The Elephant and the Dragon: A book review

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The Elephant and the Dragon: A book review

Meredith��s book titled The Elephant and the Dragon brings out a positive picture of India in light of democratic status of the nation. She talks of jumping points for India and at the same time has highlighted china��s economic prosperity disguise.

CJ: Aravamudhan (Aru)

Fri, Apr 04, 2008 12:54:37 IST

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China Democratic Polity :

WE KEEP reading about China’s heady race towards economic prosperity, come what may, and lament how India lags behind when compared to her single-minded focus on this issue. Oddly, our leaders from the Left never miss an opportunity to re-iterate the virtues of communism even though the ideology doesn’t have any relevance in today’s world to say the least. Interestingly, it seems India’s track record of inclusive growth looks better than China’s, mainly due to her democratic polity. Thanks to the complex nature of politics, the governments in power are not allowed to take bold and innovative steps and, as a result, what we witness is the one-step-forward-two-step-backward diffident movements as far as economic reforms are concerned.

Robyn Meredith, who is a foreign correspondent for Forbes magazine based in Hong Kong, has recently written a book titled ‘The Elephant and the Dragon’. Her book is an eye-opener not only for left-wingers but also to the larger political class in this country. Meredith highlights how Chinese authorities turn a blind eye and fail to take along the marginal section of the society. While one may argue that this is a result of doctrine of lesser evil, however, we should appreciate our Left leaders for not letting the Indian government to blindly follow the Chinese model.

Meredith further highlights that despite China’s tremendous economic gains, the human cost of China’s rise has been steep, particularly for the peasants. In the name of development, communist China displaced millions of peasants and deprived them of their livelihood. Here, we should be thankful to activists like Medha Padkar, Arundhati Roy and, of course, Mamta Banerjee for raising their voice against displacement of people from their habitats in the name of big projects. Meredith points out the fact that despite the huge trade deficit in favour of China, much of its ‘ballyhooed economic muscle belongs to foreigners’. As regards the hypes about growing exports from Chinese factories, she says, "Only four of China’s top 25 exporters are Chinese companies. Foreign companies and its Chinese joint venture partners produced 88 per cent of China’s high-tech exports in 2005. In practice, ‘Made in China’ often really means, ‘Made by America in China’ or ‘Made by Europe in China’.”

On this issue of Chinese accomplishment on labour reforms and welfare, she said, “Despite low wages, many factory workers are forced to work overtime long into the night without pay, left unpaid for months at a time, or even locked in factory compounds like prisoners.” Why can’t our Left leaders hold a rally in front of the Chinese embassy to highlight this lacuna?

When Left parties blame Indian capitalists for the alarming level of non-performing assets and their failure to repay the loans, they fail miserably to even take a look at the record of the communist China: "Many of the glorious high rises, shopping malls, apartment buildings, highways, and other infrastructure projects are financial white elephants, paid for by bank loans that aren’t being paid back. China’s banks are broke. Ernst and Young ‘conservatively’ estimated that the Chinese banking system had $911 billion in bad loans in 2006, six times the magnitude of the American S&L crisis. "

The Maoists who indulge in violence and mayhem in the hinterland should look towards China and they will at once realise how fortunate they are that they don’t have to wage a war against the authoritarian Chinese government: "China’s citizens have few rights and little protection from government abuses. Fair trials remain rare. Prisoners are still tortured. There have been many cases of arbitrary arrests and prisoners being held incommunicado."

Finally, Meredith had a word of caution for India too. She said India’s poor, both in rural and urban areas, are not the beneficiaries of the developmental projects so there is an urgent need for a course correction. The only way this could be possible for India is to modernise its infrastructure. She wrote, "A lot depends on how soon India modernises her infrastructure. Unlike China, where the government spearheads change by championing big development projects, India may need to let private companies lead the way." But will our netas let things happen when they know that the elections are just round the corner?

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