On my singapore airlines flight back home to singapore,I read in the Economist magazine,a lot of articles about India and China. In its latest issue,the Economist has published a Survey about India & China. Excerpts:
HOME to nearly two-fifths of humanity,India and China, are two of the world's fastest-growing economies. There are reports comparing their emergence in the early 21st century to the rise of Germany in the 19th and America in the 20th, with "impacts potentially as dramatic". Comparisons between the two are inevitable. Both are poor, largely agricultural, countries that have made great strides in reducing poverty, especially since embarking on radical, liberalising economic reform. But India and China, always very different civilisations, have followed very different paths to growth. Under reform, they have converged somewhat in the past two decades, but will remain distinctive.
Some of the main reasons for China's better performance have nothing to do with the political system. When China started its reforms, in 1978, it was poorer than India. Part of the gap now is due simply to that earlier start. But also, unreformed China seems to have done a more impressive job than India did in educating and providing health care for its poor. Reforms benefited from what economists call "good human capital", and from a bulge in the working-age population that India itself is now experiencing. In terms of integration into the global economy, the Chinese reforms have gone much further than India's have, and reaped bigger rewards. Both have massive populations with correspondingly massive needs for resources, especially land, water and energy. Both need to find ways of stemming environmental decay. Both suffer under-reported HIV infection rates. Both face potentially destabilising external disputes:
Both, moreover, have each other: as model or as warning, and as so far largely unexploited economic opportunity. There are lessons India can draw from China's experience, but that the “Chinese model” need not mean anything resembling its political authoritarianism. In that respect, India has much to teach China. India is often portrayed as an elephant: big, lumbering and slow off the mark. Now investment-bank reports are beginning to talk of it as a new Asian "tiger". I have written a lot about china in the last twelve months - as someone involved in the pan chinese market, I come across a number of suituations - the key difference is im my view - chinese ambition to dominate the world - it is felt at all levels, the speed with which the chinese government executes is impressive. Very recently top korean executives after visting the chinese city of Dalian told me they felt as if they were in a US mega city. A cabbie driving a volkswagen told me in Shanghai showing an upcoming infrastructure project site that it would be completed a little ahead of schedule as construction is being managed by the Government.China contiunes to amaze - the speed with which chinese are moving is superfast to say the least - while as many have written - there is an impending shortage of a commodities(including water shortage) could impact china and to a large extent india as well. More about India perspective later.
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