GDP: China's total GDP in 2003 was US$1.08 trillion, ranking sixth in the world, and India's GDP reached US$479.404 billion, ranking 12th in the world. Calculating GDP based on PPP, China's GDP in 20043 was US$4,966 billion and India's was US$2,432 billion. In 2004, China's per capita GDP and PPP were US$4,329, and that of India was US$2,464. From 1990 to 2000, China's average annual GDP growth rate was 10.3%, and that of India was 6%. India has lagged behind China by a large margin Date: 2005/03/11 Source: The March 5 issue of the British weekly "Economist" published an article comparing the development of China and India. The main title is "The Huge Gap" and the subtitle is "If this is a race, India is already one lap behind". The abstract of the article is as follows: The difference in urban appearance is obvious. If you revisit Beijing or Shanghai after a few years, you will be overwhelmed by the changes in front of you. As you exit the new airport, new highways take you into the city. Some new high-rise buildings appear on the roadside from time to time, and the previously familiar buildings seem to disappear in the concrete jungle. Parts of China experienced perhaps the greatest construction boom in history. And it's a bit depressing to go back to Delhi or Mumbai and everything is still the same. The only change at the airport is an improved queuing system in the crowded immigration hall. The roads leading into the city are clogged with traffic even at night, with trucks bearing "Horn Please" signs. In traffic jams, disabled people and young mothers with babies in their arms begged through car windows. There are also some new buildings or new roads and, in Delhi, a brand new metro. But while its neighbors are undergoing rapid changes, India still looks almost the same from the outside. Measuring this difference is difficult. Indians say China's statistics are made up by local officials who want to impress their superiors and are unreliable. However, broadly speaking, the trends shown by these statistics and the problems they illustrate - China surpassing India - are reasonable and consistent with the facts. The objection to using statistics as a basis is just a way for Indians to deny that China has surpassed India. Many Indians are impatient and believe that foreigners only see the backward aspects such as airports and beggars, but fail to see the many achievements that India has made - including India's recent rapid economic development. Even some foreigners can't bear it. They don't know why those foreigners see India's achievements through this kind of inefficiency and poverty. They don't know how their hosts can pursue their goals for a long time in this context of inefficiency and poverty. develop. Changes in China provide them with a stick to beat India with. China's GDP has grown faster in the past decade. However, there are beggars in China, and the gap in data is only a recent phenomenon. Measured by per capita purchasing power, China's gross domestic product (GDP) only surpassed India's in the early 1990s. Since then, both countries' economies have grown rapidly. India's GDP grew at an average annual rate of 5.6% in the 1980s and at an average annual rate of 5.8% from 1991 to 2003. China's growth was comparable but from a much higher starting point, averaging 9.3% per year in the 1980s and 9.7% per year from 1991 to 2003. Since India's population growth rate is much higher, the gap in GDP per capita has become even wider. Between 1990 and 2003, China's per capita GDP grew at an average annual rate of 8.5%, while India's growth rate was only 4%. Therefore, China's per capita national income in 2003 - converted at the current US dollar exchange rate - was US$1,100, while India's was only US$530. This disparity is surprising given that not long ago the two countries were roughly equal. After adjusting for purchasing power, China is 70% richer than India. Angus Maddison, an economic historian who studies both countries from a "millennial perspective," believes that China was slightly richer than India two centuries ago but has been poorer than India for most of the time since.

Calculated in constant 1990 US dollars, India's per capita national income increased from US$533 in 1820 to US$673 in 1913, while China's per capita national income fell from US$600 to US$552. By 1950, India's per capita national income was US$619, while China's was only US$439, although in absolute terms, China's share of global GDP still ranked ahead of India. In every decade since, China’s per capita GDP growth has exceeded that of India. One result of this development is that India's population and GDP as a percentage of the world's total population and total GDP have remained essentially unchanged over the past century. The proportion of China's population in the world's total population has dropped from 1/4 to 1/5. In the 20th century, China experienced several serious natural disasters, and from 1958 to 1961, it experienced the worst man-made famine in history. Since 1980, strict birth control policies have curbed population growth. At the same time, China's share of the world's total GDP - adjusted for purchasing power - has grown from 8.9% in 1913 to 11% in 2000 and to 13% last year. . The international trade gap is huge. Measured by international trade, the gap between the two countries is even greater. In 1990, China's share of world exports was 1.9% and its share of world imports was 1.6%. By 2003, China's share of world exports was 5.8% and its share of world imports was 5.3%. Last year, two-way trade grew by 36%, with China surpassing Japan to become the third largest trading nation, behind the United States and Germany. In the 1990s, China's trade volume to GDP ratio increased by more than 70%. No country in the world comes close to that number. The ratio of India's trade volume to GDP increased by only 23%. India's trade is also growing rapidly, growing by 16% last year. Even so, India's two-way trade total last year was only about US$150 billion, accounting for less than 1% of global trade. For three consecutive years, China's trade growth has exceeded India's total foreign trade. This means that there is a huge gap in the weight of the two countries in the global trading system, which has also changed their mutual views. Indian exporters, who two years ago feared competition from China could be their doom, now fear a hard landing in China could derail a large and growing market. China's foreign exchange reserves are nearly five times those of India, growing by $207 billion in 2004 to reach $610 billion by the end of the year. As the engine of global economic growth, China has become an important partner in the economic forum of rich countries. According to its own figures, China accounted for 12% of global merchandise trade growth last year. There are more poor people in India than in China. The Chinese government and the Chinese people are worried about the emerging gap between rich and poor. However, rapid economic growth has greatly reduced the proportion of people living in poverty. According to the World Bank, the number of people living on less than $1 a day (measured in purchasing power parity) fell by approximately 400 million between 1981 and 2001. David Dollar, World Bank representative in China, said: "Poverty has been basically eliminated, and we are very confident about it." But poverty has not been eliminated in India. According to figures provided by the Indian government, the number of poor people in India decreased by 69 million between 1977 and 2000, but 260 million people still live in poverty. The World Bank estimates that 35% of Indians live on less than $1 a day, while only 17% of Chinese live on less than $1 a day. According to statistics from the World Food and Agriculture Organization, the number of malnourished people in China was 194 million from 1990 to 1992, and has dropped to 142 million ten years later. In India, the corresponding figures are 221 million and 216 million, indicating that the number of malnourished people in India still accounts for 1/4 of the world's malnourished people. About 47% of children under five in India are underweight, compared with only 10% in China. India's infant mortality rate is 65‰, while China's is only 30‰. Life expectancy at birth is 63 years for Indians and 71 years for Chinese. India's adult literacy rate is 57%, while China's is 91%.

In the Human Development Index designed by the United Nations Development Program, China scored 0.745 (out of 1), ranking 94th among 177 countries, while India scored 0.595, ranking 127th. However, it is worth noting that China's starting point is much higher than India's when measured by these basic living standards. Of course, if one could find the most telling statistic in the jumble of data to illustrate the disparity between India and China, it would probably be the illiteracy rate among women. According to figures released by the World Bank, 87% of adult women in China are literate, while only 45% in India. Many things come with girls' education: better health, better education and longer lifespans for their entire families; more productive workers; and a boost to industrialization and urbanization