beijing • Shanghai’s apparent decision to shelve a planned extension of its high-tech train system left industry insiders puzzled yesterday, underlining the dilemma China faces in balancing progress with public concern.

Citing unnamed officials, the official Xinhua news agency said on Saturday the $4.3bn extension of the magnetic levitation train line, or Maglev, had been suspended amid worries the German technology could pose a radiation risk to communities along the new line.

Construction of the 170km link between Shanghai and Hangzhou was to have begun this year.

“I’m a bit surprised the government decided to stop the project as it’s rare for an approved project to be halted in China,” said Li Hong, a professor with the Institute of Transport and Communication under China’s planning agency.

Although health concerns were the official cause of the cancellation, the project has been dogged by controversy since its inception, due to its cost.

China’s demands for technology transfers in exchange for the contract to build the train, which can hit speeds of up to 430km per hour, also held up long-winded negotiations.

Currently, Shanghai operates the world’s only commercial Maglev system on a 30-kilometre route between Shanghai’s financial district and its Pudong airport.

Professor Sun Zhang of the Institute of Railway and Urban Traffic at Tongji University in Shanghai, said a petition drive by local residents to stop the project was likely the key cause, but more from a cost standpoint than health fears.

“It’s a dilemma,” he said. “On one hand, Shanghai really needs a railway to connect Hongqiao airport and Pudong airport, (and) if the railway does not extend, it will be harder to earn the cost back.

“On the other hand, we are now claiming to be a harmonious society, so the government has to listen more to the voices of residents — if the government chooses to relocate these residents, it will be another huge cost.”

“Harmonious society” is a catchphrase for the current political leadership’s ambition of creating a China that is not being torn apart by wage inequalities and social tension.

Li Hong at the transport institute said the project may also have been done in by concerns that it could be a poor fit with other nationwide rail development plans.

He was referring to projects such as a high-speed rail between Beijing and Shanghai, currently in the planning stage, which will be based on a mixture of Japanese and Chinese technologies.

A spokeswoman for Transrapid — the consortium of German industrial giants ThyssenKrupp AG and Siemens behind the project — said the company only learned of the project suspension from the media report.