I'm not sure I would agree with the "ineffective" part - nefarious to be sure, but not ineffective.
Unlike the Soviets Union, who didn't engage in the kind of super-Neo-Capitalism that China does, I don't believe that China will collapse under the weight of itself. China has somehow managed to maintain a firm grip on its citizens, while also using the unquestionable benefits of its manufacturing and trade policies with the west. We are, for the first time in history, supplying the capital requirements of our enemy through the mechanism of (somewhat) free markets. It's a very strange dynamic, and one that - so far - China has been very adept at exploiting.
I completely agree with you, and for the reason you stated. That is a large-scale assessment, however. The project in question is of a socialist (government) type. And I recognize here the standard socialist "we've got to surpass" mentality (as I am sure you'll recall both China and Russia were constantly "surpassing America" in steel production, wheat crops, etc.) They did not just build a rail link -- they made it the fastest in the world. [ The safety remains to be seen, of course, unless its operations are outsourced to Westerners.]
Totalitarian regimes, by their very nature, can allocate resources to a single aim, which is then achieved quite quickly. Precisely because that aim is taken by itself, other areas of economics/society/culture suffer. Hence my earlier statement: given the stated goal of achieving happiness for all, totalitarian regimes are ineffective (they never achieve the stated goal). But they can send a satellite into Earth's orbit faster than democracies (the Soviets); they can militarize faster and better (the Nazis), etc.
Sorry if these points were stated even less clearly in the previous post.