Author: Lee Kuan Yew
Publication: Forbes
Date: December 24, 2007
URL: http://www.forbes.com:80/forbes/2007/1224/033.html?partner=globalnews_newsletter
Even though the economy's annual growth rate
has been 8% to 9% for the last five years, India's peaceful rise hasn't led
to unease over the country's future. Instead, Americans, Japanese and western
Europeans are keen to invest in India, ride on its growth and help develop
another heavyweight country.
I recently had the opportunity to visit New
Delhi twice. In November JPMorgan Chase (nyse: JPM - news - people ) brought
its international advisory board, its European board and its principal officers
from many parts of the world to the city for a two-day meeting. And earlier
this month Citigroup (nyse: C - news - people ) invited me to speak along
with the bank's top leaders at an Asia-Pacific Business Leaders' Summit there.
Two of the largest U.S. banks consider India to be a growth story and are
eager to service American and Indian companies. I did not detect any anxiety
over India becoming a problem to the present world order.
Why has China's peaceful rise, however, raised
apprehensions? Is it because India is a democracy in which numerous political
forces are constantly at work, making for an internal system of checks and
balances? Most probably, yes--especially as India's governments have tended
to be made up of large coalitions of 10 to 20 parties.
One example of India's "checks and balances"
at work was the suspension of its talks on a U.S. nuclear power deal. Although
this deal is manifestly in India's interests, 60 communist MPs--part of the
Congress Party-led coalition government--opposed the deal. Subsequently, the
Communists allowed negotiations to resume, reserving their position on the
outcome. India's development will, from time to time, run into domestic obstruction.
Contrast this with the singleness of purpose
in policy and its execution displayed by China's Communist government.
India's navy has an aircraft-carrier force;
its air force has the latest Sukhoi and MiG aircraft; its army is among the
best trained and equipped in Asia. India can project power across its borders
farther and better than China can, yet there is no fear that India has aggressive
intentions.
Could this be because India is surrounded
by states in turmoil? Pakistan is in crisis; a bad outcome there will increase
the terrorist threat to India. As Pervez Musharraf is now an elected civilian
president, he won't have the same command over the army he has had as army
chief. And any other elected president will have even less sway over the military.
Nepal is a deeply divided and troubled country. Sri Lanka is embroiled in
an unending civil war, with the Tamil Tigers carrying out endless suicide
bombings. India obviously has preoccupations enough to keep its focus fixed
on its border regions.
Different Impact
Suppose China were also a democracy with multiple
parties and political power bases? Would a multiparty China with a yearly
economic growth rate of 9% to 12% be viewed with the same equanimity as India
is? Such a China would probably continue to make big strides on the economic,
social and military fronts, with more sophisticated capabilities on the ground
and sea and in the air and space, and would eventually become a peer competitor,
if not an adversary, of the U.S.
The speed of China's change and the thoroughness,
energy and drive with which the Chinese have built up their infrastructure
and pursued their goals spring from their culture, one that is shared by the
Koreans, Japanese and Vietnamese, who adopted the Chinese written script and
absorbed Confucian culture. The Chinese are determined to catch up with the
U.S., the EU and Japan. Fast-forward 20 to 30 years and the world will have
to accommodate a more technologically advanced and economically more sophisticated
China, whether under a single- or multiparty system.
India does not pose such a challenge--and
won't until it gets its social infrastructure up to First World standards
and further liberalizes its economy. Indeed, the U.S., the EU and Japan root
for India because they want a better-balanced world, in which India approximates
China's weight.
The Indian elite also speak, write and publish
in English. They hold a wide range of diverse views--and to the degree that
Amartya Sen, a Nobel winner in economics, entitled one of his books The Argumentative
Indian. Few Chinese, on the other hand, speak--let alone write in--English,
and what they publish in Chinese doesn't always disclose their innermost thoughts.
What if India were well ahead of China? Would
Americans and Europeans be rooting for China? I doubt it. They still have
a phobia of the "yellow peril," one reinforced by memories of the
outrages of the Cultural Revolution and the massacres in Tiananmen Square,
not to mention their strong feelings against Chinese government censorship.
China will have to live with these hang-ups. To reinforce the idea that theirs
will be a peaceful path going forward, the Chinese have rephrased the term
"peaceful rise" to "peaceful development." Greater openness
and transparency in Chinese society would also help.
Singapore and Southeast Asia (Asean), sandwiched
between these two behemoths, need China and India to achieve a balanced relationship,
one that allows both to grow and prosper, pulling up the rest of Asia--East,
Southeast and South--with them.
Lee Kuan Yew, minister mentor of Singapore;
Paul Johnson, eminent British historian and author; Ernesto Zedillo, director,
Yale Center for the Study of Globalization, and former president of Mexico,
rotate in writing this column. To see past Current Events columns, visit our
Web site at www.forbes.com/currentevents.