China leaves India far behind
- It is not of competing, but of catching up -

Amar Yumnam *

Visuals Don't Lie: China - India comparisons are common these days. Being a person concerned with developmental issues, I too have been following this literature with interest.

But my continuing visit of China has completely altered my previous impressions and led me to the revision of whatever I have learnt from the literature. All the talk of comparing the development experiences and developmental achievements of the two countries is but academic and statistical and nothing more.

The core issue is how India can catch up with China in development and definitely not of competing with the latter in levels of development.

(L) The author at the Shanghai Pudong International Airport. (R) The Library of Sichuan University modeled like an opened book

Visuals do not lie. My way of coming to the above conclusion is based on what I have been seeing in China now and particularly in the background of my exposure to the world of United States of America and Western Europe.

My conclusions are founded on the relative quality of two critical determinants of development - infrastructure and higher education.

Infrastructure: In infrastructure, let me first pick up with the one any outsider experiences immediately on arrival in any country - the airports. Indian airports, including those at the metropolises are dirty, clumsy and disorganized.

But land at any airport in China, the difference immediately strikes one loud and clear. I have seen Shanghai, Beijing and Chengdu airports. The moment one lands in Shanghai from Delhi, one would immediately feel what an international airport is like. There is absolute cleanliness, organization and what not for an international airport.

Now one may come to the Beijing Capital Airport; unlike China India enjoys adding "international" to the names of their airports without possessing any of the "international" qualities. Well, all of us have heard a lot of this new airport in Beijing - Terminal 3 in particular. The cleanliness, organization and facilities would put any airport in India to unending shame.

Now what would impress anyone is that this wonderful quality of airports is maintained at all the airports in China. The same cleanliness, organization and relative presence of facilities would be found in far away airports, like in Chengdu.

We can now come out from the airports to the streets. Almost all the streets anywhere in China are of international standards by any yardstick. Clean, well maintained, absolutely organized and wonderfully planned with trees and flowers all along; in China they do greening by planting trees unlike in my hometown Imphal where the government does greening by cutting down trees on the fall of a hat.

The shops in the cities and towns are all as well organized as the best in the world. Besides, the variety of items available and all produced in China is just mind boggling.

Higher Education: In this highly competitive globalised world, economists have emphasized the primacy of fostering higher education as the sure means for pushing ahead of others. I think China has digested this lesson better than any other country, in any case better than India.

Any university campus in China would defeat any in India, including those of the IITs. The campuses in China are so wonderfully constructed, maintained and enchantingly greened. Not only are they huge but the organization and facilities are absolute global too.

They are as lively as any of the American campuses. No wonder that many academic papers are forthcoming from Chinese scholars at an increasing pace. Walking in a Chinese university campus gives the same feeling as walking in an American university campus. The teaching rooms, hostels and other facilities are all globally competitive.

Well, in the end, what we must be endeavouring is for catching up with China in development in the same way we do for catching up with the United States of America. Our neighbour is really making it big.

We are already left behind in terms of infrastructure and educational facilities by a distance of 40 - 50 years long.

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* Amar Yumnam writes regularly for The Sangai Express. The writer can be contacted at yumnam1(at)yahoo(dot)co(dot)uk. This article was webcasted on November 12, 2008.

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