India’s billions notwithstanding, the country has few sinologists and Chinese studies centres. The latter are cash-strapped with a paucity of research material and funds to enable field studies, many others are riddled with bureaucratic and administrative hiccups. Quite unlike China, which has heavily invested in training a breed of experts on India. It is perhaps with this observation that any understanding on China’s growth by an Indian author is welcome — failings notwithstanding.
T K Bhaumik is a senior economist, but not a sinologist, as he himself candidly admits. The book, he says, is a “personal understanding” of the China growth story, an attempt to understand what makes China tick. It is an ambitious “catch-all” enterprise beginning with China’s historical moorings through to the tumultuous communist years, up to its transition to market socialism till the 11th Five Year Plan (2006-2010).
Predictably, the author bites more than he can chew, which is the bane of the book. The saving grace is that the book rightly conveys many aspects of China in an easily readable manner — a sense of history, the drivers of China’s growth being a mix of factors such as its socialist years (which dramatically improved literacy, life expectancy and imbued its population with a sense of discipline and work ethic ), and the reforms, which imparted a generous dose of economic freedom.
Frequently, the author adds his own gems of wisdom, such as “the paranoid nature of the Chinese people has been an invisible factor behind China’s growth.” This refers to the author’s understanding that the paranoia of financial insecurity looms over the Chinese, leading to a high savings rate which, in turn, fuelled high investment in the initial years of reform. While the book concedes that growth will continue to gallop, it also succinctly summarises pressing issues such as the increasing rural-urban inequality, water and food security, the banking sector and environmental challenges.
The author keeps to economics and does not quite engage with the grey areas of the political realm — though at one point, he says: “Chinese think that democracy is a nation-specific idea — there is no harm if we respect that thought.”
The puzzling part is that the book ends on a rather abrupt note — giving out information from the State Council on how China looks at human rights. The volume of notes after the chapters shows generous references to Jung Chang’s Wild Swans and Zhisui Li’s Private Life of Chairman Mao, both non-academic books which peddle a somewhat pedantic, unidimensional and salacious version of people, places and events — not expected from a book of this calibre.
There are some errors such as “the collapse of Ming dynasty in 1911”, which should have read “Qing”. The book also discounts the work done by Indian sinologists by referring to only one Indian author’s work on China. Also missing from the picture is a critical dimension.
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But the book is written with obvious affection about China and achieves the purpose of conveying a broader, macro-perspective picture. Most importantly, it is a welcome addition to the small repertoire of books on contemporary China.
OLD CHINA’S NEW ECONOMY
THE CONQUEST BY A BILLION PAUPERS
T K Bhaumik
Sage
294pp; Rs 350
