed and all that. So is this expensive? I mean, how do you pay for something so fancy like this? Well, it's interesting because from my understanding, the company that is designed that they did their studies or market research studies. And it's a lot cheaper than, you know, the subways. It's, the overhead is a lot less because it's just tires. It's just maintenance of the road. And the road doesn't require much maintenance. It doesn't require much maintenance. It's only going to have this thing, which is kind of lightweight. You know, it's electric. It's not the combustion engine. And I've seen the pictures. It looks pretty good. It's kind of like a souped up bus on steroids kind of thing. Several buses together. Several buses all linked together. Five hundred people in a train of buses. That's what it amounts to. But it's quite remarkable how they get it to go on the sensors. They put the sensors down in that dotted line in the middle of the road. It just follows the sensors. So there's really not a lot of navigation issues around it. Just follow the yellow big road. Exactly. So this is made in China, designed in China the whole thing. Yeah. And how much deployment? I mean, where has it been deployed so far? Well, it's been made, designed out of a Hunan, China. It's actually, the technology is made for domestic right now, for domestic use. So we'll probably see that in smaller cities in China. It's pretty interesting that we read about all the geopolitical things that Xi Jinping has been doing. We see him extending China's influence all over the world at every continent. One road initiative is crossing many, many countries to extend China's influence all the way to Europe. Quite amazing. But this sounds like it's not just a train or a trainless train. It sounds like it's part of that initiative, because once it's perfected in China and Hunan or elsewhere, it's something that China can export and put in every city that, well, every city needs some kind of transit, and it'd be better than buses, presumably cheaper, more efficient, less labor, a whole enchilada. This could be an extension of China's influence. Yes, well, that's why the whole China's economy is changing. It's moving up the value chain. No longer, it's the garage, not factory. And the whole theme of China is innovation, green technology. This is all designed not only for Chinese needs, but it's good for their exports. Yeah, sure. So now they are formal competitors to Japan's rail as well as some of the other rail builders around the world. So they're exporting the rail around the world. I think they're going to do something in Southeast Asia, a very major project. We're seeing the whole one-about-one-road initiative reaping benefits to China because of factors that they can deliver now. They can deliver trains. They can deliver mass transit systems to a lot of places where, for example, large population centers, where you can't afford to put in something that's very expensive. Yeah, this isn't hard. All you need is a slice of the road, the cat on top, those sensors are probably easy to install, save all the money on rail, save all the money on overhead power or anything like that. Underground power, all you need is the train and anybody could build the roadway. So we're going to talk about exactly how interesting this might be to Hawaii, right after we come back from this break. Russell Liu, an American lawyer practicing Beijing and teaching in a local diplomatic school, what is it, international? Beijing Ford Studies University. Foreign Studies University in Beijing. And we're going to talk about how this could be kind of an innovation arbitrage to bring it not only outside of China and in the west of China, but also here in Hawaii. We'll be right back. Very exciting. I'm excited to even think about talking about it. Yeah. I just walked by and I said, what's happening, guys? And they told me they were making music. Okay, we're back. I told you, I told you we'd come back. Me and Russell Liu, we're talking about trains, transit. We're talking about ARRT, the Autonomous Rapid Rail Transit System, which is being built in China and presumably will be exported from China along the One Belt, One Road Initiative going west. But also, this is something that Hawaii might be interested in. If not just for Honolulu, where our rail initiative seems to be stuck on a long-term basis and way too expensive, also for the neighbor islands. How do you see that playing out, if possible? Well, first, let me talk about the One Belt, One Road, Jay. Please. You touched a very interesting point. The One Belt, One Road, we're talking about the traditional One Belt, One Road in Marco Polo route that went through Northwest China, through the Middle East, through Europe. You're talking about the old route that went from China down from Shanghai, Yiwu, all the way down to Southeast Asia, around India, through Kenya, up through Africa, and to Europe. The third One Belt, One Road, which people haven't identified yet, is the China's movement of the economy into South America. And that is the new road, the One Belt, One Road, that passes through Hawaii. So just think about it, if we're in the middle of that route, it goes, we can be very important economically. Well, if that's the reality, we have to recognize it as the reality, and maybe somehow find opportunities and advantages in it. We haven't had, aside from a few guys buying high-rise condo apartments for astronomical sums, I'm not sure that we've had a whole lot of China investment here right now in this iteration, such as the kind of investment we had when the Japanese were coming. Well, those are different times, Jay. There's a time when you had land that could be zoned for hotels. All the zoned land for hotels are gone. Nobody has thought about it, of what you can do. The capacity does not allow for hotels, the present capacity doesn't allow for a lot of Chinese travelers to come here. 80-something percent is the occupancy rate. So that means very few rooms left for the Chinese, if you want larger people to come here. As a result, I remember Madam Wu, remember her? Yes. She came here on the way to Seattle during the lingual administration, that big party, you know, everybody was in front of Wu, Madam Wu. You know, she was like number two or three and the government was just way up there and sitting somewhere, I think. And she had a bunch of guys with money bags ready to buy stuff in Hawaii and ultimately in Seattle. Well, she didn't buy anything here. She went to Seattle and bought a lot of airplanes, that's what she did. And, you know, they have passed us by in terms of industrial investment, I think. And so maybe it's time for us to look more carefully at them, especially in view of the South American road you're talking about. So what could we do with this ARRP? Showcase technology. Yeah, go ahead. I really think that having some successful technology out here in Honolulu, that is, Chinese-made innovation will bring a lot of, attract other potential economic opportunities to this place. And I still firmly believe, born and raised and grown up here, that Honolulu can be a very unique Singapore of the United States if it chooses to be. We have a lot of bright kids here, many kids who are technological savvy, but it's now, how do we bring that here? One of the ways is really, when you showcase and you have Chinese technology here, the Chinese will start to take notice. They become much more friendlier, your develop relationships. The vehicle relationship, not only just because it's going to feed your transportation needs, but you're giving them a place to show the technology. Think about that. When you have a place where you can show the technology, you don't need a convention center where big rigged trucks will come up because we can't do that. When technology is here, and you start to have all kinds of technology here that comes from China, then you become a showcase, you become all of a sudden a magnet for business. Then you have a good partner, you negotiate a good partnership relationship with them, it's a win-win-win. Then you also bring American, tech companies here. Because the Chinese are here. And you do jobs to local people to innovate the deployment of this equipment and to maintain it, and to operate it. So I want to give you a case study. We can talk about how to deploy this in Honolulu, but let's wait. Let's talk about how to deploy it in Maui first. Maui has terrific traffic jams. Maui has certain relative to Maui, high-density population centers that could be connected. How would this work? If a deal was made, say between the county of Maui, just for example, and the Chinese who are operating and developing and exporting and deploying these ARRT, trainless trains. I love that idea when you're starting off here, the case study of Maui. Maui is a place where you don't only destroy it's a fragile ecosystem. It's a beautiful environment. You don't want to put overhead tracks, trails. And you don't want to spend a lot of money tearing up the roads. You don't want to disturb. I have a real sensitivity because my heart is in Hawaii, sensitivity to digging up the ground, disturbing traditional Hawaiian. Maui cares a lot about electric energy. He cares a lot about transportation. He cares about renewables, driving, creating electric energy, and then driving trains. It's just like this. This would fit within what I want to call at the frontier of Maui's thinking about electrical generation and renewables. And this is great because the work is already done. The major work has been done because Maui has tried it out where the roads are, where you can go, where you're not disturbing the environment. So you're not going to build something on top of that. You're going to simply modify it to have smart lanes, these dotted lines to the rail, dedicated routes, and you're going to bring clean electric-powered, trackless trailers. You can make charging stations using solar power or wind power for that matter. Maui would be great for that where the sun is shining every day of the year. And you could connect the connect population centers and commercial centers all together. And if you found you didn't get enough traffic from one or the other, you can change the route without spending any significant additional money. That's right. And it would be great for Maui because I'll tell you why. You can bring that technology to Maui, improve it, and start to create technology research development centers and link up different parts of Maui, Kana Pali with the Kalui. Yeah, exactly. By having this and you can take tourists across there safe, eco-friendly way. Yeah. And I'll give you another one you'd see what you think. The Big Island was doing this for a while before Billy Kanoy, remember him? And I don't think of doing it anymore, but they had free buses. So if you worked in a hotel in Kona, but you lived in Hilo, you could get on a free bus. This saves you a midnight ride across the saddle road and all that. It was a real of great thing for the people at the Big Island. Too bad they don't have it anymore. But if you want to incentivize people to ride this as a demonstration, if you want to incentivize the success of it, you make it free. And everyone can ride it. Tourists can ride it. The locals can ride it. People can ride it to work. They can ride to recreation and ride it home. And so, and you can change the, you know, the route so easily, it would adapt itself to exactly where you need to put people. Really interesting possibilities there. So in the model, what do you think about a free ride and how would you be able to do that? I think a free ride is terrific. Nobody's going to turn that down, Jay. You know, you can get your revenues through advertising revenue on board entertainment that will tell the tourists where to go. Yes. Think about that. Think about that. Yes. You can take the tourists also on this free ride to your sponsors, drop them off to the Kona Farm area. You galvanize all the Kona coffee. Well, talking about the Big Island, you know the Big Island has greater distances than Maui, but still the Big Island has plenty of renewables too. In fact, it has so much renewables that it can't use all the renewables that it has. So you can put these charging stations for the train along the way or at the, you know, the end points of the route. And you could essentially charge it with renewables and spend very little in terms of operating it. And think about it. If you can increase your tourist revenue because you have this and it makes sense to partner with the tourists and the companies where it will go to Ocaca Falls. It will pass all these areas at Scott. And people will be able to enjoy the islands less car accidents, less pollution, all electric. Yeah. And the autonomous thing is it's being perfected up. When I see recently, the Army now has a helicopter that can be operated autonomously. It's not even remote radio. As you just set it on a course, tell it what to do, and it does it. Or a big U.E. helicopter, it can do that. So autonomous vehicles are coming of aid, just not just the drones. It's all cars, of course. So this rides parallel, if you'll excuse the expression, with the whole autonomous movement. We got to get on board with this. You know, one of the big problems about renewable energy is we haven't used it sufficiently in transportation. This could solve that problem. We just got to open up, you know, to a Chinese import. And start working with them and learning from them and being part of the program that they suggest to us. So let's do this, all right? Okay. I'm on board, Jay. Yeah, I'm on board. Yeah. I think we just need to be open-minded and look at technology. There are lessons to be learned. This technology, for example, the trackless trade or the rivalless trade, it's already been employed already in some European countries that Chinese tech is in operation. And so I see great possibilities and I see that here, maybe it is a way to supplement our new heart, a new system that was supplemented. For example, if we can't fill the infrastructure, you know, one of the things I'm always concerned about coming from Hawaii is that you're going to dig up along the way a lot of land. There may be traditional Hawaiian burial sites. And, you know, we don't want to disturb that. We need to preserve all of this and having this over existing roads. Imagine in this city of Jujo, that track system is four miles, your initial track in the inner city area. So from the non-track track, the non-track, the trackless rail system, it is four miles. Think about it. From Kalihi to downtown Honolulu, that's 3.2 miles, okay? From downtown Honolulu to Waikiki, that's 2.9 miles. Made to order. It's because think about it. No condemnation, right? No expensive rails or overhead power. It's all renewable right there and it's largely autonomous. The whole thing can operate by itself. And PS, whatever you do with the route, such as it is, has been planned or stuck, whatever the case may be, we still need to go to the university. We still need to go to the airport. We still need to go to Waikiki and other neighborhoods like Kailua, like the whole other side. This is a perfect extension. If you want to build the thing that the monster we have created for rail now today, if you want to extend it, this is a great way to extend it. Great way to extend it, supplement it. Think about a triangle. And from downtown Honolulu to UH Mono, that's 3.9 miles. So you're talking about a triangular system that can move people, a lot of people. You're talking that one train will take three or two people. And it can go up to 50 miles an hour. And it will take people safely across the road. Russell, you and I, we get so excited about these things. We can hardly contain ourselves and we don't realize that we're out of time. So Russell, you thank you so much. Thank you, Jane. Talking about A-R-R-T, instead of H-A-R-T, it's really an eye-opener to talk to you about. We need H-A-R-R-T. H-A-R-R-T. H-A-R-R-T. Thank you, Russell. Thank you. Aloha. Aloha. Aloha. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.