Not to derail this into a discussion on law in China but you might want to actually read the Property Law in China. The code went into effect back in 2007. If you do you will learn that the land is owned by the state. An individual in China cannot own land, not natives, not foreigners no one unless it is the state through whatever vehicle they choose. An individual can own a real property so long as it's a house, apartment or structure (Article 64) but they do not own the land upon which the structure is built. They get the land pursuant to a grant from the government that looks more like a lease than a fee (70 years for residential, 50 years for industrial, etc. but nothing is granted for more than 70 years.) The rights can be revoked both in a an agricultural and urban setting for "the public interest" which is well, rather vague and not defined.Technically the US has the same system: the government has "eminent domain" over the land, and private parties only have limited rights to it. The most common is called "fee title", and is conditional on payment of your property taxes, among other things...It also helps that the government owns the land in China only granting land use rights to private parties. Makes it a lot easier to build that fancy high speed train when revoking the land use grants on the land you need to build on is relatively easy.
You might not know that.
China actually has very serious issues with "holdout landowners"; you can google this. The legal system is very strong -- unsurprising, since China is one of the most legalistic societies in the world -- and those land use rights can't be revoked on a whim.
So in short, no, you're wrong. China has exactly the same issues with acquiring land for a high speed rail line as the US does. No difference.
...OK, there is one difference. China has a policy of printing lots of money to keep the renminbi cheap. This causes booming export industries, and the combination provides loads of cash to use to buy out landowners. The US, for decades now, has pretty much had a tight-money policy of keeping the dollar expensive. This is part of what hollowed out US manufacturing; cheap dollar is good for export industries, expensive dollar is bad for them. Trump has stated that he wants the dollar to drop, the first President I can remember who did so...
I am familiar with the compensation payments made to rights holders when those rights are revoked. While it looks on its face to be similar to eminant domain here in the US the major difference is that compensation is only paid for the private property lost. It is common to see a displaced rights holder receive some compensation and a new dwelling somewhere else. The compensation is generally nowhere near the "fair market value" you see in US eminant domain cases. This is the norm and happens with regularity. There are holdovers sometimes as there are here but again they are not landowners but rights holders who's rights were revoked. So legally speaking the state council a.k.a the government does not have the same issues here because there is no due process in this type of case as there would be in an eminant domain case here in the US. The state council's formula is revoke the rights, compensate, bulldoze.
Also, just so you know, I am quite familiar with property law and eminant domain here. Second, I know the differences between PRC law and US law when it comes to issues along these lines because I've walked the walk advising clients when I worked in PRC. So, in long, I'm not wrong it's a lot easier to build infrastructure in China than it is here.