I write this post while riding a train to our next stop in the south of China, roughly 1500km away. Our journey will take about 10 hours, which probably is the fastest daily average age we have travelled on our trip around the world. Currently the display shows a speed of 245km/h, but our trip from Beijing to Tianjin was faster: At a top speed of 300km/h we bridged the distance of 120km in just half an hour.

But China's network of high speed trains is by far not the only technically impressive feat in this country. From fancy high-rise buildings, shiny new subways and colourful malls, to the all ubiquitous mobile phone and all its uses, China is very fast in adopting and welcoming new technologies and changes in society.

The way the Chinese state is structured makes it apparently quite easy to roll out major changes in infrastructure in little time. No preservation orders on old buildings, no significant protests of citizen when relocating whole villages, and what's environmental concern? This makes for really impressive infrastructure. Most of the subway lines in Beijing have been built in preparation for the 2008 Olympics, and it really is the most high-tech metro I have been on so far. Most fancy feature: on some lines, they have very long screens in the actual tube. When a subway passes by, an animated ad is displayed outside the window, that travels along with the car. It has a strange holographic effect, that totally feels like being in the movie Blade Runner. The new one.

Also, the rate of change in buildings seems to be really high. While New York has mostly skyscrapers from the last century, Beijing's skyline in the central business district is dominated by buildings no more than ten years old. London's skyline may have changed a lot in recent years, but in Beijing, it's far from over. And the towers here have more fancy lighting. Sorry London.

But perhaps the most futuristic aspect of daily life on China is their use of the mobile phone. Or, more correctly, of their main app: WeChat. Which probably started out as a native variant of a messaging app like WhatsApp, it is now used for everything. Everything. Taking the bus, hailing a taxi, booking a train, and generally payment. Of everything. Really everything. We've been to restaurants, where our friend Shuyan ordered and payed for our food, while we were waiting for our table. Before we even entered the restaurant, just by scanning a QR code (you know, these rectangular things). They are everywhere, every little street food cart has one, even street musicians have their own code pasted to the bowl with little change in it. We've seen vending machines selling drinks and snacks, without any button or slot for cash. Just a QR code, that's all it needs. Or little boxes all around town, at every little restaurant, which dispense a battery to recharge your phone for a small fee per hour. Your phone battery better not be dying.

Because of that, nobody uses credit cards (or cash), and we were told there is work underway, to eliminate the only other card that locals here need: the national ID card. It too has wireless capability, and is needed for a lot of things in daily life. Before boarding the train, before a getting a (free) ticket to the museum, at the security check before Tiananmen square, every time they put their card on a little reader, and look into a camera for verification.

All this together is a huge convenience. As a tourist we realise that every day. Extra cues for those foreigners with a flimsy passport, the difficulty of getting cash in a country where nobody uses cash anymore, and always having that small change at hand in case you need to take a bus. It makes you wish you could take part in this wondrous future.

Or does it? The reason a foreigner can't pay with WeChat is that your account needs to be verified by entering your Chinese bank account details. So every transaction is linked directly to you. Secondly, all communications in the app are monitored. There is a huge number of people snooping in the chats and removing unwanted content. Thirdly, somewhere in the terms and conditions it is stated that state bodies can have access to all that data. While there is similar laws in the US, like the Patriot Act, the density of data in WeChat is unparalleled. Together with data collected from the use of the ID card, and you get a complete dataset of every person's life in China. At least, everyone with a smartphone.

Now, every local we talked to about this doesn't really see what the problem here is. Rather, they smugly mock us westerners for not being up to date. But as a European who is used to data protection regulations, I'm not wholly convinced. And I would assume, those protesting in Hongkong right now might agree with me, that maybe sometimes it is better to not be tracked on every move.

And this extends to a lot of aspects we see in China. The pace of change is astonishing, and for the foreseeable future, this country will lead on a lot of technologies. But one reason why things in Europe take a little longer to implement, is democratic process. Involvement of society in large scale construction, an active scene of data protection advocates, and general parliamentary processes of course all hinder fast technological improvements - but in my eyes, that's still a good thing.