Arvind Subramanian’s interpretation of China’s growth ignores the enormous support that Germany, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and China received from the US for strategic cold war reasons (“Learning from Chinese mercantilism,” 25 January).
To entice China firmly into a strong commercial embrace, the US provided it with investment, technology, machinery, management support and a ready market for its goods on a massive scale for over 30 years. This is the foundation on which China’s rapid growth has been built. Since India did not choose to tie up with the West on the available terms, it had to chart its own growth path. This has given good results over the last two decades and Subramanian’s comparison does not seem to apply.
Alok Sarkar Kolkata
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