This is a draft report, but looks very interesting. I will re-read this in more detail soon.
China is now the world’s fourth largest economy and growing very fast. India’s economic salience is also on the rise. Together these two countries will profoundly influence the pace and nature of global economic change.
Drawing upon the latest research, this volume analyzes the influences on the rapid future development of these two countries and examines how their growth is likely to impinge upon other countries. It considers international trade, industrialization, foreign investment and capital flows, and the implications of their broadening environmental footprints. It also discusses how the two countries have tackled poverty, inequality and governance issues and whether progress in these areas will be a key to rapid and stable growth.
- Mary Meeker’s 2014 Internet Trends report - May 28, 2014
- Andreessen-Horowitz raises $1.5B for its new fund - February 1, 2012
- WestBridge launches India “evergreen” fund - November 15, 2011
To sum it up, growth in China is “because” of its Government. In India, whatever little we have achieved so far is “despite” our Governement(s).
The big difference is china boasts of use of its population for better things while India still cries that population is what is holding it back from growing. Second thing is Chinese “communism” is only on paper, while communism is taken for real and are preserving it from extinction….karat et al.
Third thing is china has the will to do it while india has the will to stop all development and take us back to stone age 😀
Fourthly, china believes in investment and rich rewards later while india believes in instant rich rewards with 0 investment
Nikhil, I think the success of China is primarily due to the political will and able leadership. They understand what needs to be done, and do it directly and quickly. This is also fundamentally the reason why India lags behind. The Gurgaon-Delhi highway outside my house is under construction for over an year, and all Manmohan Singh does is take out a full page advt. lamenting why it didnt get completed.
Secondly, even though I would agree that there are obvious advantages for promoting vernacular languages, but luckily English has put us in good stead over the years. Infact, and as I guess you would agree, an English educated workforce is the primary reason why China has not pipped us to the post in IT and IT enabled services. As far as I know, there is a concerted govt. effort in China to increase English language skills amongst engineering graduates.Having said that, I fear the day when parents in India goad their children into learning mandarin so that they can access better jobs across the border.
On a slightly different note, I have been toying with an idea of a CivicSpace website (non-profit) – with an overtly political objective, for organizing and coordinating citizen efforts to enforce progressive political policies and increase the level of political activism amongst the educated middle class. I would have taken it up already, but due to bandwidth constraints.
Nikhil, one small offshoot. The way China / Shanghai develops, it pays for all else to learn mandarin than Chinese to learn English.
Krish
Its interesting that this note on china has been posted. I’ve not been able to stop thinking about ‘will we ever get there’ since I came back last saturday from a 5day visit to China – Shanghai and Beijing.
In Shanghai I took a train from the airport into the city – its a magnetic levitation train – apparently the only one of its kind used commercially in the world. We were crusing at some 430Km/hr and 6-7 minutes later we were in Pudong (a new commercial district with some of the tallest buildings in the world – its located across the river from the famous Bund, and was nothing but marshland until ten years ago). Cost = about US$7; Commercial viability = zero; Comprable time in taxi = 45 to 75 mins; Impact = HUGE – the confidence it creates in investors, businesspeople and tourists. CAN WE EVER GET THERE?
From Pudong the taxi took me towards my friend’s apartment in central Shanghai – through bridges and spaghetti junctions that seemed more complicated and advanced than anything I’ve ever seen in Europe or the US. While speeding down one of these (flyovers in delhi parlance!) we were crossing the fortieth or fiftieth floor of an office building – it reminded me of a scene from one of those sci-fi movies with cars flying through the air between skyscrapers – I kid you not, it was much the same feeling!
I walked around the streets of old shanghai. You know what struck me? The fact that they have pavements! Have you noticed that in India we don’t have pavements. Most Indians don’t possess any means of personal transportation – yet, we ignore their needs and build roads and flyovers for cars! How difficult is it to build a pavement on every road and a bicycle lane on every road? (They have bicycle lanes on a number of roads in shanghai). We won’t have MCD problems if we created ample retail space to serve consumers alongside our roads – with proper pavements to access them.
One of my meetings was at the grand hyatt shanghai, a hotel that starts on the 54th floor of one of the tallest buildings in the world. When I peered out of the window I saw the shell of another building (seemingly taller) coming up right next to it. I asked what that was and was told that it will be taller than their building and another Hyatt will open on an even higher floor in that one!! Is there business to fill all these hotels – YES, YES, YES – they run 85%+ occupancy and their average room rates are high.
What impressed me? The fact that a country that by all accounts was not that different from India twenty years ago has created urban infrastructure at a scale and quality second to none. WHY CANT WE DO THIS? ONE HIGHWAY BETWEEN DELHI AND GURGAON HAS TAKEN YEARS TO CONCEIVE AND EVEN LONGER TO EXECUTE. WHAT STOPS US? IS DEMOCRACY OUR EXCUSE? OR IS IT JUST THAT WE ARE NOT HUNGRY ENOUGH OR IS IT THAT WE ARE NOT ORGANIZED ENOUGH?
The only thing that is frustrating in China is the language. They really dont speak a word of anything other than Mandarin! Yet they receive investments, FDI etc that is some high multiple of what we get! I THINK ITS TIME WE ACCEPTED THAT NOT SPEAKING ENGLISH DOESN’T RENDER ANY ONE ANY DISADVANTAGE. FURTHER, THAT IF THEY CAN BE ORGANIZED ENOUGH TO DO EVERYTHING THEY’VE DONE SO FAR, LETS NOT PUT IT PAST THEM TO HAVE THE ENTIRE NATION SPEAKING ENGLISH IN LESS THAN TEN YEARS FROM NOW.
Thoughts, comments and your own reflections on China are welcome!