Smart Writing on China and India

Some fresh insights:

... were I to be able to ensure being born even moderately well-off, I would probably plump for India over China. In India, money allowed you to exist happily enough despite the constant failure of governments to deliver services. Thus most Delhi households that could afford it had private generators for when the electricity failed and private tube wells in their gardens to ensure the water supply that the municipality couldn’t. The police offered little protection from crime and so many households hired private security guards.

...

On the other hand, were I to be born poor, I would take my chances in authoritarian China, where despite lacking a vote, the likelihood of my being decently fed, clothed and housed were considerably higher. Most crucially, China would present me with relatively greater opportunities for upward socio-economic mobility. So that even though I may have been born impoverished, there was a better chance I wouldn’t die as wretched in China, as in India.

That's from Pallavi Aiyar, an Indian journalist in China, who has a new book out on China. The China Beat has an interview and book excerpt that's well worth a read.