On December 20 th, construction was started on the Yunnan section of the Chongqing-Kunming high-speed railway, an important part of China's high-speed railway network. When this railway is completed, one can travel by train from Kunming to Chongqing or Chengdu in just about two hours, as compared to the current five to six hours. On December 14th, the Chengdu-Guizhou high-speed railway went into operation, bringing northeast Yunnan's Zhaotong City into the high-speed rail era.

The Chengdu-Guizhou high-speed rail starts in Chengdu (Sichuan), calls at Zhenxiong and Weixin in Zhaotong, and terminates in Guiyang (Guizhou). The railway has a total length of 648 kilometers and a speed of 250 kilometers per hour.

The high-speed railway network has improved connections between southwest China's Yunnan province and other provinces in the country. Zhenxiong is, with more than one million inhabitants, the most populous county in Yunnan. Weixin is a county at the junction of Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan.

Both counties are impoverished and used to be quite inaccessible but are now connected to the high-speed railway network. The high-speed railway will increase their connections with other areas, thus helping develop their economy and lift residents out of poverty.

The Chongqing-Kunming high-speed railway and other high-speed railway projects will make Yunnan even more accessible. On the internet, Chinese netizens are expressing the hope that high-speed railways will soon come to their own hometowns.