|
: Between September 25 and October 11, two international magazines carried over a dozen major articles on China. The cover story of The Economist in its September 25 — October 1 issue involved the change of guard from Jiang Zemin to Hu Jintao. The special issue of Fortune for the fortnight ending 11 October was entirely devoted to “Inside the New China”, and consisted of 11 articles covering topics as varied as the Shanghai Auto Works, the rapid development of Chongqing, and the 100 million kids in China — the country’s Generation Next, who are called the “Little Emperors”. Then, the very next issue of The Economist carried a special survey on China, written by its economics editor Pam Woodall, and all of 19-pages long. It prompted a perceptive but utterly irreverent friend of mine to say, “It needs the someone like Narendra Modi for India to get that amount of coverage in less than three weeks.”
At a recent conference in Vera Cruz, Ronnie Chan, a much travelled entrepreneur from Hong Kong, said that China has graduated to a new game. According to him, after a decade and a half of scorching growth, China is now set to attract all the foreign investments it needs; accelerate the process of building world class infrastructure in the western provinces; further strengthen its awesome manufacturing prowess, especially in the interior; leverage its huge and rapidly growing domestic market; showcase Beijing Olympics 2008 to highlight the economic might of the country; further expand its trade with ASEAN and APEC; develop both in-bound and out-bound tourism; and rapidly create the platform for providing world class services, including IT and business process outsourcing. Chen concluded by saying two things. First, the best is yet to come. And second, that soon China will be a major force in global geopolitics.
Facts speak for themselves. According to the IMF, China’s GDP, measured in terms of purchasing power parity (PPP) was $6.5 trillion in 2003 — second only to that of the US at $11 trillion. As far as PPP goes, India doesn’t do too badly with a GDP of a bit under $3 trillion, or 46% of China’s. However, the great differentiator is the growth rate. In 1978, China’s GDP was 28% higher than India’s. Since the beginning of Deng’s reforms in the late 1970s, China’s GDP has grown at an average annual rate of 9.5%, versus an average...
More from Edits & Columns
| Single Page Format | 1 - 2 - 3 - Next |
Discuss this story on expressindia forums
|
|
 |
 |
 |
About Us | Contact Us | Advertisers | Site Map | Make us your homepage | Work for Us | RSS | Subscribe | Electronic Edition | Privacy Policy© 2009: The Indian Express Limited. All rights reserved throughout the world
