"What we want is not China first, but India first. ”
India's foreign minister frequently made astonishing remarks, and every word was played against China. India's general election is imminent, and this move is intended to boost Modi's election results, but if it is too much, it will inevitably lead to loopholes.
Can India surpass China? The answer to this question is not the same as India's. Of course, there are countries that choose to avoid the facts for the sake of their own interests, and this is another matter.
The majority view is that the answer is no. Former Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew even directly said that India is not a country in the true sense.
Why is it said that India cannot catch up with China, and why can't India be regarded as a real country?
India's dream of a great power
To answer the question of whether India can surpass China, we need to first understand what India has done and the actual effect of these actions.
There is no doubt that India has a dream of great power, especially since Modi came to power, and India seems to be getting closer and closer to this goal.
In recent years, especially after the Russian-Ukrainian war, the third brother's presence on the international stage is increasing day by day. This side continues to promote pragmatic cooperation with Russia, buying discounted oil on a large scale and then reselling it at a high price.
From crude oil to processed products, reselling tricks to a new height and making a lot of money. Any voice of skepticism has been strongly rebuffed: no one can teach India how to do it.
On the other hand, he has eyebrows with Europe and the United States, especially the United States, which has given the third brother high-standard treatment for the first time, supported the G20 summit held by him in a high-profile manner, and specially invited the third brother to visit, giving enough face.
Of course, the most beautiful thing is the India-China European Economic Corridor, which sounds like it has the meaning of calling for our Belt and Road Initiative.
In addition to diplomacy, the third brother has also done a lot of things internally, here are a few examples.
The first is to revitalize the manufacturing industry. As soon as he came to power, he put forward an ambitious "Make in India" blueprint, with the goal of increasing the proportion of manufacturing to 25% by 2025.
The third brother is not a joke, he made specific plans during his tenure, from version 1.0 to version 2.0, and then to the production incentive plan, which is very good.
The second is to vigorously engage in infrastructure construction in India. Since coming to power, infrastructure construction has become the third brother's political achievement project, and capital investment has increased year after year, and by 2022, the investment in railway construction projects alone will be as high as 30 billion US dollars, which is 9 times higher than at the beginning of his administration!
In addition to railways, bridges, roads, railway stations, and airports have also been built.
According to statistics, during the third brother's tenure, 50,000 kilometers of roads have been built, more than 30,000 are under construction, more than 1,000 railway stations have been renovated, and more than 70 airports have been built, all of which are his political achievements.
The third is the environmental governance of the Ganges. During his tenure, the third brother has been promoting the governance of the Ganges River and promised to give the people of the whole country a clear "mother".
The government has allocated US$2.4 billion for more than 70 treatment plans to control the pollution of the Ganges.
Objectively speaking, the three construction directions of the third brother are correct. However, it is one thing to be able to think of it, and it is another thing to be able to do it well, after all, these three areas are not simple. Of course, whether India does well or not has a bearing on whether its dream of becoming a great power can be realized, and whether it can surpass China.
So is it doing well? Unfortunately, not very well.
India can't catch up with China
Compared with the left and right sources on the international stage, the benefits are exhausted, and the national construction of the third brother is almost meaningless.
Let's start with manufacturing. The third brother has two terms of office, a period of 10 years, and the continuity of the policy is guaranteed, so what is the effect?
The proportion of manufacturing in GDP was 16% in 2015 and 14% in 2021.
Why is this so? There are three main factors. One is that the quality of the labor force is generally not high.
The Indian people have a low level of education and cannot meet the basic requirements of the high-end manufacturing industry.
Of course, this also has something to do with the structure of India's economy, where agriculture is dominant, and 80% of the population is tied to agricultural production. This upside-down structure cannot reserve high-quality labor for the manufacturing industry.
Furthermore, there is a lack of a complete ecosystem. The "ecosystem" here mainly refers to the supply chain, that is, the upstream and downstream supporting production capacity, mostly some small and medium-sized enterprises.
India lacks such small and medium-sized enterprises. Take mobile phones as an example, due to the lack of relevant parts supporting manufacturers in India, mobile phone manufacturers often need to import parts from abroad, and the cost will increase.
Don't underestimate these small and medium-sized enterprises, they are the hard indicators of the manufacturing industry: if a country does not have these small and medium-sized enterprises, it means that the country's manufacturing foundation is very thin, and the development of manufacturing will encounter bottlenecks.
In addition, the business environment is not friendly. It is already a common practice for the third brother government to suppress foreign-funded enterprises. Google, Amazon, Xiaomi, VIVO, etc., have all been slaughtered by the third brother.
A while ago, the third brother proposed that foreign-funded enterprises should let locals be executives, which can be described as a new trick to suppress the means.
Let's talk about infrastructure. This topic can be said to have its own traffic. There are many netizens on the Internet who ridiculed India's infrastructure, train collisions, derailments, bridge collapses, and high-speed rail dystocia, which is really Indian.
This ridicule speaks to the pain points of India's infrastructure: too low efficiency and poor quality.
According to statistics, from 2017 to 2021, in five years, there were 2,017 accidents in India, with 100,000 fatalities. The probability of accidents is so high that it has labeled India's infrastructure as "unreliable".
The difficult birth of high-speed rail reflects another characteristic of India's infrastructure: drag. Now Indonesia's Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway has been in operation for almost half a year, and India's high-speed rail has not yet seen a shadow.
Let's look at the governance of the Ganges. Sange's goal of controlling the Ganges River is to complete it by 2020 and restore the Ganges River to a clean place. As a result, only 1% of the watershed has been treated, and many of them are not up to standard.
In fact, the governance of the Ganges River is not so much about controlling the water as it is about treating the people.
The Ganges involves all kinds of people in India, for example, the people near the Ganges, who cannot eat, drink and drink without the Ganges, and if they do not change their lifestyles, the Ganges will continue to be polluted.
There are also Hindus, who go to the Ganges to bathe and wash their souls, which has become part of the faith, and if they do not change their religious habits, the Ganges will continue to be polluted.
There are also business owners in the Ganges basin, who make money by reaping economic benefits at the cost of polluting the environment, and if they do not change their extensive production methods, the Ganges will continue to pollute.
There are also people in various states, everyone is for the ballot, and they will do whatever the voters care about, after all, only by serving the voters well can they have a future.
Obviously, the third brother did not change these people, and he himself also wants to vote, if he offends everyone, and in the end the water of the Ganges River is clear, and he steps down, then what is the point?
Frankly speaking, these problems encountered by the third brother are long-standing problems in India, and they can also be said to be chronic diseases, even if there is a fourth brother or a fifth brother, it may not be able to do better than the third brother, you know, the third brother is not lacking in courage.
Therefore, India cannot catch up with China. In this regard, the former prime minister of Singapore has a sharper view, saying that India cannot be regarded as a real country. How do you say that?
A strange country
India is a diverse country, and its diversity has reached the point of confusion, making India not look like a country in the real sense of the word. We can analyze it from several aspects.
One is the caste system and hierarchical society. The caste system has a long history in India. Even in the new era, even if it claims to be a democracy, its caste system still exists.
There are five castes in India, corresponding to five classes, from highest to lowest, Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, Shudras, and Dalits.
Intercaste marriage is not accepted in many parts of India, and there is serious caste discrimination, especially against Dalits, which has reached its extreme.
Dalits are called untouchables, unclean, untouchable, and even people of the upper castes feel tainted just by looking at them.
The high castes enjoy a high social status and can obtain high-quality resources, such as social wealth, educational resources, political resources, etc., and they are either rich or expensive, and they are proper social elites.
And the low-caste have nothing, not only are they poor, but they also have to endure social discrimination, even if they die, they can't be cremated.
The United Nations has not been able to see it, and has directly called India's caste system a systemic discrimination and put forward a clear objection. Of course, India is India, and how can it accept such criticism and still go its own way.
Second, religion is complicated. There are many religions in India, in addition to the three more influential religions, Hinduism, Islam, Sikhism, and other religions, such as Buddhism.
The convergence of multiple religions, intertwined with ethnic and political issues, has made it even more complex, which has led to the division and fragmentation of Indian society.
The third is the small government of large localities. The Indian government is unable to make strong coordination at the local level, and the states selectively enforce the government's executive orders out of their own interests.
Take the Ganges River governance as an example, the funds allocated by the government have been misappropriated by some states for other purposes, such as building toilets, and of course, there are also people who fill their own pockets.
In addition, from the frequent occurrence of tofu slag projects in infrastructure, such as the signs of collapse on the newly built bridge, and the asphalt road on the carpet, it can also be seen how perfunctory the implementation of government directives is in various states.
Rather than carrying out government orders, state principals care more about the opinions of their constituents and pay more attention to satisfying them. After all, it is up to the voters to decide whether they can do it or not.
It can be seen that it is not easy to manage such a loose country. It is even more difficult to lead such a divided, even torn country to achieve prosperity and strength, than to ascend to the sky!
Even the ambitious third brother has been busy for ten years, and in the end, he has to be for votes.
Therefore, after gaining an in-depth understanding of India, Lee Kuan Yew sighed with emotion, saying that India is a mess. This is in one sentence.
epilogue
How do you view India? It is too special, it has a large population, it is indeed large, its ambitions are not small, and it is also actively working hard, but the problems of race, religion, and political parties are intertwined and intricate, and they are still chaotic, can it really handle it well?
What makes people laugh and cry is that in recent years, it has set its sights on China, and it has to compare with China everywhere, and it has to be compared with what is comparable, such as population, and what cannot be compared, such as economic construction, so it has made a lot of jokes.
A while ago, the third brother's aerospace industry propaganda poster had Chinese elements in the background, which made the outside world cry and laugh. China's achievements in the aerospace industry are remarkable, and this kind of comparison will not hurt? All these things, but the third brother is still happy to do this, and he has to be more energetic. Sure enough, it's India.
#春日生活打卡季#
- Artist: 本草纲目
- Edit: The sound of the night rain is annoying
- Bibliography:
- Sun Changyue.India's "manufacturing ambition" is not enough[N].Economic Daily,2024-01-26(004).
- World Knowledge,2023,(15):36-38.
- Train collision and bridge collapse, what happened to India's infrastructure?[J].Integrity Outlook,2023,(11):52-53.
- Gong Shui.caste discrimination in India continues to this day[J].Procuratorate Fengyun,2020,(23):54-55.)
- Zhangjiang.India:Intensify efforts to remediate Ganges River pollution[J].Procuratorate Fengyun,2020,(06):50-51.)