The CRH2 is a high speed train based on the Shinkansen E2-1000 that is designed for a service speed of 250 km/h. With their technology originating from Japan, the first three were built in Japan, six more were delivered as completely knocked down kits and the rest was built in China. The CRH2C built for a speed of 350 km/h and the CRH2-380 built for a speed of 380 km/h incorporate more changes compared to the variants A, B, E and G and should be described in an own article.

The variant built in the greatest numbers is the CRH2A that consists of eight cars of which four are powered. In total, 491 of this variant have been built. The CRH2B consists of sixteen cars of which eight are powered. From this variant, 27 have been built. The CRH2E is a sixteen-car sleeper variant based on the B variant. 20 have been built with a single deck, additionally there are five more double-deck CRH2E-NG. The last variant are 29 sets of the CRH2G which have been optimized for extreme climates. This means that they can operate at both very low and high temperatures and don not have restrictions in high winds and sand storms.