Page 164 - EW December 2020

Books

Tale of two dictatorship’s imminent
challenges with the Mus-
nations INDIA’S CHINA CHALLENGE lim population of Xinjiang
Ananth Krishnan
HARPER COLLLINS province, Hong Kong and
Taiwan. And finally an en-
Rs.417
VERY TRUE gaging last chapter titled
nationalist with Pages 420 ‘portraits’ contradicts the
Egenuine interest in common perception that
enabling the greater good the Chinese people are a
of the greatest number is faceless herd of obedient
certain to experience pain, erates, poised to flood the Right until 1980 the conformists.
remorse and anguish while national market and Asia economies of China Unfortunately time
reading this extraordinary with goods and services. and India were on a and space constraints of a
narrative. It documents On the other hand par. This brilliant book book review do not permit
the rise of the People’s China, ravaged by the Jap- details and explains extensive recitation of
Republic of China (PRC) anese invasion of World the explosive growth the manifold causes and
from a struggling third War II and civil war, was of China and why effects of the unprec-
world country suffering down in the dumps. Worse India is an also ran edented modern China
recurrent political in the late 1950s, PRC growth story. But its main
disorder, famines, suffered a massive famine takeaway is the insight of
humiliating poverty and precipitated by Chairman modern China is on course Huang Yasheng, an econo-
illiteracy, into the world’s Mao’s ill-advised Great to regaining its Middle mist at the Massachusetts
second most economically, Leap Forward project Kingdom status of the Institute of Technology
educationally and (1958-62), whose objective ancient world to which all (USA), cited by Krishnan
militarily powerful nation. was overnight transforma- nations paid homage. as observing that China’s
All within the lifetime of tion of the nation into a This must-read work is post-1980s growth story
the millennial generation. steel manufacturing giant. divided into six engrossing began “first by dramati-
Consider this: In 1949 In the devastation that chapters — politics which cally improving agricul-
when the Republic of followed, 36 million PRC provides a brief political ture yields and then by
China was promulgated by citizens starved to death. history of PRC from Mao starting many small-scale
Mao Zedong, chairman of Right until 1980 — to the rise of incum- businesses in food-pro-
the Communist Party of some economists say 1990 bent President Xi Ping; cessing and construction
China (CCP), neighbouring — when Deng Xiaoping economy which narrates materials.” “Where did
India which had attained took charge of PRC’s eco- the causes and effects of the government of such a
political independence nomic development, the the fantastic growth of low-income country get
from almost two centuries economies of India and China’s GDP, the rise of the money to finance all
of British rule in 1947, was China were on a par. The PRC’s great megacities and this impressive urban in-
way ahead of our neigh- merit of this book, written its transformation into a frastructure? The answer:
bour nation to the north by Ananth Krishnan, a technology super-power. rural China,” says Huang
by north-east on every social sciences postgrad After this the book who explains that the
metric of national develop- of Chicago University and details the history of seeds of modern China’s
ment. Newly independent Beijing-based China corre- Sino-Indian relations sustained 10 percent plus
India had dozens of excel- spondent of The Hindu, is starting with India-China rate of annual GDP growth
lent universities, a highly- that it details and explains Panch Shila bonhomie was driven by millions
promising industrial base PRC’s explosive growth of the early 1950s during of Township and Village
established by resourceful from the time when sec- which opportunity to settle Enterprises (TVEs).
entrepreneurs includ- retary Deng took charge demarcation of the 4,000 Obviously this burst of
ing G.D. Birla, JRD Tata, of the Chinese economy km Sino-Indian border entrepreneurial activity
Walchand Hirachand, in 1978 to last year. After was neglected; the 1962 wouldn’t have been pos-
Ambalal Sarabhai, Kas- this era of four decades, border war and ending sible without development
turbhai Lalbhai and Lala China’s annual GDP ($15 with the Doklam Plateau of the country’s human
Shri Ram among others, trillion) is second only to (2017) and bloody Galwan capital. “As early as 1965
who in the teeth of British the US ($21 trillion), while skirmish earlier this China boasted better
opposition had established India’s is a distant $3 year. And the concluding education and longer life
large industrial conglom- trillion. Little wonder that chapters discuss the party expectancy for its citizens

164 EDUCATIONWORLD DECEMBER 2020