Less incentive for high-speed rail is the issue not that they can’t pull it off. It’s not state of the art technology at this point.
I get that you have something to say about the US in general but I’m strictly talking about HSR and chip fab. China will never going to succeed on this chip war unless they steal all the shit that the US, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and many European countries been r&d-ing for decades and even then, it’ll make no sense financially to have them all.
Also don’t forget the fact that all the brightest minds on this face of the Earth is flying to the US while China desperately try to piss every one else off. That certainly doesn’t help China too.