When US President Barack Obama visited India last month and complimented its leaders on the growing success and prowess of their economy, a tacit question returned to center stage: Will China grow faster than India indefinitely, or will India shortly overtake it?
In fact, this contest dates back to 1947, when India gained independence and democracy became the country’s defining feature, while China turned to communism with the success of Mao Zedong (毛澤東) after the Long March. Both countries, the “sleeping giants,” were expected to awaken at some point from their slumber. However, since the growth model in vogue at the time laid principal emphasis on capital accumulation, China was widely held to have the advantage, because it could raise its investment rate higher than India, where democracy limited the extent to which the population could be taxed to increase domestic savings.
As it happened, however, both giants slept on — until the 1980s in China and the early 1990s in India — mainly because both countries embraced a counter-productive policy framework that crippled the productivity of their investment efforts.
ILLUSTRATION: JUNE HSU
Reflecting flawed economic arguments, India embraced autarky in trade and rejected inflows of equity investment. It also witnessed economic interventionism on a massive scale, including the proliferation of public-sector enterprises in areas beyond public utilities. In China, the results were similar, as the political embrace of communism meant going autarkic and giving the state a massive role in the economy.
After progressively dismantling their inefficient policy frameworks in favor of “liberal” reforms, the two giants began to stride forth. The race was finally on. And once again, China seemed to be the horse to bet on: It grew faster because it changed its policy framework much faster than democracy permits. However, there are good reasons to suspect that China’s authoritarian advantage will not endure.
First, while authoritarianism can accelerate reforms, it can also be a serious handicap. Years ago, when both Mao and former Chinese premier Zhou Enlai (周恩來) were alive, Padma Desai, the Columbia University expert on Russia, was asked about China’s future growth prospects. She answered: It depends on whether Mao dies first or Zhou dies first — her point being that in a top-heavy system, growth paths can become unpredictable and thus subject to volatility.
Moreover, we know from experience elsewhere — and now in China itself — that as growth accelerates, political aspirations are aroused. Will the Chinese authorities respond to them with ever greater repression, as they have with dissidents and Falun Gong, creating discord and disruption, or will they accommodate new popular demands by moving to greater democracy?
Again, China’s authoritarian politics means that it cannot profit from the innovations that depend on software, as that is an instrument through which dissent can flourish and become subversive of total control. As one wit has observed, the PC (personal computer) and the CP (Communist Party) do not go together.
Finally, China’s growth must continue to depend on its exploitation of external markets, which makes it vulnerable in a world that is increasingly making democracy and human rights a central preoccupation. In such a world, continued hassles and hiccups for Chinese exports can be confidently expected.
Economic factors also militate against Chinese prospects. China was clearly able for many years to exploit a “reserve army of the unemployed” a la Karl Marx — to grow rapidly without facing a labor-supply constraint, so that capital accumulation would not run into diminishing returns. But now, given China’s one-child policy and lack of adequate infrastructure (including housing) in rapidly growing areas, labor is getting scarce and wages are rising.
In economic jargon, the supply curve of labor was flat, but is now sloping upward, so that rapidly increasing demand for labor resulting from rapid growth is driving up wages. That means that China is beginning to “rejoin the human race” as capital accumulation meets scarcer labor and growth slows.
By contrast, India has a far more abundant supply of labor and a more favorable demographic profile so that, as India’s investment rate increases, labor will not be a constraint. India will thus become the new China of the past two decades.
Besides, in contrast to China, where economic reforms were quicker and more complete, India still has a way to go: Privatization, labor-market reforms and opening up the retail sector to larger, more efficient operators are all pending — and will give a further boost to India’s growth rate once they are implemented.
Jagdish Bhagwati is professor of economics and law at Columbia University and senior fellow in international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations.
COPYRIGHT: PROJECT SYNDICATE
In a meeting with Haitian Minister of Foreign Affairs Jean-Victor Harvel Jean-Baptiste on Tuesday, President William Lai (賴清德) vowed to continue providing aid to Haiti. Taiwan supports Haiti with development in areas such as agriculture, healthcare and education through initiatives run by the Taiwan International Cooperation and Development Fund (ICDF). The nation it has established itself as a responsible, peaceful and innovative actor committed to global cooperation, Jean-Baptiste said. Testimonies such as this give Taiwan a voice in the global community, where it often goes unheard. Taiwan’s reception in Haiti also contrasts with how China has been perceived in countries in the region
The world has become less predictable, less rules-based, and more shaped by the impulses of strongmen and short-term dealmaking. Nowhere is this more consequential than in East Asia, where the fate of democratic Taiwan hinges on how global powers manage — or mismanage — tensions with an increasingly assertive China. The return of Donald Trump to the White House has deepened the global uncertainty, with his erratic, highly personalized foreign-policy approach unsettling allies and adversaries alike. Trump appears to treat foreign policy like a reality show. Yet, paradoxically, the global unpredictability may offer Taiwan unexpected deterrence. For China, the risk of provoking the
On April 13, I stood in Nanan (南安), a Bunun village in southern Hualien County’s Jhuosi Township (卓溪), absorbing lessons from elders who spoke of the forest not as backdrop, but as living presence — relational, sacred and full of spirit. I was there with fellow international students from National Dong Hwa University (NDHU) participating in a field trip that would become one of the most powerful educational experiences of my life. Ten days later, a news report in the Taipei Times shattered the spell: “Formosan black bear shot and euthanized in Hualien” (April 23, page 2). A tagged bear, previously released
Young supporters of former Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) were detained for posting the names and photographs of judges and prosecutors believed to be overseeing the Core Pacific City redevelopment corruption case. The supporters should be held responsible for their actions. As for Ko’s successor, TPP Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌), he should reflect on whether his own comments are provocative and whether his statements might be misunderstood. Huang needs to apologize to the public and the judiciary. In the article, “Why does sorry seem to be the hardest word?” the late political commentator Nan Fang Shuo (南方朔) wrote
RSS