Comparison of India and China

COMPARISON OF INDIA
AND CHINA

Comparison of India and China
India and China are the two countries whose population and unemployment rates are almost
alike. The current GDP rates of both these nations are counted among the highest in the entire
world. Still, the economy of China is comparatively many times larger than India. Until 1985
China and India had almost equal GDP of 293 US dollars per person (Friesen, 2019). After
1985 till today the economy of India has progressed a lot but China’s economy has actually
outperformed.
There are few aspects which has and may come in way of India’s future growth and
development. India is a democratic country and therefore it becomes really difficult to take
any decision without the consent of its citizens and opposite is the case in the country China
where Chinese Communist Party (CCP) rules the nation with few barriers.
For instance, India took sixteen years to pass 2016 tax reform bill. The project of damming
Yangtze river could not take place in India. On the contrary, China spent a decade to
construct the Three Gorges Dam which is the world’s largest hydropower project. This
decision removed thirteen cities, 1.2 million citizens, 1350 villages and 140 towns. No doubt,
this project involved heavy environmental and social cost but at the end it facilitated Chinese
with a clean energy source and created enormous job opportunity for them.
Therefore, for a rapid development an authoritarian political system comes an upper hand
over democratic political system. Still, India’s infrastructure development is really poor as a
result of democratic political system and China is developing on a fast pace in terms of
infrastructure. This difference in political system can affect the economic growth and
development of India.
China has always tried to develop its human resources and therefore it has invested heavily in
both education and healthcare. In case of India, both health and education has always been an
area to worry about (Kapoor, 2019). Human Development Index (HDI) report of 2015
classified China as “High Human Development” and India as “Medium Human
Development” (Naseem, 2017).
Another factor which has and may further slow down India’s economic growth is the low rate
of urbanisation. Back in 1969 the urbanisation rate of India was higher than China. From
1969, China’s rate of urbanisation went up drastically and today approximately 58% of
Chinese citizens lives in cities. These people have shifted from agricultural sector to service
sector. In case of India the rate of urbanisation is just around 37% which means maximum
population are still engaged in agricultural sector (Roberts, 2019).
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