Ranked: The Countries With the Most High-Speed Rail
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The stalled Indian Shinkansen project prompts a former Japanese minister to say: "Indians have no credibility, it's all their fault."
July 17, 2026, 17:29:43, from Shanghai
Despite India's claim that its first high-speed rail line, considered a "flagship project" of the Japan-India cooperation, will be "partially operational" in 2027, the future of the project remains uncertain after more than a decade of setbacks, including land acquisition difficulties, construction delays, and soaring costs.On July 15 local time, Hideki Makihara, who served as Minister of Justice in the Shigeru Ishiba cabinet, posted on the X website that the project's bumpy progress was entirely due to India's "lack of credibility" and "unreasonableness".
Hideki Makihara stated, "I was also involved in the Indian high-speed rail project. At various international conferences and negotiations, the unreasonable behavior of the Indian side was particularly prominent. They simply did not abide by the agreements, and even if an agreement was finalized, they would immediately renege on it, only caring about their own interests from beginning to end. The officials in charge of the project were especially excessive. With such behavior at the top level, it was impossible to reach a proper cooperative deal."
"To set the record straight for all the Japanese personnel involved in this project, I must say: the obstruction of this project is 100% the responsibility of the Indian side," Hideki Makihara wrote.
He added, "Even though PM Takashi visited India, she failed to achieve any results, and the Indian high-speed rail project has been declared a failure. Moreover, Japan has been excluded from the signaling system, which is the core of safety."
In December 2015, during then-Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit to India, the two countries signed a high-speed rail contract worth US$14.7 billion, with Japan to construct India's first high-speed railway—the Mumbai-Ahmedabad high-speed rail. Japan will provide US$8 billion in low-interest loans.
This high-speed rail line, spanning 508 kilometers and utilizing Japanese Shinkansen technology, began construction in 2017 and was originally scheduled for completion in 2023, but construction has been repeatedly delayed. Media outlets attribute the delays to obstacles in land acquisition, the impact of the pandemic, and mutual distrust between Japan and India, with India demanding revisions to the design.
On June 24, 2026, local time, a section of the Mumbai-Ahmedabad high-speed rail project under construction was seen in Ahmedabad, India. (Visual China)
Around 2024, calls arose within India for Japan to "lay the railway" and for French-made trains to be imported, or for Indian-made trains to be used. As construction continued to be delayed, the cost of this high-speed railway also increased.
India originally planned to import Japan's E5 series Shinkansen bullet trains, but production halts and other factors led to a price surge, sparking discontent from the Indian side. In August 2025, then-Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba proposed during a meeting with Modi to begin importing Japan's "E10 series" Shinkansen bullet trains from the early 2030s. In a joint statement on July 2nd, Kaohsiung City and Modi explicitly stated their intention to import the "E10 series" trains.
However, according to Indian reports, the "E10 series" trains are still under development. The report did not specify when the Japanese trains would be deployed to India's high-speed rail system.
Indian Railways official Damandra Twari recently told AFP that a "significant amount" of work on the high-speed rail project has been completed, and the Surat-Vapi section will open in 2027.
According to a report submitted to Parliament by the Indian Railways Standing Committee in March of this year, the Surat-Waphi section is scheduled to be operational in August 2027, using the domestically manufactured B28 train, which has a design speed of 280 km/h.
Furthermore, in a report from Toyo Keizai Online that Hideki Makihara forwarded, a Japanese railway engineer pointed out that in January 2025, India issued a tender for the signal and communication system of the high-speed rail line, explicitly stipulating that the European ETCS-L2 signaling system should be used, excluding Japan's DS-ATC system.
The engineer emphasized that the Shinkansen trains are inseparable from the signaling system and cannot operate on the European ETCS-L2 system, therefore Japan is destined to be excluded in terms of trains as well.
“The joint statement from Takashi and Modi only reiterated the goal of introducing the E10 train, but did not mention compatibility with the signaling system. It is almost certain that India’s ‘Shinkansen’ project is destined to be a pipe dream,” he said. “It is no exaggeration to say that the Japanese government shot itself in the foot, ultimately leading to failure.”
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