[国际新闻] 印度「大国梦」遭西方泼冷水

2007-2-20 「2050年经济赶超美国」、「可能成为『金砖四国』领跑者」等言论无形中唤起了印度人对大国梦的憧憬。而最近一个不同以往的声音突然响起——「印度是超级大国？再好好想想吧！」西方媒体集体转向，给印度泼起了冷水。 " H; N7 S& x4 ^
据《环球时报》消息，美国《财富》杂志9日刊登了一篇报道，大标题赫然写著「印度是超级大国？再好好想想吧！」文章列举了这样一组数字：全世界挨饿的人约有一半住在印度；该国5岁以下的儿童有47%营养不良或发育迟缓；感染了艾滋病的人口多达570万，比其它任何一个国家都多；超过1/4的印度人每天的生活费不到1美元；只有61%的成年人识字，这个比例还不如卢旺达。这些数字从教育、食品、医疗、贫富差距等各个方面直戳印度经济和社会发展的软肋。文章称，现在就做大国梦，未免有点「沾沾自喜」。

无独有偶，英国《经济学家》杂志最近也对印度的经济结构提出质疑。报道称，如今印度的通货膨胀率已达到6%，全国99%的公司在超负荷运转。种种迹象表明，印度经济过热，如不及时采取措施，「硬着陆」将在所难免。( A: v* O! C. H

这些质疑的声音恐怕不是印度人听习惯的。印度曾一跃成为世界的热点，被认为是将创造奇迹的地方。各国纷纷派团赴印考察，以至于让印度人患上了「参观疲劳综合征」。而大多印度媒体在引用西方报道时，也是习惯选择积极的，避开负面的，这使印度近几年大国心态迅速膨胀。5 _, C/ H8 l+ {1 [) B$ D$ `* {. |+ k
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据报道，新年第一天，印度第一大英文报纸《印度时报》在头版没有刊登任何新闻，而是打出了「印度蓄势待发」的口号，掀起了一轮「印度超级大国梦」的宣传攻势。该报还专门请宝莱坞巨星巴克强拍摄了一部电视广告，广告语结尾处说道「当世界还没有留意的时候，一个充满活力的印度已经出现……她正抬起头，凝望着蔚蓝的天空说：展翅翱翔的时刻已经来临。」

印度商务部长也曾毫不掩饰地说「现在我们已经不再讨论印度的未来了，取而代之的说法是：印度就是未来。」
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美联社9日发表文章称，在谷歌上输入「印度」和「超级大国」两个关键词，可以搜出12.6万条相关链接，绝大多数是最近几年的。这种不成熟的「必胜信念」具有很强的误导性。如果印度不把主要精力放在人民生活质量和人口素质的提高上，而是一心想着修建世界上最高的大楼或者把人送上月球，那么未来永远不会属于印度。& K3 q! I, [) B# B
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西方媒体为何突然转向？中国现代国际关系研究院副研究员、南亚问题专家傅小强表示，过去，英美等国媒体惊异于印度经济的高速增长，在报道时出现了过头现象，而往往?略了印度仍然是一个以服务业为龙头的国家，还没有经历工业化阶段。一些西方学者出于「唱衰中国」的目的，也纷纷发表文章赞美印度，并把它和中国进行对比，以证明印度在未来的发展道路上比中国更具潜力。而今，一些外国媒体逐渐摒弃了老一套的思维和报道模式，开始冷静地反思和分析印度的现状和发展前景，在此基础上得出的结论应该说还是比较客观和理性的。人在德国社区& i2 a! Y1 `: l# g( r
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India the Superpower? Think again# Q# ~+ ?& `0 z2 I6 ^% f
India should put aside pride about its growing economy and concentrate on improving the lives of average citizens, argues Fortune's Cait Murphy.csuchen.de2 {/ V; V# P9 \4 k% Q
NEW YORK (Fortune) -- Plug in the words "India" and "superpower" into an Internet search engine and it's happy to oblige - with 1.3 million hits. I confess that I did not check each one, but I suspect that almost all of these entries date from the last couple of years.
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This is understandable. For the first time ever, India has posted four straight years of 8 percent growth; since it cracked open its economy in 1991, it has averaged growth of 6 percent a year - not in the same league as China, but twice the derisory "Hindu rate of growth" that had marked the first 45 years of independence.人在德国社区: ]+ R$ p- h t- t. R& ~+ s

India has gone nuclear, and even gotten the United States to accept that status. Its movies are crossing over to become international hits. The recent $11.3 billion takeover of Corus by Mumbai-based Tata Steel was the biggest acquisition ever by an Indian firm.

No wonder the idea of India as the next superpower is fast becoming conventional wisdom. "Our Time is Now," asserts The Times of India. And in an October survey by the Chicago Council on World Affairs, Indians said they saw their country as the second most influential in the world.
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Sorry: India is not a superpower, and in fact, that is probably the wrong ambition for it, anyway. Why? Let me answer in the form of some statistics.
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47 percent of Indian children under the age of five are either malnourished or stunted.
The adult literacy rate is 61 percent (behind Rwanda and barely ahead of Sudan). Even this is probably overstated, as people are deemed literate who can do little more than sign their name.7 N4 n( c/ F/ H% p- q
Only 10 percent of the entire Indian labor force works in the formal economy; of these fewer than half are in the private sector.
The enrollment of six-to-15-year-olds in school has actually declined in the last year. About 40 million children who are supposed to be in school are not.csuchen.de( `) c; L& r/ G; J% L# E5 o
About a fifth of the population is chronically hungry; about half of the world's hungry live in India.
More than a quarter of the India population lives on less than a dollar a day.
India has more people with HIV than any other country.

(Sources: UNDP, Unicef, World Food Program; Edward Luce)

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The 2006 UN Human Development Report, which ranks countries according to a variety of measures of human health and welfare, placed India 126th out of 177 countries. India was only a few places ahead of rival Pakistan (134th) and hapless Cambodia (129) and behind such not-about-to-be-superpowers as Equatorial Guinea (120), and Tajikistan (122).

As these and other numbers suggest, Indian triumphalism (a notable 126,000 hits on Google) is not only premature, it is misguided. Yes, growth has been brisk, and of course growth is necessary to make a dent in poverty. But as Edward Luce, author of the excellent, "In Spite of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India," noted in a recent talk, poverty in India is not falling nearly as fast as its brisk rate of growth might anticipate.csuchen.de- \: U: N& w9 S6 f) c+ j

The reason for this is that Indian growth has been capital-intensive, driven by the growth in high-value services such as IT. This is a good thing, but what it does not do is create stable and reasonably paid employment for not particularly skilled people - and this matters a lot, considering eight to 10 million Indians enter the labor force every year. Luce estimates that there are 7 million Indians working in the formal manufacturing sector in India - and 100 million in China.1 i; M! H' ?3 g
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India is awash in private equity
To look at it another way, the 1 million Indians working in IT account for less than one-half of one percent of the entire working population. This helps build reserves (and national confidence, and tax revenues) but is not the poverty buster that labor-intensive development is. As Prime Minister Singh told Luce, "Our biggest single problem is the lack of jobs for ordinary people."

The problem with India's self-proclaimed (and wildly premature) declaration of superpower status is that it reflects a complacency about both its present - which for many people is dire - and its future. Eight percent growth for four years is wonderful, but as the saying goes, past performance is no guarantee of future results. And India is not doing what it needs to in order to sustain this momentum.

Consider the postwar history of East and Southeast Asia. The comparison is appropriate because India started at about the same point, and has watched just about every country in the region get ahead of it on the economic curve. All these places developed by being relatively open to trade; by investing in primary and secondary education; and by building pretty decent infrastructure (not only roads and ports, but health clinics and water supplies). India has begun to embrace one leg of this triangle - freer trade.
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Wireless Wonder: India's Sunil Mittal
Even here, though, many of the worst features of the swadeshi ("self-reliance") era remain intact, including an unreformed state banking sector; labor regulations that actively discourage hiring; abstruse land laws (and consequent lack of land titles); misshapen subsidies that hurt the poor; and corruption that is broad, deep and ubiquitous. Nothing useful is being done about any of this.' I, ~3 Q& \; v ?+ E

As for the other two legs of this development triangle - education and infrastructure - these are still badly broken. About a third of teachers fail to show up on any given day (and, of course, are unsackable); the supply of both water and power is expensive and unreliable.2 F7 h6 ?8 C4 M- W5 r

These facts of life too often go unremarked in the current euphoria about the state of the nation. "We no longer discuss the future of India," Commerce Minister Kamal Nath told the Financial Times in a typical comment. "The future is India." csuchen.de+ Y5 Q+ H& }, Q& C/ g) e

Hubris, of course, is the stuff of politics everywhere. But the future will not belong to India unless it takes action to embrace it, and that means more than high-profile vanity projects like putting a man on the moon or building the world¹s tallest tower. It means showing that the world's largest democracy can deliver real progress to the hundreds of millions who have never used the phone, much less the Internet. And in important ways, that just isn't happening.

India has many reasons to be proud, but considering it remains a world leader in hunger, stunting and HIV, its waxing self-satisfaction seems sadly beside the point.

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A homeless Indian mother feeds her child in Hyderabad.