The government of Mexico announced that it has chosen China Railway Corp to build a high-speed rail line connecting the capital of Mexico City with Queretaro, a manufacturing city 210 km to the north. The project is slated to start in December and the line is expected to begin operation in 2017, according to Mexican government officials, at a cost of $3.75 billion. As the competition heats up to win high-speed rail contracts abroad, China has struck first, winning the first such bid in Latin America. The question is how China managed to win, and what that . . .