1 post tagged “china”

In Its Match With China, India Penalizes Its Own Team. Paid content (sorry).

The above article by Nicholas Kristof starts:

"India is stirring after many centuries of torpor, and it has a chance of ending this century as the capital of the world, the most important nation on earth. You see up-and-coming cities like Hyderabad or Ahmedabad, and it’s easy to believe that India will eventually surpass China.

But here in rural Bihar state in northern India, there’s no economic miracle to be seen. And it’s difficult to see how India can emerge on top unless it takes advantage of its greatest untapped resource: its rural population..."

The author then continues:

"So in the middle of this century, India will still be held back by its failure to educate, feed and vaccinate its children today. This failure will haunt India for many decades to come. Sure, China has many similar problems, with growing gaps between rich and poor and an interior that is being left far behind. But rural Chinese schools provide a basic education, including solid math and science skills."

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China025Medium

I've had the privilege to spend time in both Indian and Chinese schools, and the author here makes a tremendous point. The two countries don't even compare. You can't even compare many urban Indian schools to rural Chinese schools.

However, I think the point is very well-made. There is room in India for rapid-scale improvements, made not because the government or the party makes it happen, but because it makes good business sense, and the intellectual brain power, capacity, competitive dirve, market, and political will exists in-country to make it happen. Which is not to say China doesn't have it, but in my opinion (as a civilian, not in my professional capacity), China's development is hampered by hierarchy and acceptance of an inability to change that is part of living in a country where censorship abounds, mistrust and xenophobia isn't challenged, and voicing dissent is punishable.

It's easy for folks over on my side of the globe to see India and China and shrug and say "two countries," like they would list, say, France and Germany.

However, when we talk of the potential of India and China, we are talking about countries that are starting to get a sense of what would happen if they harnass the resources they have, which at the moment is roughly 2.5 BILLION people.

Billion. That's a lotta million. (tm) Cameron Crowe.

That's a workforce that can certainly bring some of the old guard of the world powers to their knees. And when these countries do overtake some of the current super economic-powers... who will they work with? The relics of former colonizers (with whom they still do share some strong ties)? Or...Africa? South America?

Like they say...shift happens.

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photos (c) Caryn Sweeney, 2006. Do not reproduce. (on the top: community class in the middle of Hyderabad, India. On the bottom: rural impoverished school in Du An, China, outside of Nanning)