It's India Above China in New World
Order
HBSWK Pub. Date: Jul
28, 2003
Can India overtake China? That's the title of an influential new
article in Foreign Policy magazine. A Q&A with authors Yasheng
Huang of MIT and Tarun Khanna of
HBS. |
by Martha Lagace, Senior Editor, HBS Working
Knowledge
Comparing India and China is to embark on an old puzzle that has fascinated
smart people for centuries. The newer question of economic leadership,
however?Which country will overtake the other in the foreseeable future?" ?s an
urgent and important one, according to a provocative article in the July-August
issue of Foreign Policy magazine.
It is urgent and important because China and India are the world's next major
powers, according to the writers, Yasheng Huang, formerly of Harvard Business
School and now a professor at M.I.T. Sloan School of Management, and Tarun
Khanna, a professor of strategy at HBS. It is also important because the two
countries have embraced very different models of development.
The reasons they have done so are complex but, in general, China has
discouraged or actively undermined local entrepreneurship in favor of an foreign
direct investment-dependent approach, they say. India, on the other hand, is
building an infrastructure?owever slowly?hat allows entrepreneurship and free
enterprise to thrive. By making fuller use of its resources, India's long-term
outlook may be far stronger, they suggest. Macroeconomic statistics cited by
Huang and Khanna show China clearly in the lead. "But," the authors wonder in
Foreign Policy, "the real issue isn't where China and India are today, but where
they will be tomorrow."
How these two models play out has great significance not just for Asia but
also for other parts of the world that want to benefit from their lessons and
avoid their mistakes.
Huang and Khanna recently collaborated on an e-mail interview with HBS
Working Knowledge to discuss their Foreign Policy article, "Can India Overtake
China?"
Lagace: "China and
India are the world's next major powers," you both write. "They also offer
competing models of development." What are the most important differences you
see in the ways China and India are evolving?
Yasheng Huang and Tarun Khanna: In terms of similarities, both are conscious
of their role in the world economy. Both seek to play a bigger political role on
the world stage. China is already doing that as a permanent member of the U.N.
Security Council. The differences include the fact that China is taking tangible
but slow steps towards embracing private entrepreneurship, a big departure from
the past. India is continuing to struggle with making things easier for
multinationals. So the differences are arguably narrowing; but our view is that
the first-order effect of all this is still "a big difference."
The biggest source of worry is the state of
China's banking sector, which is technically
insolvent.
?asheng Huang and Tarun
Khanna
|
Q: As you think about the future of both countries, what are your main
concerns or worries, given these two different models?
A: Our concerns for China are these: how will China give political voice to
the public, if at all, along with increasing economic autonomy? We are also
concerned about instability caused by migration to cities and the large (though
decreasing) role of bankrupt, state-owned enterprises that continue to play a
Social Security-like role in China. But the biggest source of worry is the state
of China's banking sector, which is technically insolvent. The banking problem
is one of the biggest costs of the delay associated with developing a vibrant,
domestic private sector.
Here are our concerns for India. How will India rein in its fiscal deficit?
How will India discipline its political class? One challenge India faces is
deregulation. India is also quite over-regulated compared to other countries at
its level of per capita income.
Q: How does foreign direct investment affect the economic outlook for both
countries?
A: In general, FDI has been positive to both economies. It has, after all,
provided goods and services that did not otherwise exist. It has also introduced
competition into moribund sectors. We do not buy the old, inward-looking
economic ideology of the 1960s and 1970s that advocated protecting domestic
markets. For China, however, the government liberalized its external sector way
ahead of its internal sector. The government should speed up its reforms in the
internal sector rather than scale back external sector reforms.
Q: On the influence of ?igr?, you write, "With the help of its diaspora,
China has won the race to be the world's factory. With the help of its diaspora,
India could become the world's technology lab." Tell us briefly how and why you
believe Chinese and Indian ?igr? have come to perpetuate such different roles.
Do you see these roles changing?
A: The different composition of the Chinese and Indian diasporas has to do
with the different time periods during which each diaspora settled overseas and
the different circumstances under which it did so. The Indian diaspora consists
more of professionals; the Chinese consists more of entrepreneurs outside China.
The implications of the differential structure of the diasporas is only now
being appreciated, at least in the commercial arena. India has been particularly
unreceptive?xcept until very recently?o embracing the diaspora.
Q: How is your message about the pace of India and China being received by
economists, policy specialists, or business people?
A: We think they see it as a new and intriguing way to look at a
centuries-old comparison. The best endorsement for our article is the way in
which it has been disseminated. In India, it has spread by word of mouth and
been reprinted in numerous newspapers and magazines. In China, one is hard
pressed to find public discussion of the article; though the message is being
discussed, we've been told, in other, less transparent forums. This is, in some
sense, part of the very point of the article!
Q: How will you continue to delve into this area of research? What's next for
you?
A: We are writing a book on China and India, eventually. We hope to use this
to jump-start further research.
Yasheng Huang is an associate professor at the Sloan School of Management at
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the author most recently of
Selling China: Foreign Direct Investment during the Reform Era (Cambridge
University Press, 2002).
Tarun Khanna is a professor at Harvard Business School.