I recently spent about 10 days in China and I am suppose to go there again in two weeks for more than a week. During the latest visit, I was in Shanghai, Beijing, and Xi’an. What I saw and experienced there has been very impressive — I am not able to get it out of my head. The speed at which they have been able to build their physical, manufacturing, business, and educational infrastructure is unbelievable. Living in USA and being originally from India (where I visit every year), I am used to believing that democratic system is much better in the long term and hence China’s progress will be less desirable than that of India — for example. But every time I go, my belief is challenged. It appears that China is doing everything right to help their citizens and is building right environment for them.
I agree that the human rights and freedom issues are extremely important for a society, but can I really compare human ‘rights’ of people in countries like India and say that what they have more valuable than the facilities that Governemnt is building for people by providing them opportunities for betterment of their and their children’s life?
Or can I say that the democracy that exists in India is going to turn around and create leaders in the next 50 years who will think about the society and build things for society rather than exploiting religion and ignorant masses and keep propagating ignorance (rather than education) for their own short term gain making them the biggest (by a large margin) investors of Black money in Switzerlan, whils having one of the worst infrastructure in the country.
I don’t have any answers and I am not a social scientist — but some of these thoughts have been keeping me wondering about the system that is evolving in China and the system that is in India and sometimes even in USA where Republicans must oppose whatever the democratic president wants to accomplish — independent of whether it is good or bad — because that is required for them to have any chance in the next election.