Chennai and Bengaluru, two important hubs of economic activity in southern India, are 177 miles apart. The fastest train journey between them takes four hours and 20 minutes. In the same time, you could cover the 665 miles from Beijing to Shanghai by high-speed rail. In this comparison of domestic travel lies something unexpected: the two countries’ divergent success in tapping global export markets.

Starting with the inaugural Beijing-Tianjin line in 2008, China’s high-speed rail is now a 26,000-mile network and supports a top speed of 220 miles per hour. Meanwhile, Vande Bharat Express, India’s newest and fastest passenger locomotive, is unable to accelerate to its full potential — most parts of the existing tracks won’t even allow 80 miles an hour.