GROWTH OF THE CHINESE DRAGON

A comparison of growth trajectories of India and China

- Ayaan Chopra

India has exhibited, even during the Covid-19 calamity, how to organize for its own needs, while most countries were dependent on other nations. India aided 100 plus countries by providing medicines, and manufactured hundreds of thousands of N95 masks which were barely made in the past. When it comes to picking the best overseas manufacturer in Asia, two of the most common places for manufacturing are India and China. Both countries have very dynamic manufacturing capabilities and unique economic landscapes with proven skills, strengths and weaknesses that make both countries viable choices. However, India still lags far behind China in respect to manufacturing.

China and India are as different as chalk and cheese

India’s argumentative liberal democracy of 1.3 billion people with a massive ethno, linguistic, religious and cultural diversity is unparalleled in the world. India truly is an example for the rest of the world that a very large country with unimaginable diversity can still make significant development gains within a democratic set up. There is so much that is wrong in India, but one needs to accept that there is so much that is right.

In comparison, China has more of a social homogeneity and communist party-state system. The key factor that has allowed it to focus single-mindedly on growth. Indian former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh once said, there are “other values which are more important than the growth of the gross domestic product” and that “once a democracy decides on the basis of a wide-ranging consensus, any reforms that are undertaken will be far more durable, will be far more effective than reforms introduced by the writ of a ruling group in a non-democratic setup”.

TRADE ANALYSIS | AYAAN CHOPRA