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India vs. China vs. Egypt

StormShadow

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It’s hard to escape a visit to India without someone asking you to compare it to China. This visit was no exception, but I think it’s more revealing to widen the aperture and compare India, China and Egypt. India has a weak central government but a really strong civil society, bubbling with elections and associations at every level. China has a muscular central government but a weak civil society, yet one that is clearly straining to express itself more. Egypt, alas, has a weak government and a very weak civil society, one that was suppressed for 50 years, denied real elections and, therefore, is easy prey to have its revolution diverted by the one group that could organize, the Muslim Brotherhood, in the one free space, the mosque. But there is one thing all three have in common: gigantic youth bulges under the age of 30, increasingly connected by technology but very unevenly educated.

My view: Of these three, the one that will thrive the most in the 21st century will be the one that is most successful at converting its youth bulge into a “demographic dividend” that keeps paying off every decade, as opposed to a “demographic bomb” that keeps going off every decade. That will be the society that provides more of its youth with the education, jobs and voice they seek to realize their full potential.

This race is about “who can enable and inspire more of its youth to help build broad societal prosperity,” argues Dov Seidman, the author of “How” and C.E.O. of LRN, which has an operating center in India. “And that’s all about leaders, parents and teachers creating environments where young people can be on a quest, not just for a job, but for a career — for a better life that doesn’t just surpass but far surpasses their parents.” Countries that fail to do that will have a youth bulge that is not only unemployed, but unemployable, he argued. “They will be disconnected in a connected world, despairing as they watch others build and realize their potential and curiosity.”

If your country has either a strong government or a strong civil society, it has the ability to rise to this challenge. If it has neither, it will have real problems, which is why Egypt is struggling. China leads in providing its youth bulge with education, infrastructure and jobs, but lags in unleashing freedom and curiosity. India is the most intriguing case — if it can get its governance and corruption under control. The quest for upward mobility here, especially among women and girls, is palpable. I took part in the graduation ceremony for The Energy and Resources Institute last week. Of 12 awards for the top students, 11 went to women.

“India today has 560 million young people under the age of 25 and 225 million between the ages of 10 and 19,” explained Shashi Tharoor, India’s minister of state for human resource development. “So for the next 40 years we should have a youthful working-age population” at a time when China and the broad industrialized world is aging. According to Tharoor, the average age in China today is around 38, whereas in India it’s around 28. In 20 years, that gap will be much larger. So this could be a huge demographic dividend — “provided that we can educate our youth — offering vocational training to some and university to others to equip them to take advantage of what the 21st-century global economy offers,” said Tharoor. “If we get it right, India becomes the workhorse of the world. If we get it wrong, there is nothing worse than unemployable, frustrated” youth.

Indeed, some of India’s disaffected youth are turning to Maoism in rural areas. “We have Maoists among our tribal populations, who have not benefited from the opportunities of modern India,” Tharoor said. There have been violent Maoist incidents in 165 of India’s 625 districts in recent years, as Maoists tap into all those left out of the “Indian dream.” So there is now a huge push here to lure poor kids into school. India runs the world’s biggest midday lunch program, serving 250 million free school lunches each day. It’s also doubled its number of Indian Institutes of Technology, from eight to 16, and is planning 14 new universities for innovation and research.

But this will all be for naught without better governance, argues Gurcharan Das, the former C.E.O. of Procter & Gamble India, whose latest book is “India Grows at Night: A Liberal Case for a Strong State.” “The aspirational India has no one to vote for, because no one is talking the language of public goods. Why should it take us 15 years to get justice in the courts or 12 years to build a road? The gap between [youth] aspirations and government performance is huge. My thesis is that India has risen despite the state. It is a story of public failure and private success.”

That is what Das means by India grows at night, when government sleeps. “But India must learn to grow during the day,” he said. “If India fixes its governance before China fixes its politics that is who will win. ... You need a strong state and a strong society, so the society can hold the state accountable. India will only get a strong state when the best of society join the government, and China will only get a strong society when the best Mandarins go into the private sector.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/06/opinion/friedman-india-vs-china-vs-egypt.html?_r=0
 
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The "demographic dividend" can be a blessing or a curse.

If there are not enough jobs (and infrastructure) being created every year to absorb the surplus youth, it ends up in a situation like sub-Saharan Africa, which has the youngest population in the world but hasn't been able to use it. Where there is a big risk of the unemployed youth turning to religious extremism or criminal activity.
 
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The "demographic dividend" can be a blessing or a curse.

If there are not enough jobs (and infrastructure) being created every year to absorb the surplus youth, it ends up in a situation like sub-Saharan Africa, which has the youngest population in the world but hasn't been able to use it. Where there is a big risk of the unemployed youth turning to religious extremism or criminal activity.

The is exactly the problem hitting PRC right now.... there are plenty of jobs in the coal mines and factory labour, but chinese-speaking "college graduates" do not find white collar jobs they crave for.

This infact is cited as a big cause of emerging social unrest.

You're stressed without a job, and add pollution to it, to make it together an explosive mixture.

PRC isn't blowing apart because what's missing is a "spark".

Angry "college graduates" without job and breathing nothing but coal fumes are building something on the "inside".

Not something good which is brewing inside PRC ... though nobody, in history, has ever been able to predict which is the spark which will cause the disaster.
 
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Economic Development is more a issue of race, I think North East Asia region, as the lowest sexual crime rate and lowest murder rate region, play a big role of its building a productive society, unlike Sub Sahara Africa.
 
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Economic Development is more of a issue of race, I think North East Asia region, as the lowest sexual crime rate and lowest murder rate region, play a big role of its building a productive society, unlike Sub Sahara Africa.

So... you imply that all the "comfort women" are just liars.

Huh.. more like you are the "liar".. not they !!!
 
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So... you imply that all the "comfort women" are just liars.

Huh.. more like you are the "liar".. not they !!!
Rape in War time hmmm... You misunderstand me, Im not referring War crime, Im referring how many common women got raped in daily life in peace time, but thanks for the reply.
 
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The is exactly the problem hitting PRC right now.... there are plenty of jobs in the coal mines and factory labour, but chinese-speaking "college graduates" do not find white collar jobs they crave for.

This infact is cited as a big cause of emerging social unrest.

You're stressed without a job, and add pollution to it, to make it together an explosive mixture.

PRC isn't blowing apart because what's missing is a "spark".

Angry "college graduates" without job and breathing nothing but coal fumes are building something on the "inside".

Not something good which is brewing inside PRC ... though nobody, in history, has ever been able to predict which is the spark which will cause the disaster.

You do realize posting cheap stereotypical facts and clumping it together in a statement without a source makes you sound like a ignorant troll right? Your cheerleader motives are blatantly obvious, but w/e, boost that ego son
 
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Tom Friedman's been to China multiple times, but his idealogical straightjacket gives him tunnel vision.

well, all comparisons are made relatively. I also believe "the ratio of civil society power vs (central) government power" in China is lower than that in India. However, in absolute terms, the Chinese civil society is probably much more advanced and powerful than the Indian counterpart.
 
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I am not sure why he is talking about china here... just a random country? why not indonesia or japan?
Egypt wants to be a democratic nation, it has a big minority, has religious and social conflict, all these also faced by India.
Temperamentally egyptians are closer to south asians than east asians.
 
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Bottom line is that the country with more intelligent and hard working people will prosper more.

Well, that's going to be true for every country, since every country has it's share of intelligent and hard working people (unless, you implied "racist" differences).

Prosperity also comes with walking together with the comity of nations .. a loner ultimately loses, while the rest of humanity marches on.

Human success is much more based on co-operation among members of our species, teamwork, organization, leadership etc. than on some lone whizkid whom we owe our current position.

Newton rightly said that if he managed to look further, it was only by standing on the shoulders of other stalwarts.
 
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