"If India grows as predicted, one day it will catch up with China, and may even surpass it."

This is the recent statement by Singapore's former Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. When Chinese people hear this, they often feel surprised. So, is Lee Hsien Loong foolish or malicious? Some people even wonder, what qualification does India have to compare with China?

Actually, this is a consistent argument of Lee Hsien Loong. His reasoning is: India has a younger population structure, while China's population has already passed its peak.

(Lee Hsien Loong)

The topic of whether China or India would have the future became popular from the early 21st century.

In the 1980s and 1990s, although scholars from both China and India were always discussing which country's development was more efficient and which path was brighter, the Western world saw China and India as two similar countries. For a long time, China's GDP indicators were only slightly better than India's, and even per capita railway length was not as good as India's.

Although some insightful scholars pointed out that China had a relatively complete national economic system, had its own high technology R&D potential, and had more effective social management and organization, the Western society was unmoved, seeing China and India as sources of large-scale cheap labor, at most as suppliers of low-value labor-intensive products.

Singapore, which considers itself a close ally of the Western world and has already taken a step into the threshold of developed countries, also held a contemptuous and dismissive attitude towards China and India.

After China joined the WTO, the superior social system turned potential into actual performance. The term "China miracle" was constantly being used. The West desperately needed another country's success to prove that the Chinese model was nothing special, because "China developed because of the open market and technological support from the West". It was as if as long as the West wanted to support another country, that country could replace and surpass China.

India, with a population size similar to China's, became the country expected to be the "other country." Discussions on when India would surpass China became one of the topics among some overseas strategic and economic research scholars.

(India nominally has universal primary education)

Additionally, from the writings of former U.S. President Nixon, we can find an interesting clue. Lee Kuan Yew, the father of Singapore, always believed that he was the most successful leader in the Chinese world, completely looking down on China's development path. In reality, the more successful China's path became, the more it proved that Lee Kuan Yew had been mistaken. This was hard for Singapore politicians to accept.

Therefore, it is not surprising that Singapore's upper echelons make remarks and even take actions to undermine China's economic development model. However, by 2025, even the number one capitalist power in the world, the United States, has regarded China as an equal rival. Trump even proposed the G2 concept. It seems rather outdated for Lee Hsien Loong to try to convince people that India could surpass China.

Lee Hsien Loong's view is that Chinese society is rapidly aging, while India's population is relatively young. Therefore, when China follows the same path as Western developed countries and moves manufacturing overseas, India is the most likely candidate to take over. Thus, history might enter another cycle, with India following China's path to develop manufacturing, becoming a powerful industrial product exporter, and naturally surpassing China.

(A large number of Indian job seekers waiting outside the factory)

Lee Hsien Loong's statements can be called a rigid historical view. Every country in the world has its own national conditions and should find a development path suitable for itself. No country has ever succeeded by completely copying another country's development model, just as South Korea cannot copy Japan, and Singapore cannot copy South Korea, nor can India copy China.

Except for differences in social systems, land ownership, infrastructure, and international status, even just discussing Lee Hsien Loong's population perspective, there are vast differences between China and India.

India is a country that has not yet achieved "nominal social equality," and its compulsory education is very poor. For ordinary Indians, if they study well, the best life is to go to the Western world and find a job in the United States, Canada, or Europe.

There are almost no opportunities for development within India itself. As for successful people returning home to start businesses and solve employment problems in their hometowns, such cases are almost nonexistent in India.

India's legal system dares to adopt a "shut the door and beat the dog" policy against Western multinational corporations. The Apple production line introduced with great effort is now facing new extortion. Under such policies, even if India has a large young population, the international market will not provide it with the opportunity for rapid industrial development.

If we only look at the population structure, Afghanistan also has a lot of young people, with a higher proportion of young people than India.

(Comparison of electricity generation between China and India: India, with a population of 1.4 billion, has the same amount of electricity generation as Japan, with a population of 120 million. How can it develop industry?)

Another important premise of Lee Hsien Loong's views is that the gap in manufacturing technology between China and India is not significant, and that India can take over what China gives up. This view was also popular in the 1990s, with some scholars arguing that China could transfer its obsolete technologies to India, just like Japan did with China.

However, as China's industrial upgrading speed continues to accelerate, the gap between the two countries' manufacturing levels is widening. Even the obsolete technologies and capacities that China has phased out, India may not be able to take over. Those high-energy-consuming production equipment requires basic conditions such as electricity, logistics, coal, and oil, which India's infrastructure level cannot provide.

Moreover, as a country with high summer temperatures, India cannot carry out large-scale labor-intensive production without extensive air conditioning installation. In 2000, when Lee Kuan Yew was interviewed by the Asian Wall Street Journal, a journalist asked, "What is the key factor that has driven Singapore's economic development?" Lee Kuan Yew replied: a major reason was the help of air conditioners (air conditioning).

If India does not solve the issue of air conditioning, it will not have large-scale manufacturing. And widespread use of air conditioning requires a massive power system as support. Although India has obtained many thermal power plants from China in recent years, it is still far from supporting air conditioning for hundreds of millions of people.

Lee Hsien Loong avoids talking about this, possibly considering air conditioning as something humans are born with. The problem is, how many Indians are born with access to air conditioning?

Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7569784861557359130/

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