The Post-American World - Fareed Zakaria [67]
While Indian infrastructure is improving, and further additions and renovations to the country’s airports, highways, and ports are planned, India will not look like China. Democracy may bring certain advantages for long-term development, but autocratic governments are able to plan and execute major infrastructure projects with unrivaled efficiency. This is apparent whether one compares China with India or with Britain. The architect Norman Foster pointed out to me that in the time it took for the environmental review process for one new building at Heathrow, Terminal Five, he will have built—start to finish—the entire new Beijing airport, which is larger than all five of Heathrow’s terminals combined.
Yet even if great infrastructure pleases foreign travelers and investors and signals a country on the move, its economic impact can be exaggerated. When China was growing at its fastest, in the 1980s and early 1990s, it had terrible roads, bridges, and airports—far worse than India does today. Even in the developed world, the country with the best infrastructure does not always win. France has trains and roads that gleam next to America’s creaky system. But it’s the U.S. economy that has edged ahead for the last three decades. A vibrant private sector can deliver extraordinary growth even when traveling on bad roads.
Some scholars argue that India’s path has distinct advantages. MIT’s Yasheng Huang points out that Indian companies use their capital far more efficiently than Chinese companies, in part because they do not have access to almost unlimited supplies of it.4 They benchmark to global standards and are better managed than Chinese firms. Despite starting its reforms later (and thus being earlier in the development cycle) than China, India has produced many more world-class companies, including Tata, Infosys, Ranbaxy, and Reliance. And its advantage is even more apparent at the lower levels. Every year, Japan awards the coveted Deming Prizes for managerial innovation. Over the last five years, they have been awarded more often to Indian companies than to firms from any other country, including Japan. India’s financial sector is at least as transparent and efficient as any in developing Asia (that is, excluding Singapore and Hong Kong).
“The statistics don’t capture the shift in mentality,” says Uday Kotak, the founder of a booming financial services firm. “The India I grew up in is another country. The young people whom I work with today are just so much more confident and excited about what they can do here.” The old assumption that “made in India” means second-rate is disappearing. Indian companies are buying stakes in Western companies because they think they can do a better job of managing them. Indian investment in Britain in 2006 and 2007 was larger than British investment in India.
And it’s not just business. Urban India is bursting with enthusiasm. Fashion designers, writers, and artists talk about extending their influence across the globe. Bollywood movie stars are growing their audience from its domestic “base” of half a billion by winning new fans outside of India. Cricket players have revamped the game and are working to attract crowds abroad. It is as if hundreds of millions of people had suddenly discovered the keys to unlock their potential. As a famous Indian once put it, “A moment comes, which comes but rarely