Lessons from the PM's visit

Asia File

By the time this column appears, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee will have fully recovered from his China trip, and even some of its direct memories will have faded from his mind in the clamour of his more familiar engagements at home. Leaders only exchange pleasantries and diplomatic small talk and forget them later.

But what about the many advisers, big and small, who went with Vajpayee as his eyes and ears and whose job it is to guide their masters? Yes, they saw the places and heard the speeches, exchanged views and must have taken copious notes, but how much of this trip will they remember beyond the agreements signed and the banquets attended? Does their encounter with the phenomenon called China, which others so admire, hold any special meaning for them?

I doubt it, because they didn't go there to learn. Like their leader, they went to look only for common ground between one competitor and another. They wanted to set the past right and establish a working present. Which is fine and eminently desirable among neighbours, especially among powerful neighbours.

But in all the Indian speeches and briefings and analyses surrounding the Vajpayee visit, I haven't come across anything that even remotely acknowledges that China is more than just a strong neighbour, that it has lessons to offer in economic growth that others could benefit from.

To any interested watcher of the Chinese scene, these lessons are obvious and stand out as solidly as the skyscrapers of Beijing and Shanghai. Only, people who have the responsibility to shape India's destiny have chosen not to see them, even people who are in the business of moulding public opinion.

I have yet to see an intelligent analysis in the Indian news media of what really lies behind China's phenomenal economic success and of the five basic fundamentals that seem to drive it. Without an understanding of these fundamentals, no assessment of China's success will be complete.

Fundamental 1: China doesn't mix politics with economics. At the theoretical level it remains a communist country and won't tolerate anybody questioning the party's authority. But at the practical level, it's ready to take measures that are not even distantly communistic.

Letting people acquire private property and amass riches, and the businessman the freedom to hire and fire, reflects rather a patently capitalistic mindset that, singly, has brought about the economic revolution that China's political revolutionaries couldn't even conceive of.

China realised early in its reformist career that political doggedness wouldn't bring about the real welfare of all its people in the quickest possible time.

Fundamental 2: The government keeps an open mind, is ready to learn from its mistakes and will do whatever is necessary to take the economy forward. It hasn't hesitated to phase out loss-making state-owned enterprises, shrink the federal role to give state and local governments greater economic authority, accept market prices, and introduce user charges for even such things as the removal of household garbage.

Fundamental 3: There's neither a false sense of nationalism nor a we-can-do-it-better attitude. Knowing that foreign technology and money are the quickest agents of economic change, the government has directed its entire reformist effort towards making the climate congenial for foreign direct investment (FDI). To show how the gamble is paying off, I quote from a recent study on "FDI and the Spillover Effect" by the Asian Development Bank:

"In 1999, FDI firms produced 26.1 per cent of (China's) gross industrial output, accounted for about 20 per cent of net fixed capital asset and generated over $ 10 billion of tax revenue. There were more than 5.5 million people employed in FDI firms.

The inflow of FDI has also enhanced interaction between the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the outside world. The export share of foreign-invested firms reached 31.5 per cent in 1995 and further increased to 54.8 per cent in 1999. This has greatly enhanced the PRC's position as a trading nation."

Fundamental 4: Tradition is not considered something rigid and unquestionable. Beijing has preserved ancient temples and allowed the revival of religions, but hasn't hesitated to demolish traditional buildings and neighbourhoods to make room for new highways, bridges, flyovers and office towers.

The age-old norms of design and architecture are no longer paramount. It's this unshackled mental attitude that has dramatically transformed the way China looks and feels, a vibrant new country in an ancient land.

Fundamental 5: There's a deep awareness that today's world is a two-way street. If a country wants the world to open up to it, it must open up to the world in a way that's trustworthy. China's entire "Open Door" history is one of matching word with action, and this is what the world most admires.

But then, India is not the world. India needs no lessons from others. It always has the last answers for everything.