How China Triumphed Over India, And Won The Battle As The World's Best And Biggest Emerging Market

Mar. 04, 2014 9:17 AM ETFXI, EPI, INDY, PGJ, GXC, FXP, YINN, PIN, INP, INDL, YANG, MCHI, XPP, INDA, INXX, YAO, CXSE, YXI, FCA, TCHI-OLD12 Comments
Peter Fuhrman profile picture
Peter Fuhrman
581 Followers

Twenty years ago, India, not China, was the object of my absolute and total focus. Back then, I was living in London and working as a European bureau chief for Forbes Magazine. In May 1994, a story I co-wrote called "Now We Are Our Own Masters" appeared on the cover of Forbes (click here to read the article). It was the first time a big American magazine took the risk to suggest India, after so many years of pathetic growth, famine and unending poverty, was ready for an economic take-off. It turned out to be a smart call. Since then, India's economy has surged, growing seven-fold while poverty has declined steeply.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India_economy)

I spent about a month in India researching the article, meeting with political and business leaders. It was my third trip to the country. The first had been in 1978, as a young backpacking college student, on my way back to the US from a summer in Taiwan studying Mandarin. The two most vivid memories of that first trip - nearly dying from untreated amoebic dysentery, and hiding out for days in a place called Aurangabad as masses of Indian men rioted on the streets against the forced sterilization policy of India Gandhi. (Life lesson learned at 19: political popularity will be short-lived wherever a leader orders men at gunpoint to undergo genital surgery.)

It took another three years before I first set foot in China. On a lot of levels, the two countries struck me then as similar back then, both in the extent of the obvious poverty as well as the shared disappointment some thirty years after each had gained full independence as socialist states under charismatic intellectual leaders, Jawarhalal Nehru in India and Mao Zedong in China.

China began its reform process a decade earlier

This article was written by

Peter Fuhrman profile picture
581 Followers
Chairman, Founder and Chief Executive Officer at China First Capital (www.chinafirstcapital.com) , a China-based international investment bank and advisory firm for capital markets and M&A transactions. China First Capital was established in 2007 and has its headquarters in Shenzhen, China. It serves a distinguished group of clients, including industry leaders in China, both private sector companies and SOEs as well as global corporations actively expanding within China. Peter's insights and analysis on China, its capital markets and private equity industry are often featured in international media including The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, The Economist, New York Times, Washington Post, Bloomberg, China Daily. Peter is an occasional columnist for three prominent Chinese-language business publications, 21st Century Herald, Caijing and Forbes China. For up-to--date commentary and analysis, visit: www.chinafirstcapital.com/blog Linkedin profile: cn.linkedin.com/in/peterfuhrman Founding China First Capital is the fulfillment of a deeply-held ambition nurtured for 30 years. "I first came to China in 1981, as one of the earlier American graduate students in China. I left China after school. But, throughout, I never lost sight of the goal to return to China and start a business that would contribute meaningfully to the country’s revival and prosperity."

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