Author: M. V. Kamath
Publication: The Organiser
Date: October 14, 2001
In recent weeks efforts to compare
India with China, very unfavourably, have been very marked in certain intellectual
circles. China's economy has been increasing by leaps and bounds, Chinese
cities look even better than western cities while India continues to struggle
is the charge frequently made. Forget China, India cannot even attract
as much foreign investment as little Vietnam, one Member of Parliament
was heard to say derisively. In an interview to a national paper Arun Shourie
sought to rebut some of these accusations. "People talk of Vietnam's success-do
you know that 16 per cent of all foreign investment in Vietnam since 1988
is in agriculture? Will we (in India) allow this?" he asked. Vietnam, he
went on has a tax rate of 32 to 45 per cent for domestic firms but it would
be 10 per cent for firms with foreign investment. Would this be acceptable
in India, he wanted to know. Further he said, China executes 12 people
each day while in India we can't prosecute even a man guilty of stealing
electricity. What is the truth about China? This has been stated with remarkable
frankness by a resident correspondent of the South China Morning Post in
Beijing in a book entiled The Chinese. The author, Jasper Becker tells
as how urban China with its booming coastal cities and special economic
zones use slaves in sweat shops to produce low priced goods and terrorise
people.
Unlike in India where anybody could
go anywhere to live, in China the law is strict about rural people migrating
to urban areas. Shri Shourie spoke about 12 people being executed in China
every day. According to an Amnesty International Report of 1999 quoted
by Becker, throughout the 1990s more people have been executed or sentenced
to death in China than in the rest of the world put together. The report
contained evidence of 6,100 death sentences and 4,367 executions during
1996 alone. Birth control is strictly enforced. Becker says over 300,000
officials are employed by the Family Planning Services to try to ensure
that the number of people born each year is according to plan. Sanjay Gandhi,
were he alive, would have heartily approved of this. Writes Becker: "The
vast and coercive machinery was responsible for 8.7 million abortions in
1981, 14.4 million in 1983. In the much tougher climate after 1989 the
state launched another big drive in which 10 million people were sterilised
in one year." Let Shri Vajpayee try that to see what next will happen to
the BJP.
The State manages the economy. In
1989 China had 3,000 leather factories. Seven years later there were 20,000
employing 1.5 million workers. By 1998 China was producing 20 per cent
of the world's leather shoes, some 2 billion pairs a year. Then came the
slump. Writes Becker. "Even before demand slumped in the Asia Pacific region,
Chinese manufacturers housed staggering amount of unsold goods: 1.5 billion
men's shirts, 300 million pairs of leather shoes, 20 million bicycles,
10 million watches and 700,000 motor cycles." The only way to dispose of
these and other accumulated goods was to push them into India and other
countries by questionable means. And what about labour and labour laws?
Becker writes: "A South Korean electronic factory (in China) kept its workers,
on duty continuously for more than twenty four hours. Some fell asleep
during a ten-minute break and were ordered to kneel in front of the manager
while others had to keep their hands raised in the air for ten minutes."
Indian MPs who are shown round the
prosperous east coast industrial development areas return wide-eyed at
what they had seen. But writes Becker, "in a mountainous area of 240,000
square miles, home to 80 million people, half the population earns less
than US $20 a year (around Rs 900). In China 350 million out of 1.22 billion
people live below the poverty line. Becker says: "It is true that India
certainly looks poorer, especially in its crowded cities. However, in China
the police keep the rural poor out of the cities. No one can enter a Chinese
city without permission and those that do so are soon caught and expelled."
How happy the Shiv Sena in Mumbai
would be if it would be allowed to do the same! Corruption apparently is
rampant. Money is quickly made. Taiwanese who set up over 4000 companies
in Guandong in the 1990s operated outside the law most of the time, employing
mostly young peasant women. In Shenyang at the heart of China's heavy industry
belt workers were forced to subsist on handouts of just 129 Yuans (US $15)
a month. At the present exchange rate that would be a monthly salary of
Rs 700 or thereabouts. Mumbai's Municipal sweepers make four times that
amount if not more-and they work even less hours. State Owned Enterprises
(SOEs) are in bad shape. By 1997 even the Workers Daily was describing
the SOEs (our Public Sector Units) as a "bottomless pit" with debts totaling
4 trillion Yuans. In one state, Lianing half the 10 million workers had
lost their jobs in the 1990s. In China's northernmost province 70 per cent
of 4,000 SOEs "were effectively, if not legally bankrupt" and a third of
the 900,000 workers had been laid off. By the end of 1999, the percentage
of SOEs running at a loss had risen from 40 per cent in 1998 to 50 per
cent in 2000. In one state, Shenyang, the figure was 55 per cent. China's
four main state banks were saddled with 'non-performing loans' and were
technically bankrupt. Arun Shourie obviously does not know how lucky he
is! At the end of 1999 China announced that seven steel firms would be
allowed to go bankrupt, including the Shenyang Steel Company which had,
in fact, stopped production years before! In 1998 it was reckoned that
two thirds of China's defence industry capacity lay idle. China's battle
tank production had slumped to fewer than a hundred per year. In order
to keep things going no wonder China supplies Pakistan tanks and other
defence equipment. Becker describes the conditions of teachers, doctors
and hospitals that would make their counterparts in India feel superior!
The cost of medicines has apparently risen a hundred fold and in some cases
two hundred fold. China spends upto US$ 3.5 billion a year importing western
medicines. Is Becker exaggerating? Is he a China-hater? But anyone is open
to question his facts-and so far apparently they have not been questioned.
China is still a dictatorship. In 1998 the Government planned to reduce
the number of Ministries from 40 to 29 and have the number of Central Government
staff to 4 million. 'There was no protest. In China, protest is unheard
of. Would Vajpayee dare to do what his counterpart in China can do? We
in India live in a different culture where individual freedom is respected.
We have stiff labour laws. In China workers who work 8-hour shifts promise
to work for 12 hours without asking for overtime. As Arun Shourie told
his interviewer: "If our MPs agree to this, India will overtake China."
Let us be glad we live in India-for all its myriad problems. At least we
are a free people.