In 2007, China had a global GDP share of 10.7%, compared to India’s 4.6% [cite]. Further, China’s share of global GDP will likely surpass that of Europe within the next five years, and that of the US within a decade [cite]. Comparatively, India seems to be doing much worse.
But this is puzzling for a number of reasons. First, the populations of both India and China are very similar, each having just over a billion citizens. Further, in terms of education, at least at the university level, India appears to be doing much better than China. The Indian Institutes of Technology are very well known. At least in my field, Indian scientists have a good reputation (i.e. the Indian development of the AKS Primality Test), whereas there appears to be some distrust about results obtained in China (not that I can name a single one in my field off the top of my head). For the most part, it appears that Chinese scientists are still doing their best work as emigrants in the West. Further, India is touted as the world’s largest democracy, with a political system based on the Westminster model, whereas China is an authoritarian state run by the (crypto-)Communist Party.
So: why is India apparently lagging behind in development and GDP growth? Based on what we see on paper, shouldn’t India be vying competitively with China for global GDP share, if not surpassing it?
Interesting question. Here’s a previous thread about it with… not a lot of information, actually, but a few reasonable guesses. Main point: India started out later than China.
Chinese economic liberalization began soon after the death of Mao, and really got into gear in the 1980s. India didn’t begin broad economic liberalization until the 1990s. They were a decade behind, and that shows up today in the figures you cited. They don’t have as high a percentage of world GDP because they were slower out of the gate. China’s growth might have been one of the very things to provide the initial impetus for reform, and their growth is humming along now. India looks to have had 10% growth in 2010.
They’ll catch up. We’ll see China becoming the biggest economy in the world, and then a little after that we’ll see India overtaking China.
It will take both countries quite some time before their per capita incomes are at developed levels.
China has strongly prioritized growth at any cost. India has focused on building a stronger, more sustainable foundation. It’s not as outwardly impressive, but in the end I think it will pay off. China has an ever-present lurking threat of massive political instability. India has plenty of political instability right now, but also a lot of resilience. The current Indian state is going to keep existing pretty much no matter what happens. I couldn’t say the same thing about China.
I would say that, for any country undergoing economic/technical changes, it’s cultural reasons are the main mover. (By “culture” I mean the shared values and sense of cohesiveness within the society.)
China is a fairly unified ,cohesive culture. (example: the sense of unity they showed when putting on the Olympics–every private citizen understood that he must do his share to make the country proud).
India is much more non-unified culture–with vast numbers of languages and ethnic goups that hate each other and do not take pride in the nation as a larger unit.
My guess is that in 40-50 years, China will succeed economically , with vast fleets of cars, shopping centers and chain stores evenly spread around the the country, caused by (and creating more of) the social cohesiveness
India will have its economic success limited to certain cities and certain ethnic groups, with
huge numbers of people left behind, due to the lack of social cohesiveness.
(yes, I know China has ethnic problems, and different languages that are mutually un-intelligable. But I have the impression that those different groups still take great pride in being Chinese. I have the impression that in India, the different groups take less pride in being Indian, and more in their specific ethnic identity.)
Am I totally off base?
One of the biggest factors holding India back right now is their lack of infrastructure, and what they do have isn’t capable of handling the current growth.
My experience there was that they can’t get enough tax revenue to then invest in the projects they need.
Airline travel within India is also difficult with flights that actually sell out months in advance.
In addition to all that they don’t have any where near enough power so brown outs are common, and most places have timed outages.
Makes it hard to compete with a communist country where the government essentially has unlimited funds and unlimited power. If the Chinese Communist Party needs to tare down a thousand houses to build a new rail line they can.
China needs a lot of power, so they’re building plants and dams any where they want.
There is another difference that I see: China (from the beginning) stressed building up an export economy. That is why you see everything from clothing to hand tools made in China. India is different-I see a few Indian-made products here (mostly shoes and clothing), but nothing like China.
I think the Indians are trying to satisfy domestic demands first.
India is now making its firts steps toward an indigenous automobile industry-but they don’t export any cars to speak of.
Aside from that, India has great problems with food production-most of its food supply is grown on very small farms-any attempts to make agriculture more efficient (such as consolidating farms) wil result in massive unemployment, which is a big problem.
I disagree with this. I think both are unlikely to break up to where it’s almost pointless to speculate. However, by far the most likely scenario is something happening in Kashmir. Yeah, China has their separatist movements, but there’s no foreign country backing them, and no realistic way of them losing control.
There’s a lot more long term systemic problems with India than China. To begin with, the Indian government is completely and utterly ineffective. For all of China’s problems, at least they can get some things done. Look at the difference between the Olympics and the Commonwealth games. A huge event on a public stage and India barely pulled it off.
Corruption and nepotism is far more endemic in India than China. You pay your bribes for everything and every project is a money maker for someone. Corruption is a deadly thing for a government and the economy, and it will take a long time for India’s culture to change.
Infrastructure was mentioned before, so I won’t go in depth. Just to say that this is a result of the first two things I mentioned, and India is decades behind China.
Culturally, India seems behind as well. They have religious divisions, the legacy of the caste system, and a lot of distinct languages and cultures. It’s tough to forge a national identity out of that. Plus, these factors put women a lot worse off, and result in poor people having gigantic families they can’t afford. When you fail to educate a bunch of kids, that is a problem that will linger for the next 40-80 years before they die.
You can say that, but the truth of the list is almost self evident. I was surprised that the Chinese do not have a higher average IQ. Nevertheless, Chinese in Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong do. Chinese immigrants in the United States usually outperform whites.
This is kind of strange. Your link is about the supposed IQ of a population based on country, but you seem to now be making it about race. Which is it, country of origin or race?
Because the Indians wasted some forty years pursuing socialism and economic protectionism and due to their more illogical, less science and reason based Hindu culture.
After all India until China opened up could have played the same function China does today-mass-producing cheap stuff for the West and thus enjoying massive industrialization.