Stupid :Why China is progressed more than India according to Rahul Gandhi

[anonymus]

Rahul Gandhi's take on relatively faster rise of China vis-a-vis India: A study in stupidity by contrast.

Rahul Gandhi’s dragon cliché​

The Congress vice-president would do well to ponder why China has outperformed India on every social and economic indicator.

In his speech to the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) on April 4, 2013, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi said his advisers had told him to “not go into the India-China cliché.” Mr. Gandhi should have paid heed to them. For the heir-apparent of a major political party — and a possible prime ministerial candidate — Mr. Gandhi, during his more than an hour-long interaction, came across as worryingly ill-informed about a country that is not only India’s biggest neighbour and single largest trading partner, but also set to emerge as possibly India’s most important, and difficult, diplomatic challenge in the next decade.

“There is no complexity in China,” he declared, going on to present an anecdote which, he suggested, reflected life in the People’s Republic. “A friend of mine who came from China, an Italian guy, was in shock,” he recounted. “He said, ‘I was in a bus in China. A bus hit a man. The driver picked up the man, put him on the side of the road and we carried on’.” “There is no complexity there,” Mr. Gandhi concluded. “Simple, [China] is.”

Mr. Gandhi used this rather strange anecdote to make the claim that as India and China were fundamentally different countries, their development experiences and growth stories could not be compared. Hit-and-run incidents are no more commonplace in China than they are in India, and arriving at a simple conclusion about a billion people based on the testimony of one foreign visitor would be a misguided venture in either country

“There are two types of systems, centralised and decentralised,” he argued. “China is a centralised system. They call it, the dragon. You can see it, it is very clear. It is big, it is powerful, it builds big structures that are visible.” India, he went on to say, was “a beehive.” His apparent argument was that unlike China’s centralised and organised development model, India’s growth story was entirely a bottom-up process driven by creative energy and the spirit of entrepreneurship, and not by the state.

The real lesson

There was much about Mr. Gandhi’s rather sweeping and simplistic characterisation of what he called the “India-China cliché” that does not bear scrutiny. The argument that a decentralised democracy slows development and hinders the delivery of good governance, and that China’s remarkable growth story over the past three decades was more the result of a strong one-party state than any other factor, has been made frequently — including by China’s own ruling Communist Party, as well as sections of India’s business elite with cases of China-envy.

This is despite the fact that the widely popular perception of China’s economic development being the outcome of an entirely top-down, State-driven, centralised process has been disproven by compelling evidence to the contrary. The ubiquitous caricature of China’s growth story — decades of double-digit growth and rapid State-led infrastructure development driven by Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and a thriving export sector — is limited to the country’s experience in the 1990s. As economists such as Huang Yasheng of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and others have pointed out, China’s growth story began a decade earlier in the 1980s preceding the infrastructure boom.

As Mr. Huang has argued convincingly, growth in the 1980s was as much “bottom-up” as “top-down,” driven by rural entrepreneurs who benefited from the loosening of State controls, more liberal policies and decentralisation. China’s record of reducing poverty, Mr. Huang has shown, was the highest during the 1980s, when the number of poor fell by 154 million. The following decade of FDI-led growth saw a reduction in the number of poor by a relatively fewer 62 million. China’s growth in the 1980s was underpinned by investments in human capital — in boosting health care and education. That, according to Mr. Huang, is the real lesson from China’s growth story – not a superficial fascination with skyscrapers and high GDP.

India and China certainly have vastly different political systems. A strong party-state has, no doubt, allowed China to enact policies rapidly. Yet, one-party rule has also imposed huge burdens on China’s development. Mao Zedong’s disastrous Great Leap Forward of the late 1950s, which claimed more than 30 million lives, and the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), set China back by at least a few decades. Today, China’s political model is seen, even in Beijing, as stifling innovation and creative industries. No sensible person would suggest following China’s authoritarian model, which would have no place in India’s diverse and plural society — a stark contrast from China’s Han-dominated society which offers far from adequate protection to minorities.

Comparing social indicators

Mr. Gandhi was, however, wrong to dismiss out of hand the lessons from China’s growth story, and to simply attempt to explain away India’s development problems using questionable assumptions, rather than put forward new ideas or a vision for the future. Mr. Gandhi, correctly, mounted a passionate defence of India’s pluralistic and democratic political system. But implicit in his comments was the troubling suggestion that the expectations of people in decentralised, “beehive” India could not be held to the same levels as those in centralised, authoritarian China. Foreigners who were “driven crazy” by India’s chaos could succeed in doing business “even on the moon” if they succeeded in India, he said almost proudly, rather than suggest how he might perhaps help improve the environment for business and investment.

He would do well to ponder why China has done far better in providing its people with basic necessities, why China continues to outperform India on every social indicator; and most importantly, and why the gap between both countries has widened — and not narrowed — following a decade of the United Progressive Alliance’s (UPA) rule. According to the United Nations Human Development Report, China is far ahead of India on social indicators ranging from life expectancy (73.7 years against 65.8), mean years of schooling (7.5 years against 4.4), adult literacy (94 per cent against 74 per cent), under-five mortality (19 per 1,000 against 66) and maternal mortality (38 per 100,000 against 230).

Mr. Gandhi has, as yet, not put forward any concrete vision for addressing India’s many domestic challenges, let alone those on the external front. While he acknowledged China’s rising national power in his speech, he offered no ideas as to how India should respond to the challenge even as China continues to spread its economic and political influence, including in India’s neighbourhood.

Instead, he appeared almost content with a notion of “Indian power” that was reflected in the fact that “there are people doing yoga in New York, dancing around” and that “you go to a nightclub somewhere in Spain and there is Amitabh Bachchan on the screen, dancing around.” Mr. Gandhi would do well to pay closer attention to a country that India will have no choice but to engage with increasingly, as the world’s second-largest economy and a neighbour that cannot be wished away. The work of economists like Mr. Huang, rather than the unreliable testimony of an Italian tourist on a bus, might perhaps be a good place to start.

Rahul Gandhi

...................................................................................................................................................


This is the quality of leader we are struck with.

This mother-son duo with able guidance of Rasputlin council (NAC) has destroyed India's economy by running expensive bribery Oops poverty alleviation programs and not doing anything to bring reforms which this country desperately needs. Instead what we see is a rampant socialism with a penchant for mediocracy in this party.Every day some of the member from "inner circle" ( I am talking about jokers like Jairam ramesh) makes some statement as to why India is a sh!tty place and needs to bring more yojna's for poor. He seems to conveniently forget that GoI's Fiscal deficit at 5.7% of GDP any it is already ruining growth by crowding out enterpenurs from debt market and if resources are raised by increasing taxes, it would be ruinous for middle class which is reeling under double whammy of high Inflation and low growth.Not to say increased government spending would be a source of Inflation in itself.This party seems to hate anyone who is not dependent on Government doles for his livelihood.



Congrees has a USP of being Pro-People and to prove it has started many Poverty alleviation program like NREGA. These programs which at surface seems to be well intentioned but suffers from a fundamental flaw in my opinion which is that they seems to misjudge the nature of poverty.


Poverty could not be defined just by lack of resources. Even i live in a quasi slum and sometime have to make decisions like forgoing breakfast so that i may have some money left for lunch. A lot of other student stays in conditions which could be described as borderline poverty but neither have i ever felt like poor nor have i ever claim to be.

Poverty is more than lack of resources.It is lack of future and a soul breaking disillusionment.The poor person not only suffers from lack of resources but also from a nagging regret that he could do nothing to improve his situation.

Schemes which provide a poor person with free entitlements are actually responsible for perpetuating poverty as not only are they not providing a poor person skill to better his life but also extinguishing whatever motivational drive that person may have for improving his life.These schemes reduce their status to that of beggars and dependents of state.The only good they serve is to convert them into static votebanks.

In my opinion, yojna's like NREGA should be scrapped and the resources spent on them should be diverted towards improving Rural infrastructure which would pull out rural poor from poverty by providing them access to market and skill development programs which would enable them to take advantage of opportunities.

Another peculiarity of current regime is it's insistence on right based approach. The problem with this approach is that just because you have defined some basic need as a constitutional right, resources would not become available for it's fulfillment.They simply could not.Constitution is not some magical document which provides resources for what it written in it.The resources would be provided by very economy which congress seems to view with a sense of disgust.

The ascension of Rahul Gandhi is going to make problem worst.He has repeatedly shown a lack of understanding of basic problems facing this country.

It is said that patriotism is a refuge of scoundrel. I would like to add to this correct saying is that not only patriotism but religion, socialism and any other ideology which has an emotional appeal is an refuge of scoundrel.

People who are not good enough to formulate their ideas with clarity usually hide behind a ready made ideology. The current glut of quasi-socialist policies is a result of neither Rahul nor Sonia having any firm grounding in Economics and them trying to go along with ideas which sound good on surface.

@Dillinger @arp2041 @Ayush @ZYXW @Jade @janon @Ajaxpaul @godofwar @Guynextdoor2 @KRAIT @sandy_3126 @Joe Shearer @jbgt90 @Bang Galore @Chinese-Dragon @neehar @johnSeb @Samantak @kurup @Syama Ayas @RISING SUN @doublemaster and any other member interested.



@jbgt90 Sir, i knew you are the supporter of congress but you are also one of the most sensible posters here. Could you shed some light as to why congress insist with Gandhi family when there are more competent people than them in congress itself.



@Chinese-Dragon If congress loses next election, India-China relations are bound to improve.This editorial is an example of misunderstanding that heir apparent of Congress have for China.


@Dillinger since we are struck with rahul, can't we force him to have some proper education.

@ all posters, if you visit website of hindu (Clicking on the given link), take trouble of reading the comment section also.It would give a good insight as to what is wrong with Indian society. Most of the posters there are advocating that Rahul should be given a chance to put his ideas into action as if India is a toy that some crown prince should experiment with.

 

[ZYXW]

But he is right though........

Each country has it's own path and competition is not necessary honestly. India is on it's own path to development and so is china. Now india is on a better path and it is harder for india becaus eof it's democracy, china is the way it is and growing as rapidly as it is, is because of its centralized system and no democracy. I think he is correct in the point he is making.

 

[kurup]

Well what we actually require is a presidential type debate in the model of US.

All the PM candidates should be made to attend a open debate where they should be questioned by people as well as their opponents .In this way we can measure their merit and understand their relative knowledge in various fields.

Even if such a setup is made , I am 100% sure RG will shy away from it or else he will be showcasing how much a disaster he is.

 

[Chinese-Dragon]

Rahul Gandhi is an @ss.

Modi on the other hand has proven himself with constant double-digit growth for his province.

Check out this chart from The Economist:

India in figures - an interactive guide - The Economist

Gujarat is literally the only major Indian province that has achieved consistent double-digit growth in the past decade. (Since Sikim and Uttarkand have populations smaller than that of a single city).

What has Rahul successfully managed? A province? A kitchen?

 

[ZYXW]

Well what we actually require is a presidential type debate in the model of US.

All the PM candidates should be made to attend a open debate where they should be questioned by people as well as their opponents .In this way we can measure their merit and understand their relative knowledge in various fields.

Even if such a setup is made , I am 100% sure RG will shy away from it or else he will be showcasing how much a disaster he is.

But how can you assume this....give him a chance!!

 

[Dillinger]

Rahul Gandhi's take on relatively faster rise of China vis-a-vis India: A study in stupidity by contrast.

Rahul Gandhi’s dragon cliché​

The Congress vice-president would do well to ponder why China has outperformed India on every social and economic indicator.


Rahul Gandhi

...................................................................................................................................................


This is the quality of leader we are struck with.

This mother-son duo with able guidance of Rasputlin council (NAC) has destroyed India's economy by running expensive bribery Oops poverty alleviation programs and not doing anything to bring reforms which this country desperately needs. Instead what we see is a rampant socialism with a penchant for mediocracy in this party.Every day some of the member from "inner circle" ( I am talking about jokers like Jairam ramesh) makes some statement as to why India is a sh!tty place and needs to bring more yojna's for poor. He seems to conveniently forget that GoI's Fiscal deficit at 5.7% of GDP any it is already ruining growth by crowding out enterpenurs from debt market and if resources are raised by increasing taxes, it would be ruinous for middle class which is reeling under double whammy of high Inflation and low growth.Not to say increased government spending would be a source of Inflation in itself.This party seems to hate anyone who is not dependent on Government doles for his livelihood.



Congrees has a USP of being Pro-People and to prove it has started many Poverty alleviation program like NREGA. These programs which at surface seems to be well intentioned but suffers from a fundamental flaw in my opinion which is that they seems to misjudge the nature of poverty.


Poverty could not be defined just by lack of resources. Even i live in a quasi slum and sometime have to make decisions like forgoing breakfast so that i may have some money left for lunch. A lot of other student stays in conditions which could be described as borderline poverty but neither have i ever felt like poor nor have i ever claim to be.

Poverty is more than lack of resources.It is lack of future and a soul breaking disillusionment.The poor person not only suffers from lack of resources but also from a nagging regret that he could do nothing to improve his situation.

Schemes which provide a poor person with free entitlements are actually responsible for perpetuating poverty as not only are they not providing a poor person skill to better his life but also extinguishing whatever motivational drive that person may have for improving his life.These schemes reduce their status of beggars and dependents of state.The only good they serve is to convert them into static votebanks.

In my opinion, yojna's like NREGA should be scrapped and the resources spent on them should be diverted towards improving Rural infrastructure which would pull out rural poor from poverty by providing them access to market and skill development programs which would enable them to take advantage of opportunities.

Another peculiarity of current regime is it's insistence on right based approach. The problem with this approach is that just because you have defined some basic need as a constitutional right, resources would become available for it's fulfillment.They would not.Constitution is not some magical document which provides resources for what it written in it.The resources would be provided by very economy which congress seems to view with a sense of disgust.

The ascension of Rahul Gandhi is going to make problem worst.He has repeatedly shown a lack of understanding of basic problems facing this country.

It is said that patriotism is a refuge of scoundrel. I would like to add to this correct saying that not only patriotism but religion, socialism and any other ideology which has an emotional appeal is an refuge of scoundrel.

People who are not good enough to formulate their ideas with clarity usually hide behind a ready made ideology. The current glut of quasi-socialist policies is a result of neither Rahul nor Sonia having any firm grounding in Economics and them trying to go along with ideas which sound good on surface.

@Dillinger @arp2041 @Ayush @ZYXW @Jade @janon @Ajaxpaul @godofwar @Guynextdoor2 @KRAIT @sandy_3126 @Joe Shearer @jbgt90 @Bang Galore @Chinese-Dragon @neehar @johnSeb @Samantak @kurup @Syama Ayas @RISING SUN and any other member interested.



@jbgt90 Sir, i knew you are the supporter of congress but you are also one of the most sensible posters here. Could you shed some light as to why congress insist with Gandhi family when there are more competent people than them in congress itself.



@Chinese-Dragon If congress loses next election, India-China relations are bound to improve.This editorial is an example of misunderstanding that heir apparent of Congress have for China.


@Dillinger since we are struck with rahul, can't we force him to have some proper education.

@ all posters, if you visit website of hindu (Clicking on the given link), take trouble of reading the comment section also.It would give a good insight as to what is wrong with Indian society. Most of the posters there are advocating that Rahul should be given a chance to put his ideas into action as if India is a toy that some crown prince should experiment with.

Rahul Gandhi just butchered socio-economics. Educate him? I'd rather endeavor to make love to a rabid lioness, the latter will prove less injurious to my health.

Let him engage in banter and may he find much satisfaction among the sycophants who envelop him. China is more successful because it implemented it's policies more promptly and more effectively. We need to catch up and Rahul Gandhi needs to be excommunicated from our political setup. We shouldn't require a more detailed explanation on this than the above.

 

[Arav_Rana]

He is moron.

But how can you assume this....give him a chance!!

Please bro. aisi bhi kya dusmani hum se.. Tum le jao and give him a chance..

He never have been on any post. he never attend season of parliament. This is media who is projecting him as PM candidate or else he is even not mentally eligible for MP.

 

[Chinese-Dragon]

Rahul Gandhi will be like Sarah Palin commenting on Russia and its implications on US foreign policy.

Sarah Palin: "I can see Russia from my home in Alaska!"

(That was literally her entire analysis of US foreign policy on Russia).

 

[anonymus]

But he is right though........

Each country has it's own path and competition is not necessary honestly. India is on it's own path to development and so is china. Now india is on a better path and it is harder for india becaus eof it's democracy, china is the way it is and growing as rapidly as it is, is because of its centralized system and no democracy. I think he is correct in the point he is making.

Every country needs to develop it's model for development but there are basics that need to be adhered to else the model will be failure.Communism failed as it did not provided incentives to people to work.

What he is talking about is rehashing a failed model in his own idiosyncratic vision which could not work. It may not fail as spectacularly as communism did but is going to condemn India to be struck under a low growth, high Inflation regime.


I posted this article as to point out the fault in his thought process which are visible by his defected understanding of Chinese growth.


Indians including me troll chinese on this forum ( most of the time well deserved) regarding their investment dependent model but the truth is that china has spectacular economic growth because it got it's fundamental correct which are simply Work hard, save , invest. What understanding rahul gandhi has of Chinese system is faulty and a result of shallow analysis bolstered by verbose ideological gibberish.

There is an anecdote i remember reading in paper about a meeting of Chinese and Indian foreign minister in Egypt in 1990's. When Manmohan ( he was Finance minister then) asked his Chinese counterpart about what china is going to do further for reforms, his chinese minister replied that they are going to further liberalize their labour market. To which Manmohan replied " Won't that increase inequality".The reply of his chinese counterpart was that,"this is exactly what we want".


@ZYXW

Chinese growth is not exclusively a result of them being a centralized country. A big part of that growth is a result of china religiously following a dictum of becoming rich before equal.

Economic inequality in society is a desirable construct. It ensures that some people would have left over capital for investment. In a perfectly equal society, there would be no capital left for investment as all of it would go into consumption leading to social breakdown.

An ideology like that of rahul, which treats inequality like blasphemy is going to lead country to economic ruin.He is not stating something novel but is selling old wine in new bottle, a wine which has proved to be poisonous many times over.

And the reason that he falls for these retarded ideas which would be apparent from this Op-Ed is that he is not good enough to formulate practical and ingenious policies and is taking refuge in holier than thou ideology of communal distribution.

 

[Dillinger]

But how can you assume this....give him a chance!!

No one's assuming anything. This man has never held a ministry. It is not our duty to give him a chance it is his duty to snatch and pursue any opportunity whereby he may prove himself in front of us. Being the Gandhi scion and with the UPA in power for 10 years he could have taken up an administrative post and proven himself. He did NOT and we are not going to let him play at being OUR PM ON THE OFF-CHANCE THAT HE MIGHT HAVE AN IOTA OF INTELLIGENCE IN THAT VACUOUS HEAD OF HIS!

 

[Sashan]

Rahul Gandhi will be like Sarah Palin commenting on Russia and its implications on US foreign policy.

Sarah Palin: "I can see Russia from my home in Alaska!"

(That was literally her entire analysis of US foreign policy on Russia).

Sarah is slightly better off as she was not mentored by Digvijay Singh

 

[OrionHunter]

Rahul Gandhi is an @ss.

You're dead wrong! Rahul is not just an a$$. He's a spherical a$$ which means he's an a$$ anyway you look at him!

And he says India is a 'beehive'! Yep! With his mom sitting there as the queen bee!

 

[kurup]

But how can you assume this....

Have you watched his speech recently made on CII. The person doesnot even have a vision or a mission.He doesnot even have a understanding about basic things but rants about inclusive growth and if somebody has asked him how , he would have vanished from there.He just allowed one or two questions and gave answers which had nothing to do with the topic.

And are you telling me that this person will appear in a open PM debate in front of media ??

give him a chance!!

No ..... Thanks.

 

[MST]

Rahul Gandhi will be like Sarah Palin commenting on Russia and its implications on US foreign policy.

Sarah Palin: "I can see Russia from my home in Alaska!"

(That was literally her entire analysis of US foreign policy on Russia).

That is an excellent analogy

 

[ZYXW]

Every country needs to develop it's model for development but there are basics that need to be adhered to else the model will be failure.Communism failed as it did not provided incentives to people to work.

What he is talking about is rehashing a failed model in his own idiosyncratic vision which could not work. It may not fail as spectacularly as communism did but is going to condemn India to be struck under a low growth, high Inflation regime.


I posted this article as to point out the fault in his thought process which are visible by his defected understanding of Chinese growth.


Indians including me troll chinese on this forum ( most of the time well deserved) regarding their investment dependent model but the truth is that china has spectacular economic growth because it got it's fundamental correct which are simply Work hard, save , invest. What understanding rahul gandhi has of Chinese system is faulty and a result of shallow analysis bolstered by verbose ideological gibberish.

There is an anecdote i remember reading in paper about a meeting of Chinese and Indian foreign minister in Egypt in 1990's. When Manmohan ( he was Finance minister then) asked his Chinese counterpart about what china is going to do further for reforms, his chinese minister replied that they are going to further liberalize their labour market. To which Manmohan replied " Won't that increase inequality".The reply of his chinese counterpart was that,"this is exactly what we want".


@ZYXW

Chinese growth is not exclusively a result of them being a centralized country. A big part of that growth is a result of china religiously following a dictum of becoming rich before equal.

Economic inequality in society is a desirable construct. It ensures that some people would have left over capital for investment. In a perfectly equal society, there would be no capital left for investment as all of it would go into consumption leading to social breakdown.

An ideology like that of rahul, which treats inequality like blasphemy is going to lead country to economic ruin.He is not stating something novel but is selling old wine in new bottle, a wine which has proved to be poisonous many times over.

And the reason that he falls for these retarded ideas which would be apparent from this Op-Ed is that he is not good enough to formulate practical and ingenious policies and is taking refuge in holier than thou ideology of communal distribution.

I completely agree with you and understand. But all I am saying is that people need to be able to understand where he is coming from. He isn't as off as you guys put him out to be.

Yes, many of the things he says, even I DON'T AGREE WITH, but I just feel like he is different from the rest of his family. He should be given a chance. Yes, this policy may not be the best idea, but he is not completely wrong and should be given credit for what is correct. His idea of equality and even ending corruption is commendable, but everyone just seems to resort to criticising him.