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Strategies & Market Trends : China Warehouse- More Than Crockery -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RealMuLan who wrote (3319)	7/2/2004 5:17:46 PM
From: RealMuLan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6370

China draws lessons from Indian elections IANS Beijing July 2: The Indian elections in May that voted out the National Democratic Alliance government continues to be scrutinised and studied in detail by Chinese analysts for the lessons it could draw from it.What has struck the analysts is what they see as the clear message from the elections — if the benefits of economic reforms do not percolate down to the rural areas, it could have a serious backlash and will prove to be its own undoing. Though China has no democratic elections and the Communist Party of China faces no political challenge, they feel they can learn from the outcome of the Indian elections. “Indian elections have lessons for China,” said Mr Sun Shihai, deputy director of the Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a Beijing-based think tank. “We are looking at the results very keenly. China and India are still economically backward countries and we face the same problems of development,” Mr Sun told IANS. Even though China is a closed society and there is little public debate in the media over government policies and programmes, social debate does take place behind closed doors of think tanks, community groups and welfare organisations. Said an Indian diplomat: “It is wrong to think that there is no debate in China on the issue of rural discontent. You can’t run a country of 1.3 billion without a debate.” He said the debates took place constantly at various levels, although they did not get publicised in the media. Though the Chinese economy has been hurtling at a heady 8-9 per cent in the past few years, officials acknowledge that a lot more needed to be done to ensure that the prosperity so evident in cities like Beijing and Shanghai reached the villages too. Premier, Mr Wen Jiabao’s report to the National People’s Congress in March had reflected this concern and this was reinforced by the Indian elections, analysts said. Mr Wen emphasised the need for minimising regional imbalances by pushing forward the development of the backward western, north-eastern and central regions. His most important recommendation, however, was to earmark 30 billion yuan for agriculture and rural development for the current year and increase funding for poverty alleviation programmes, besides provision for irrigation, potable water supply and road infrastructure for the rural areas. “We have four million people joining the ranks of the unemployed every year, mostly in the rural areas, and only about 1.5 million of them find jobs,” said a government official. “Before the economic reforms were introduced the (Communist) party ensured jobs for everyone. That situation has changed. Now each has to fend for himself,” the official added. And analysts and officials think that perhaps the way the new Indian government approaches the problem could have some useful tips for China that closely monitors happenings in India. navhindtimes.com