According to Zhang Jun, a prominent Chinese economist who has made a comparative study of China and India, China consumes three times the energy and 15 times the amount of steel as its neighbor, even though the Chinese economy is only roughly twice as large, and is growing only about 10 percent faster than India's.
Part of this picture comes from an intensive focus on manufacturing and exports, which many economists say has led to over-industrialization and empty growth. A lot of the responsibility for wastefulness can be laid to duplication, with each province -- and indeed many city governments -- simultaneously pushing for the same kind of growth, based on industrial parks and manufacturing zones. The municipalities that boast of becoming China's Silicon Valley, to take one common example of this trend, are almost too numerous to count.
"China will definitely be facing a huge, huge challenge in a decade or so if the growth patterns don't change," said Zhang, who is the director of the China Center for Economic Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai. "Ours is an extreme case of the East Asian model, and we are coming quickly toward the limitations in terms of the way we use energy, in terms of the environment, and even in terms of labor."
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