印度会超越中国吗?

好文一篇, 可惜是英语的, 看起来可能有点费劲. 不过, 我们可以透过第三者的眼光客观地看待中国跟印度之间的比较.

Can India Overtake China?

Walk into any Wal-Mart and you will not be surprised to see the shelves sagging with Chinese-made goods—everything from shoes and garments to toys and electronics. But the ubiquitous “Made in China” label obscures an important point: Few of these products are made by indigenous Chinese companies. In fact, you would be hard-pressed to find a single homegrown Chinese firm that operates on a global scale and markets its own products abroad.

That is because China’s export-led manufacturing boom is largely a creation of foreign direct investment (FDI), which effectively serves as a substitute for domestic entrepreneurship. During the last 20 years, the Chinese economy has taken off, but few local firms have followed, leaving the country’s private sector with no world-class companies to rival the big multinationals.

India has not attracted anywhere near the amount of FDI that China has. In part, this disparity reflects the confidence international investors have in China’s prospects and their skepticism about India’s commitment to free-market reforms. But the FDI gap is also a tale of two diasporas. China has a large and wealthy diaspora that has long been eager to help the motherland, and its money has been warmly received. By contrast, the Indian diaspora was, at least until recently, resented for its success and much less willing to invest back home. New Delhi took a dim view of Indians who had gone abroad, and of foreign investment generally, and instead provided a more nurturing environment for domestic entrepreneurs.

In the process, India has managed to spawn a number of companies that now compete internationally with the best that Europe and the United States have to offer. Moreover, many of these firms are in the most cutting-edge, knowledge-based industries-software giants Infosys and Wipro and pharmaceutical and biotechnology powerhouses Ranbaxy and Dr. Reddy’s Labs, to name just a few. Last year, the Forbes 200, an annual ranking of the world’s best small companies, included 13 Indian firms but just four from mainland China.

India has also developed a much stronger infrastructure to support private enterprise. Its capital markets operate with greater efficiency and transparency than do China’s. Its legal system, while not without substantial flaws, is considerably more advanced.
China and India are the world’s next major powers. They also offer competing models of development. It has long been an article of faith that China is on the faster track, and the economic data bear this out. The “Hindu rate of growth”—a pejorative phrase referring to India’s inability to match its economic growth with its population growth-may be a thing of the past, but when it comes to gross domestic product (GDP) figures and other headline numbers, India is still no match for China.

However, the statistics tell only part of the story-the macroeconomic story. At the micro level, things look quite different. There, India displays every bit as much dynamism as China. Indeed, by relying primarily on organic growth, India is making fuller use of its resources and has chosen a path that may well deliver more sustainable progress than China’s FDI-driven approach. “Can India surpass China?” is no longer a silly question, and, if it turns out that India has indeed made the wiser bet, the implications-for China’s future growth and for how policy experts think about economic development generally-could be enormous.

The Stifling State
The fact that India is increasingly building from the ground up while China is still pursuing a top-down approach reflects their contrasting political systems: India is a democracy, and China is not. But the different strategies are also a function of history. China’s Communist Party came to power in 1949 intent on eradicating private ownership, which it quickly did. Although the country is now in its third decade of free-market reforms, it continues to struggle with the legacy of that period-witness the controversy surrounding the recent decision to officially allow capitalists to join the Communist Party.

India, on the other hand, developed a softer brand of socialism, Fabian socialism, which aimed not to destroy capitalism but merely to mitigate the social ills it caused. It was considered essential that the public sector occupy the economy’s “commanding heights,” to use a phrase coined by Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin but popularized by India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. However, that did not prevent entrepreneurship from flourishing where the long arm of the state could not reach.
Developments at the microeconomic level in China reflect these historical and ideological differences. China has been far bolder with external reforms but has imposed substantial legal and regulatory constraints on indigenous, private firms. In fact, only four years ago, domestic companies were finally granted the same constitutional protections that foreign businesses have enjoyed since the early 1980s. As of the late 1990s, according to the International Finance Corporation, more than two dozen industries, including some of the most important and lucrative sectors of the economy-banking, telecommunications, highways, and railroads-were still off-limits to private local companies.

These restrictions were designed not to keep Chinese entrepreneurs from competing with foreigners but to prevent private domestic businesses from challenging China’s state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Some progress has been made in reforming the bloated, inefficient SOEs during the last 20 years, but Beijing is still not willing to relinquish its control over the largest ones, such as China Telecom.
Instead, the government has ferociously protected them from competition. In the 1990s, numerous Chinese entrepreneurs tried, and failed, to circumvent the restrictions placed on their activities. Some registered their firms as nominal SOEs (all the capital came from private sources, and the companies were privately managed), only to find themselves ensnared in title disputes when financially strapped government agencies sought to seize their assets. More than a few promising businesses have been destroyed this way.

This bias against home-grown firms is widely acknowledged. A report issued in 2000 by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences concluded that, “Because of long-standing prejudices and mistaken beliefs, private and individual enterprises have a lower political status and are discriminated against in numerous policies and regulations. The legal, policy, and market environment is unfair and inconsistent.”

Foreign investors have been among the biggest beneficiaries of the constraints placed on local private businesses. One indication of the large payoff they have reaped on the back of China’s phenomenal growth: In 1992, the income accruing to foreign investors with equity stakes in Chinese firms was only $5.3 billion; today it totals more than $22 billion. (This money does not necessarily leave the country; it is often reinvested in China.)

The Mogul as Hero
For democratic, postcolonial India, allowing foreign investors huge profits at the expense of indigenous firms is simply unfeasible. Recall, for instance, the controversy that erupted a decade ago when the Enron Corporation made a deal with the state of Maharashtra to build a $2.9 billion power plant there. The project proceeded, but only after several years of acrimonious debate over foreign investment and its role in India’s development.

While China has created obstacles for its entrepreneurs, India has been making life easier for local businesses. During the last decade, New Delhi has backed away from micromanaging the economy. True, privatization is proceeding at a glacial pace, but the government has ceded its monopoly over long-distance phone service; some tariffs have been cut; bureaucracy has been trimmed a bit; and a number of industries have been opened to private investment, including investment from abroad.

As a consequence, entrepreneurship and free enterprise are flourishing. A measure of the progress: In a recent survey of leading Asian companies by the Far Eastern Economic Review (FEER), India registered a higher average score than any other country in the region, including China (the survey polled over 2,500 executives and professionals in a dozen countries; respondents were asked to rate companies on a scale of one to seven for overall leadership performance). Indeed, only two Chinese firms had scores high enough to qualify for India’s top 10 list. Tellingly, all of the Indian firms were wholly private initiatives, while most of the Chinese companies had significant state involvement.

Some of the leading Indian firms are true start-ups, notably Infosys, which topped FEER’s survey. Others are offshoots of old-line companies. Sundaram Motors, for instance, a leading manufacturer of automotive components and a principal supplier to General Motors, is part of the T.V. Sundaram group, a century-old south Indian business group.

Not only is entrepreneurship thriving in India; entrepreneurs there have become folk heroes. Nehru would surely be appalled at the adulation the Indian public now showers on captains of industry. For instance, Narayana Murthy, the 56-year-old founder of Infosys, is often compared to Microsoft’s Bill Gates and has become a revered figure.
These success stories never would have happened if India lacked the infrastructure needed to support Murthy and other would-be moguls. But democracy, a tradition of entrepreneurship, and a decent legal system have given India the underpinnings necessary for free enterprise to flourish. Although India’s courts are notoriously inefficient, they at least comprise a functioning independent judiciary. Property rights are not fully secure, but the protection of private ownership is certainly far stronger than in China. The rule of law, a legacy of British rule, generally prevails.

These traditions and institutions have proved an excellent springboard for the emergence and evolution of India’s capital markets. Distortions are still commonplace, but the stock and bond markets generally allow firms with solid prospects and reputations to obtain the capital they need to grow. In a World Bank study published last year, only 52 percent of the Indian firms surveyed reported problems obtaining capital, versus 80 percent of the Chinese companies polled. As a result, the Indian firms relied much less on internally generated finances: Only 27 percent of their funding came through operating profits, versus 57 percent for the Chinese firms.

Corporate governance has improved dramatically, thanks in no small part to Murthy, who has made Infosys a paragon of honest accounting and an example for other firms. In a survey of 25 emerging market economies conducted in 2000 by Credit Lyonnais Securities Asia, India ranked sixth in corporate governance, China 19th. The advent of an investor class, coupled with the fact that capital providers, such as development banks, are themselves increasingly subject to market forces, has only bolstered the efficiency and credibility of India’s markets. Apart from providing the regulatory framework, the Indian government has taken a back seat to the private sector.

In China, by contrast, bureaucrats remain the gatekeepers, tightly controlling capital allocation and severely restricting the ability of private companies to obtain stock market listings and access the money they need to grow. Indeed, Beijing has used the financial markets mainly as a way of keeping the SOEs afloat. These policies have produced enormous distortions while preventing China’s markets from gaining depth and maturity. (It is widely claimed that China’s stock markets have a total capitalization in excess of $400 billion, but factoring out non-tradeable shares owned by the government or by government-owned companies reduces the valuation to just around $150 billion.) Compounding the problem are poor corporate governance and the absence of an independent judiciary.

Dollars and Diasporas
If India has so clearly surpassed China at the grass-roots level, why isn’t India’s superiority reflected in the numbers? Why is the gap in GDP and other benchmarks still so wide? It is worth recalling that India’s economic reforms only began in earnest in 1991, more than a decade after China began liberalizing. In addition to the late start, India has had to make do with a national savings rate half that of China’s and 90 percent less FDI. Moreover, India is a sprawling, messy democracy riven by ethnic and religious tensions, and it has also had a longstanding, volatile dispute with Pakistan over Kashmir. China, on the other hand, has enjoyed two decades of relative tranquility; apart from Tiananmen Square, it has been able to focus almost exclusively on economic development.

That India’s annual growth rate is only around 20 percent lower than China’s is, then, a remarkable achievement. And, of course, whether the data for China are accurate is an open question. The speed with which India is catching up is due to its own efficient deployment of capital and China’s inefficiency, symbolized by all the money that has been frittered away on SOEs. And China’s misallocation of resources is likely to become a big drain on the economy in the years ahead.

In the early 1990s, when China was registering double-digit growth rates, Beijing invested massively in the state sector. Most of the investments were not commercially viable, leaving the banking sector with a huge number of nonperforming loans-possibly totaling as much as 50 percent of bank assets. At some point, the capitalization costs of these loans will have to be absorbed, either through write-downs (which means depositors bear the cost) or recapitalization of the banks by the government, which diverts money from other, more productive uses. This could well limit China’s future growth trajectory.

India’s banks may not be models of financial probity, but they have not made mistakes on nearly the same scale. According to a recent study by the management consulting firm Ernst & Young, about 15 percent of banking assets in India were nonperforming as of 2001. India’s economy is thus anchored on more solid footing.

The real issue, of course, isn’t where China and India are today but where they will be tomorrow. The answer will be determined in large measure by how well both countries utilize their resources, and on this score, India is doing a superior job. Is it pursuing a better road to development than China? We won’t know the answer for many years. However, some evidence indicates that India’s grassroots approach may indeed be wiser-and the evidence, ironically, comes from within China itself.

Consider the contrasting strategies of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, two coastal provinces that were at similar levels of economic development when China’s reforms began. Jiangsu has relied largely on FDI to fuel its growth. Zhejiang, by contrast, has placed heavier emphasis on indigenous entrepreneurs and organic development. During the last two decades, Zhejiang’s economy has grown at an annual rate of about 1 percent faster than Jiangsu’s. Twenty years ago, Zhejiang was the poorer of the two provinces; now it is unquestionably more prosperous.

India may soon have the best of both worlds: It looks poised to reap significantly more FDI in the coming years than it has attracted to date. After decades of keeping the Indian diaspora at arm’s length, New Delhi is now embracing it. In some circles, it used to be jokingly said that NRI, an acronym applied to members of the diaspora, stood for “not required Indians.” Now, the term is back to meaning just “nonresident Indian.” The change in attitude was officially signaled earlier this year when the government held a conference on the diaspora that a number of prominent NRIs attended.

China’s success in attracting FDI is partly a historical accident-it has a wealthy diaspora. During the 1990s, more than half of China’s FDI came from overseas Chinese sources. The money appears to have had at least one unintended consequence: The billions of dollars that came from Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan may have inadvertently helped Beijing postpone politically difficult internal reforms. For instance, because foreign investors were acquiring assets from loss-making SOEs, the government was able to drag its feet on privatization.

Until now, the Indian diaspora has accounted for less than 10 percent of the foreign money flowing to India. With the welcome mat now laid out, direct investment from nonresident Indians is likely to increase. And while the Indian diaspora may not be able to match the Chinese diaspora as “hard” capital goes, Indians abroad have substantially more intellectual capital to contribute, which could prove even more valuable.

The Indian diaspora has famously distinguished itself in knowledge-based industries, nowhere more so than in Silicon Valley. Now, India’s brightening prospects, as well as the changing attitude vis-à-vis those who have gone abroad, are luring many nonresident Indian engineers and scientists home and are enticing many expatriate business people to open their wallets. With the help of its diaspora, China has won the race to be the world’s factory. With the help of its diaspora, India could become the world’s technology lab.

China and India have pursued radically different development strategies. India is not outperforming China overall, but it is doing better in certain key areas. That success may enable it to catch up with and perhaps even overtake China. Should that prove to be the case, it will not only demonstrate the importance of home-grown entrepreneurship to long-term economic development; it will also show the limits of the FDI-dependent approach China is pursuing.
Share |
Share

部分内容是一样的,可是关键的部分不是

哦, 居然有中文版? 可是内容不太一样. 英语的写得更客观. 中文的明显被中国媒体做了删改.

[ Last edited by regen on 2005-1-11 at 22:56 ]

TOP

顶一顶!14.gif

个人认为印度模式不适合中国,毕竟中国的教育产业的发展水平不如印度,也没有印度的语言优势.:(

更重要的是,对于象印度和中国这样发展水平低,人口众多的国家,发展还是要先建立在制造业上.这和新加坡等国家应该选择的道路不一样.

总的来说,我认为中国还是要靠制造业,由此才会推动其它产业.:D

中国的经济在表面繁荣的背后也有很大的忧患,正如楼主那篇文章说的,中国经济目前很大成分是foreign direct investment拉动的.

除此制度隐患不可小看, 说到底,国家的竞争不是所谓的科技竞争, 而是更根本的\"制度的竞争\",美国的最大优势不是他们人聪明,也不是科技发达,而是他们的制度.就象德国的问题,主要还是制度的问题.

未来中国的出路还是私营企业,那是中国的希望,个人觉得,目前发展势头还不错,虽然有各种各样的问题.

TOP

转贴,一个印度留学生对中国的印象!

  表面上看,中国比印度先进富裕,中国的GDP和人均GDP两项指标都是印度的两倍,人口比印度只多出约12%,按说中国要比印度富裕。但真实情况确相反,从我在中国生活的两年半的所见所闻,真实的中国人比印度人生活艰难的多、苦的多。
  

  印度农民没有苛捐杂税。印度农民占总人口的比例和中国差不多,但印度农民自给自足,国家根本不从农业上提取税收,也不象中国地方有那么多官员要养活,尽管印度的农业技术比中国落后,这主要是印度农民懒造成的,要是印度农民有中国农民这么能吃苦,印度农村肯定要比中国富裕,中国有世界上最能吃苦的农民,有最高的农业单产,但中国农民被压迫的太深,税赋太重,以占人口大多数的农民来说,印农民比中国农民轻松的多。

  

  印度人享有充分的流动自由。中国人在自己的土地上要暂住证,印度不需要,也没不因没有暂住证被关押被打死的情况,印度人可以在总统府的对面要饭,也可以在象中国长安街一样繁华的地段搭棚生活,根本没有人以影响市容而象赶鸭子一样到处赶,印度也没有象中 国一样到处打砸摊主的城管,也不会因为三轮车影响政府形象被取第,在印度,只要你能在某个地方找到谋生的门路,没有人管你,而在中国就严格的多。

  

  印度人的工资水平高于中国。中国有世界上最廉价的劳动力,劳动成本比印度低的多,以电视机为例,此次美国对中国实行反倾销,就是以印度的电视机价格为参考的,印度的原材料及其它成本不会比中国高,唯一高的是劳动力成本,而中国电视机价格低就是因为劳动 力工资低,在中国的很多工厂里工作的中国工人的收入比印度产为工人工资低的多,一些合资企业到中国开工厂并不是因为别的什么,而是因为中国人最能吃苦、工资最低,这些外国工厂在印度根本开不起来,因为印度人要的工资这些老板给不起,印度人也没有中国人牛马 般能吃苦耐劳的精神。

  

  中国相对高的GDP没有让人民得到实惠。中国的GDP是印度的两倍,但中国人民难以从中得到实惠,以汽车为例,中国连乡镇村的官员都可以座上进口高档轿车,仅此一项每年就消耗了中国GDP总值很大的一部分,而印度这种情况是绝对没有的,除国家用于外事活动外,印度政府官员都座的印度自产的“总理”牌轿车,印度象国防部这样的强力机关连空调都没有,而中国所有的政府衙门都是富丽堂煌,每年被政府官员公款吃掉的钱也是一个天文数字,这些印度很少,这些都是民众的钱,所以中国虽然GDP是印度的两倍,但人民肯定享受不到实惠。

  

  印度没有那么多大盖帽。在中国大盖帽满天飞,“九项大盖帽管一顶破草帽”是中国特色,这些大盖帽都是冲着人民来的,每顶大盖帽都是人民的负担,印度没有这么多大盖帽,即使你戴着大盖帽也不能向人民乱收费,中国人光养这些大盖帽就必须付出沉重的代价,谁也不清楚中国人要花多少钱来养他们。一些大盖帽领导贪了太多的钱以后卷辅盖走人跑到国外去,据中国自己报道,近年来卷款外逃的官员有好几百人,这些人带走的财富估计可以供养几千万儿童上学。

  

  印度没有官员终身制。印度上至总统下至部门,在任上是官员,享受国家的各种待遇,但下来后和平民一样,但中国就不一样了,中国只要进了官场,除非被腐败抓起来,否则国家要养一辈子,直到死为止,据中国媒体报道,中国的官员总数和法国总人口差不多,这还 不包括乡村及编外的官员,而中国的国民总值比法国还低,从这一点上看,中国人的负担比印度大的多。



  印度没有中国普遍存在的烂尾楼。在中国城市随处可见烂尾楼,这些烂尾楼少则几百万,多则几十亿,要统计中国的烂尾楼到底有多少、到底有多少资金存入烂尾楼里多登天还难,可以说每幢烂尾楼都是官商勾结的腐败现象,每幢烂尾楼都是人民的血汗钱,在中国不知有多少人民的血汗投入了这个黑窟隆,这种现象在印度很少见,这也是中国特色。

  

  印度的国际生存环境比中国好的多。中国目前基本上受到世界的围堵,这与中国几次腾飞前的情况差不多,而且这种围堵都十分有效,中国在满清时开展洋务运动,国家也有了起色,但被害怕中国崛起的西方国家和日本给打败了,中国限入内乱。民国时期中国也有过良好的发展时期,甚至有黄金十年的美称,也被日本给打败了,现在的中国虽然经济上有发展,但国际生存空间比以前更恶劣,以美国为首的西方国家对中国实行全面打压,周边国家也十分敌对,自身的统一问题也没有解决,中国很有可能因为一场战争象满清、象民国时期一样,被国际势力打压下去,而印度与主要强国关系友好,也不存在武器禁运,所以,印度的发展空间比中国好的多。

  

  总体上看,中国的GDP虽然是印度的两倍,但中国被要养活比印度多数倍的官员队伍、要养活无数的公车和公车司机和修理费、要喂饱中国官员庞大的将军肚、要装满外逃官员的行李箱、要养活遍及中国各地干休所的退休官员、要养活无数的大盖帽,中国的那点GDP余 钱肯定不多,用于人民福利的钱不会比印度多。

  
  看网上中国网民的自高自大,作为印度人也有这个毛病,但总的来说,印度人比中国生活的幸福、自在,这一点中国人无法比拟,如果说印度人穷,主要是因为懒隋造成的,如果印度人有中国人这么勤劳,印度百姓肯定比中国生活好的多。

TOP

Originally posted by 水中明月 at 2005-1-11 10:14 PM:
  表面上看,中国比印度先进富裕,中国的GDP和人均GDP两项指标都是印度的两倍,人口比印度只多出约12%,按说中国要比印度富裕。但真实情况确相反,从我在中国生活的两年半的所见所闻,真实的中国人比印度人生活 ...


对的,说的不过分,这是由于中国制度引出的问题.sad.gif

TOP