Rivals and partners

Going ahead, success of India, China will hinge on urbanisation and energy. They must share lessons

WHEN INDIAN PRIME Minister Narendra Modi visited Beijing in 2015, he observed that China has a strong tradition of learning, citing an old saying: “If you think in terms of a year, plant a seed; if in terms of ten years, plant trees; if in terms of 100 years, teach the people”. India too, he pointed out, shares this core belief that knowledge and learning are supreme. As the China Development Forum kicks off in Beijing this weekend, leaders from both countries should look to each other as partners in collaboration and knowledge-sharing to tackle some of the most urgent challenges of our time.

While China and India may have many substantial differences, the two Asian giants also have much in common. They are the two most populous nations, as well as two of the world’s largest economies. Both countries have made extraordinary strides in growth and poverty reduction. China has harnessed three decades of rapid development to lift more than 700 million citizens out of poverty. India’s GDP rose by almost 9 per cent each year for nearly a decade beginning in 2003, and it has surpassed China as the world’s fastest growing major economy.

These gains, however, have been slowed by high environmental and social costs. Income inequality, for instance, poses a particular challenge: The richest 1 per cent of households in China own a third of the country’s wealth, while in India, they own about 58 per cent. Spreading the benefits of growth to a wider portion of their populations will be key which, in turn, suggests that in future, the quality of growth for both will matter more than solely the quantity.

In each country, air pollution from vehicles, power plants and industry leads to more than one million premature deaths per year. Energy-intensive manufacturing, rapid urbanisation and high energy and consumption demands have made China and India the first and third highest emitters of greenhouse gases respectively. Recently, both have