As China unveiled a shiny new high-speed train connecting the great metropolises of Beijing and Shanghai on Monday there was one thing conspicuously absent from the comfortable new carriages: a speedometer.

In all other Chinese high-speed trains opened to the public in recent years there have always been indicators to tell passengers proudly how fast the train is going.

There is a simple reason for their absence on this line: the train between Beijing and Shanghai will not go as fast as was originally intended because of concerns for safety, affordability and the controversy surrounding the downfall of the former railway minister, detained in February on suspicion of corruption.

Despite a design speed of 350-380 kph, trains on the longest high-speed line to be built in one go will travel at a maximum operating speed of 300 kph and about a third of the trips between the two cities will travel at just 250 kph.

A one-way ticket from Beijing to Shanghai costs Rmb1,750 ($270) to travel business class and Rmb555 for second class.

China is in the process of building the world’s largest high-speed network in record time, with dedicated rapid passenger lines already criss-crossing much of the country. But Sheng Guangzu, China’s new railway minister, has made clear the excesses of his predecessor, the disgraced Liu Zhijun, are now a thing of the past.

The ministry has declared its intention to shift from “leapfrog development” to “sustainable development” and it has shelved some of the more ambitious high-speed rail blueprints, lowered average speeds on all high-speed lines and promised to rein in soaring debt levels

Under Mr Liu, borrowing by the railway ministry leapt from Rmb77.1bn in 2007 to Rmb1,980bn by the end of March this year, according to data from the National Audit Office published by Trusted Sources, an emerging markets research service.

The entire high-speed rail programme was portrayed as a patriotic mission, part of the glorious rejuvenation of the motherland and that portrayal continues despite the tarnishing that has come from Mr Liu’s downfall.

The rail link opens to the public on Friday, the 90th anniversary of the Chinese Communist party.

Ministry officials have repeatedly insisted in recent years that China has been able to “absorb and digest” high-speed train technology it bought from international companies such as Siemens, Alstom, Kawasaki and Bombardier and then “re-innovate” to create its own intellectual property.

But in a scathing interview published in Chinese media last week, a former senior railway ministry official said the core technology behind China’s high-speed trains was still foreign.

Zhou Yimin, former deputy director of the ministry’s high-speed department, said when China bought foreign technology, the purchase contracts stated that trains should not run faster than 300km/h but the ministry under Mr Liu had ignored safety issues and fixated on running trains faster and faster.

Issues over intellectual property, safety and reliability are ever more important to China’s state-controlled high-speed rail industry, which is seeking to expand into international markets.

Chinese railway construction companies are already building high-speed lines in places such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey and are expected to play a bigger global role in track and infrastructure construction.