India’s pursuit of growth: Lessons from China story

Fixing basics such as education and health care was the key to Beijing's rise, apart from building its manufacturing prowess and competing for supremacy

- Janmejaya Sinha

The great winner of this century has been China. At the turn of the century, its gross domestic product (GDP) stood at $1.2 trillion, and, today, it is $18.7 trillion —essentially, a multiplier of 15.5 in 25 years. India’s creditable rise, of 8.5 times (from $485 billion to $4.1 trillion) in the same period dwarfs in comparison, given that, in 1980, China’s GDP was approximately the same as India's ($191 billion dollars to $186 billion). As a non-China scholar, in this piece, I offer an outside-in view on this unprecedented achievement.

Fix the basics: In 1978, on taking charge as the paramount leader — the informal designation used to refer to the most important political figure in China — Deng Xiaoping made several strong moves to fix basics such as agriculture (and water), health care, and primary education. Collective farming was abolished and replaced by a household responsibility system where farmers made production decisions and could sell their surplus. By 2000, the value added in the country’s agriculture sector surged from $137 billion to $370 billion; cereal yields increased from 3,000 kg per hectare to 4,800 kg per hectare and the share of the workforce in agriculture reduced from 68% to 50%. It stands at 22% today. Water use was dramatically reduced by a shift to sprinkler and drip irrigation away from flood irrigation. In 1986, the compulsory education law was enacted, introducing nine years of education with a focus on basic literacy and numeracy. Literacy rates went up from 65% to 90% by the 1990s. In health care, the focus under Chairman Mao Zedong on preventive campaigns gave way to significant market reforms that were accelerated after the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 2003, transforming eventually into universal health insurance coverage.