Who is better? - India or China

Continuing from my previous post I start off with the nuclear issue. After the landmark INDIA – US nuclear deal, a very funny (at least I felt so) thing happened. China called on INDIA to completely disarm its Nuclear arsenal and sign the NPT. To which Indian government gave a pleasant and fitting reply “Aap pehele” – “you first”.

I am sure anyone of you would agree what China asked for was completely hilarious. On one can oppose the fact that China is a superpower. But here I try to compare INDIA and China. Both will be the 2 most happening countries of this century. By 2050 China is expected to be the largest economy (much larger that US) and INDIA is expected to be the 3rd largest. Together India and China will account for more than a third of the world’s economy.

On the defense too China spends almost 3.5 times what the INDIA government spends (China around 70 Billion $ compared to India’s 20 Billion $ budget – US spends around 320 Billion, much larger that India’s and China’s annual budget).

Both INDIA and China face the major problem for corruption. But with the open and free media which we have, we are in a better position to get rid of this problem. China has a very highly regulated media, much of it is state controlled. You don’t obviously expect the state to write against the state itself. We should be proud of channels like Aaj Tak and Tehelka. The greatest gift that we people in INDIA is the political freedom. We still have the confidence that we can oppose things, and these oppositions will be heard by the government. We also have a free judiciary – independent of government control.

Much of the capital that’s driving the Indian economy is generated internally. The FDI into INDIA this year was around 4b$ compared to 60b$ that China got. Inspite of this we were showing a tremendous growth. This will in turn encourage more FDI and hence more growth. We have a very strong banking industry - banks like ICICI, SBI, HDFC are among the best managed ones in the Asia region. Chinese banks on the other hand are in dismal state with more that 200b$ for NPAs – much of it caused due to lending to state owned companies

Also the Chinese population is expected to grow older faster than any other country in the world, thanks to its one family one child policy. This cycle of growing old will be much slower for India. By 2020 INDIA would have reached the peak of her youth, when a significant percentage of the population will be in the working force.

The single most major problem that INDIA faces today is Red tapism and infrastructure. China has been investing heavily on infrastructure projects. A fact – the Shangai city in China has 7 outer ring roads, we here in Bangalore have just 1 ring road that was completes only 2 years back, after it was conceived more that 30 years ago. It has an excellent road infrastructure. We here in INDIA wait for the problem and then look for the solution. We just don’t want to see the problem coming.

INDIA with the right people to lead her should easily be able to outpace China’s growth rate. For this we need a political system that is much younger. The old should make for the new. People like Lalu Prasad, Deve Gowda should resign from politics and give way for the young blood. We as learned individuals should take up responsibilities. If everyone keeps complaining who will solve the problem. This would certainly make INDIA way better than any other country.