The Economist's cover story last week captured perfectly the discussion I see all around me--the ubiquitous India vs. China debate. The magazine, which showed a picture of a pair of hands locked in an arm wrestling contest, chose to call the rivalry ‘contest of the century’.
But The Economist is far from the first publication in recent months to run such a story--reports on how China and India are pitted against each other are pretty much a daily occurrence for readers of business newspapers. While India's democracy, free speech and individual ingenuity are typically feted, China's formidable infrastructure, policy-led drive for growth and single-mindedness are admired.
Recently, the Legatum Institute, an independent London-based think tank that focuses on what it says is an ‘understanding of global prosperity’, released an extremely interesting publication on what motivates Chinese and Indian entrepreneurs, and how these motivations compare and contrast with each other.
Ryan Streeter, a senior fellow at Legatum Institute, wrote in The Wall Street Journal that their findings suggest entrepreneurship in India was marked by a kind of sustainability that’s less evident in China.
‘Because India’s entrepreneurs have succeeded amid dysfunctional government and financial institutions by developing a kind of independent and experimental ingenuity, it stands to reason that the enterprising class would prosper even more, were India to reduce barriers to business and clean up corruption. In China, it is unclear what will happen if state efforts are no longer sufficient to entice and groom the entrepreneurs its economy needs,’ Streeter wrote.
I couldn't agree more. I’ve done several entrepreneur profiles for a well-known American business magazine I write for, and am always overwhelmed by their ambition and ingenuity in the face of the tremendous roadblocks entrepreneurship encounters in India. The incredible entrepreneurial buzz here is the main reason why many of us know we couldn't have chosen to live through a more exciting time in India than now.
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harry
first in order to have a healthy economy the people needs tobe well educated and healthy, in the Legatum Institute prosperity index india lag FAR behind China interms of health care and education and its reflected in the stats, India poverty rate more than 30%, China poverty rate around 7%, india literacy rate 66%, China literacy rate 94%.
Its ignorant to think China will stay in manufacturing industry and not evolve. for example Chinese car brand Geely has bought Volvo and it wont be long until China incorporate innovate and refine the Volvo technology into Geely cars. this is also appearant in other high-tech sectors, China has way better infrastructure than india and way more robust industrial foundation, in the near future China will have advantage in quality high-tech products and brands produced in coastal regions and reletivly cheaper manufacturing industries in interior China, We are already seeing this shift. Saying Chinese government will not do anything and just watch is ignorance. the reason for manking CCP the most legitimate political force in CHina is its abilities to give the environment for rapid economic growth.
Michael
A successful entrepreneur needs to be able to adapt to various environments. In India, a lack of infrastructure and a messy bureaucracy creates a very different environment than the on in China characterized by good infrastructure and an inflexible bureaucracy. To claim that one kind of success is “sustainable” is highly misleading. Political-economic conditions can easily change, and the Indian entrepreneur who is used to creating elaborate logistical solutions would be ruined by an inability to streamline their operation with a more efficient bureaucracy. In essence, “sustainable” entrepreneurial talent exists everywhere and depends upon individual prudence, not a cultural-ideological superiority as the author is apparently stating.
mandrewsf
India’s dysfunctional and corrupt government encouraged the development of a superior kind of entrepreneurship is what this article is apparently asserting.
Am I reading this article correctly, or should I question my English language proficiency?
In any case, asserting that the Chinese government babies and subsidizes Chinese enterprises is risible.
westsan
Albeit little know now, the truth is the Indian work ethic is so bad that despite its young population compared to China the Chinese will have an edge for a while.
In terms of intelligence there is not much difference.
Alex
Don’t take too much into china’s figures. Being an iron-curtain country it is, I would take such figures with a pinch of salt.
Don
No one can see China for what it has been doing – “expansionism”. First, Tibet, Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Macau, then comes the Taiwan dispute, Aksai Chin & Arunchal Pradesh (disputed with India) and here comes the South China Sea haggle. The sad fact is global strategists still can’t see things for what they are! If one can’t decipher the pacific problem, all strategies will be pacific (pun intended). China has brilliantly managed their “peaceful rise” diplomacy and made a big fool off of global strategists all over. There is no such thing. China will continue to shamelessly proliferate and do as it pleases, and even more so with its newfound financial clout. The rest of us can thumb our noses and keep deliberating on yet another pacific strategy with a looming checkmate. Given the history of superbly clever cloaking of China’s policies, my personal prediction is that China will not stop at becoming an Asian hegemon or a world hegemon, which it is destined to become anyway. The US maybe a hegemon today but it is not a true superpower, but China will become both in a real sense. Given all projections, not a single regional or world power or even an alliance of world powers will be able to contain China in the future. Once China gets there which it will eventually, one can expect China to play smart games and take over regions in the Asia-Pacific, and further expand its powers so dramatically that none would be able to challenge it in a thousand years. Now that’s what I call a strategy! I’ve already marked everything from Japan to Australia as China in my futuristic looking world map. Fareed Zakaria has feared that “No one wants to live in a Chinese world order”, and hence a multi-polar world order would be a better proposition. Perhaps that’s his Kissinger pipe dream and these folks should be prepared for rude shocks from China sooner or later and there’s nothing anyone can or would be able to do about it. Given the continued impotence of global think-tanks and ground realities, my forecasts have a high probability of coming true. All those greedy Chinese communists should be congratulated for what they have accomplished so far and what they will in the coming decades. It is going to be China only in the 21st century. No such thing as India vs China.
FriendsofIndia
How often do we have to educate you that you cannot compare India to China? India shines while the world declines. India is unique to all humanity and stands on its own to be the world’s greatest democracy and its only remaining super power.
India is unique in its super power status. Our a-dollar-a-day super powers far exceed that of the USA, who only manage 100-dollar-a-day. Our declaration of our super powers comes frequent and loud, on a weekly, and daily basis, from our prime minister to our lowest dalits. There has been nothing in history that can compare to our super powers.
India has the world’s largest middle classes. All our population, bar our pathetic Muslims, all qualify as middle class as they can afford the excellent 5-rupee meals. With our boundless compassion, we have been saving our 5-rupee meals for the world’s needy, to the degree that more than 50% of our children can be qualified to be exceptionally thin. One more example of our Hindu cultural superiority in deformed beauty, shall we say. After multiplying our saved 5-rupee meals by 1.2 billion, they are more than enough to rescue any of the well-endowed European countries that can no longer afford their debt, this despite at the expense of our long suffering dalits, sikhs, and Naxallites.
India has the world’s most glorious democracy, we shine a leading light to the rest of the world on how to operate the world’s only one-vote-half-a-man democracy. About half of our people are capable of reading not even their names, they literally vote for whoever providing them a splendid pre-election 5-rupee meal. With our flowerily decorated meal stalls, such greedy eyes and eager stomachs, our elections are always busy affairs, ever mind just about half-a-man counts for each vote.
India almost already has the world’s largest population. Our population dividend will only get bigger in the future as our mothers give birth to more of our Hindu babies and provide more uneducated labor force to the world. They will do splendidly in your factories as they read each written word on the operating manuals of your machines as the sacred names of our Hindu gods, and delivering the greatest boost to world productivity ever.
All these uniqueness have lead us to be supremely confident compared to these scared deers-in-the-headlights Americans or Chinese. Pax India rules supreme in the world’s economic, political, and military affairs today and tomorrow.
This is all because India has the world’s most colorful democracy modeled on the many thousands flavors of our curries, and is the world’s top dog for all the world to follow behind our 2.4 billion buttocks.
Our Tata has been lording over the world industries by purchasing such Western properties as LRJ and Corus, and making these former money pits a big success. Our Mittal has been overwhelming the world’s steel makers by swallowing up Arcelor. Our mobile phones have been out-talking all other countries by growing 100 million users every quarter. Our prime minister has been presiding over these big international meetings by sounding our voices over all these heads of all your minor states. Our super aircraft carriers have been patrolling the world’s oceans and scaring all the Ethiopia and Somalian pirates off their pants.
Submit to your fate under our Hindu colossus, beg our 5-rupee meal middle classes, bow to our super powers.
Jai Hind!
Halagu khan
Wow FriendsofIndia, I am sooo full of milk of human kindness reading your post. I agree….
1. India has 901 million Illiterates
2. India has 786 million people below poverty line (mostly muslims)
3. Indians just have Rs5 per meal and that too they save
4. India can not even keep the labour in concentration camps and is forced to give 30 paid leaves, 28 legal holidays and 54 sundays off for factory workers unlike China
5. Behold India can not even arrest the dissidents who regularly insult the PM/President/Congress party unlike China who shoots them.
6. India is not convinced of the superiority of Indian race ( as we have too many Aryan/Dravid/Mongoloids) unlike Chinese who are convinced that ‘Han chinese’ are the most superior race
Tallel than Mountains and deepel than oceans fliend – China is far superior and better than India. India can not be compared with supel powel China.
Add to that the Sikhs, whom you called discriminated in India, has a prime minister from the community, 2 army chiefs and 1 President. But off course Empellol Hu jintao must be Tibetian and Wen jiabao must be Manchurian or Japanese.
You are right India and China can not be compared. India is a Happy country and I don’t care if they don’t become rich.
Rajiv
Couldnt agree more with don ! China is unbelievably greedy , its ambitions have no end and its hell bent upon to screw anyone that comes in its way or percieves as being inimical to its long term interests.
I will march ahead relentlessly , no doubt. Its just playing the wait and watch game with contries like india, the US etc. In another 50 yrs time the population of US shall decrease and that of the rest ( notably muslim and black ) shall increase. There is a lot of probability that the US will not be able to retain its global clout as much as it does today.
And india – Its currently saddled with so many issues. maoism, islamic fundamentalism, so many castes and creeds vying for the same crumbs etc etc. And, in another 50 yrs time muslim population will explode and be at par with that of the rest. Its a demographic catastrophe.Of ofcourse , we have this dirty bomb called pakistan. China is keeping a tab on all these aspects and shall either slowly strangle us or maybe strike when its the right time.
jojoarmani
Your children are building the Commonwealth Games and the poverty-strike are being kicked out of New Delhi… you call that democracy?
Yeah, I’m sure the 30-40 percent of India still below the poverty line are happy… the illiterate starving masses and untouchables don’t even know what freedom or democracy is.
Lennon
I am amazed at the incredible stupidity of this debate – here and all over the internet. It is like one of those debates – which is a better gender or does god exists. Because in the end there is no right answer. It is more of a personal question if one is satisfied with the place s/he lives in and the opportunities it offers. We should always remember that a growing economy – be it india or china – offers opportunity to everyone in the world.
In an increasingly globalized world nationality is slowly becoming irrelevant. As evident from the comments in the article, many respondents championing their side do not even reside in any of the countries in question.
What many of us should be concerned with is how the growth of these 2 humongous countries would impact world resources & what needs to be done for a sustainable world development.
It sickens me to see that how as part of human species we are so hell-bent on proving our individual superiority (based on gender, religion, race, nationality and the list goes on) which in most part is base-less. The world benefited equally from whoever invented cars just as world has benefited from cost-effective manufacturing and service models coming from china and india respectively. What is essential is to understand the development model of each of these countries, understand the pros and cons and apply them to other developing nations so the world benefits as a whole.
I sometimes feel that we are just a self-indulgent bunch of inconsequential jokers taking solace in our mediocre achievements and criticizing others just so to feel important and secure.
Jeff
Of course, the Economist article came out BEFORE the Commonwealth Games, which was veritable disaster for India. The editors at the Economist must still be cleaning the eggs off their faces.
Stop this India vs China hype.
India vs China = Albania vs Germany…
It’s nothing but a joke.
End of story.
Zhakthi
To all of the guys,
We are very proud to be an INDIAN.
JVL
To all the Indian poster,
It is not a matter of which country is a democracy or not, but how one apply the resources at hand that will ultimately determine what one can achieve. So far, India has been doing this rather poorly. There is no hiding the facts, but those who ignore are doomed to fail in the wrong run; that is, until they finally reach such a low point that they can only go up again. I think that was what happened to the Chinese; their arrogant and ignorant brought about their own downfall, until they couldn’t go any further during the madness of the cultural revolution
BTW, to the poster who called himself “Don”. Get your fact straight on Hong Kong at least. The British rented the territory and so they should by right return it. If you call that expansion, then you should look at India’s own history on Goa; at least the Chinese didn’t “took over” the place in a hostile manner. I’ll leave it at that and no further respond will be forthcoming; I do not favor discussions that by all intentions will lead nowhere.
Ajax
Whats wrong with you people? The future of the world is multipolar. There would be regional powerhouses and sectoral powerhouses. I see Brazil,Russia,Indonesia,Mexico Middle East,Eastern Europe as powerful as India and China. I see some African countries doing exceedingly well in near future like South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt etc. SAARC,ASEAN and Latin American region will also see widespread growth. This is great for the world. The world was in dark ages from late 15th Century onwards with European and Islamic Colonization.There were Mayans, Aztecs,Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, South East Asians and Arabs who were all great powers. World was multipolar. There way exchange of ideas and culture. I am waiting for that era to come back
WM
It strokes me how policymakers, think tankers, and those to whom we ’should’ listen to differ in their oppinions with people commenting their articles. Its not only here, its all over the web. But look at it this way, numbers can lie as can those who come up with this numbers. Sometimes Chinese do, sometimes Indians. If opinionmakers base their reports, articles,speeches and predictions on what they can read about Asia I guess yes, India and China are comparable. But do you believe any of them spend months living in both of this countries, checking wether numbers have any reflection in the reality? I do not see that. But I know you guys did as I am, and thats why I have to agree with majority here – there is nothing to compare. Streets of Delhi do not give me impression of respecting human, forget the human rights.
Michael
India is the biggest lemon being oversold to the world by the Western governments/media because their entire agenda is to spread their so call freedom and democracy ( wink, wink)! It’s much simpler, cleaner, and easier to manipulate the masses into voting for a particular candidate when the West controls the media and thus the minds of people. You wreck their economy and their president won’t get elected. It’s imperialism in disguise!
nitesh
for all the people in debate china is the one to whom no can never trust …..till date the people of china cant even show there finger to the government …….the media cannot talk about there government . they dont have any right to vote .These chinese people are working as a puppet for there government …………so what the people are comparing abt india and china ..yes there is time for india to become a super power……….but still the world have more respect for india then china
BIBEK DUTTA
I DO FEEL THAT CHINA has better economy at present. india’s top most cities are trully well developed but its a fact that there are so many rural areas in india which has not seen the sight of development. the case is not similar with china. chhina has far too many indusries which can produce goods at relatively cheaper price. we can see imperialism in china and thereforth the condition is stable from the political point of view but india is guided by corruption. we can sight the examples of the corruption during the common wealth and even the 2G spectrm.
to me china is a better ecomnomy from all aspects.
Ravishjames
Its poor thinking if people around the world think that India compares itself with China! Many educated indians are least bothered about China’s growth. Its only very few economists and thinkers of India who voice their opinion about the comparision statistics that come from WESTERN countries……………..most of us are least bothered. The internal issues of India are the biggest concerns of both elite and common people of India.
Yes, there is a fear factor that drives us to look at China once. The growing military capability of China is one concern. Whether its a threat or not? Is one question that is difficult to answer, considering the growing economic unstability in the world. Both China and India cannot afford to get into a war, if they do so both side will suffer a lot in terms of economic growth. For the next 20 to 25 years I doubt there will be any such thing as Indo-China war!
The geographical positioning, previous war, post 80′s economic growth record, political state etc of India and China are few reason that fuel this comparision between us. No country or economy is perfect nor 100% shock resistant to happenings in the global economy. Neither India nor China or any Nation in the world can boldly tell that they can become one such economy in future. The growing population in the world, scarcity in natural resources, economic unstability, poverty, innovation of new technologies etc must be the concern of all, not this sort of useless issues.