China's hardly small, but is pretty dense in the east.
Trans-continental travel is nowadays without question the purview of air travel (though I was surprised when I looked up the classes of air travel across the US — a flight from the EU to the north east of the US gets you so much more than a trans-continental flight, despite the lengths of the flights being near identical!). That said, a quite look at a population map it look like a fairly comprehensive network as far west as Chicago should be viable, extending down to Virginia on the coast. Otherwise, Houston–Austin–San Antonio seems doable (possibly with a spur off that from Austin to Dallas and Fort Worth), as well as most of California (and probably Phoenix from there).
That said, don't take this as carte blanche support for any proposals for HSR in those areas — I know at least the Californian proposal is pretty ridiculous.
There are other challenges, but ones that likely aren't insurmountable. Most notably, you almost certainly want for many travellers the destination to be the central business district, but in many cities this makes it hard to have large car rental places — necessary given most of these cities don't have good, comprehensive transport networks.
Trans-continental travel is nowadays without question the purview of air travel (though I was surprised when I looked up the classes of air travel across the US — a flight from the EU to the north east of the US gets you so much more than a trans-continental flight, despite the lengths of the flights being near identical!). That said, a quite look at a population map it look like a fairly comprehensive network as far west as Chicago should be viable, extending down to Virginia on the coast. Otherwise, Houston–Austin–San Antonio seems doable (possibly with a spur off that from Austin to Dallas and Fort Worth), as well as most of California (and probably Phoenix from there).
That said, don't take this as carte blanche support for any proposals for HSR in those areas — I know at least the Californian proposal is pretty ridiculous.
There are other challenges, but ones that likely aren't insurmountable. Most notably, you almost certainly want for many travellers the destination to be the central business district, but in many cities this makes it hard to have large car rental places — necessary given most of these cities don't have good, comprehensive transport networks.