Chinese blogger Liu Dingcai (ÂàòÂÆöÊâç) commented on Hu’s visit to India, translated by John Kennedy of Global Voices Online :
China’s national chairman Hu Jintao arrived in the Indian capitol New Delhi on November 20 to commence the visit dealing with affairs between the two countries. On the 21st Hu Jintao met with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan at the Hyderabad Palace in New Delhi where the two sides held discussions on the development of cooperation strategy, reaching an important consensus on partnership relations. (according to The People’s Daily)
The world doesn’t revolve around us and to hold back now would be to our loss. China has increasingly urgent reasons to learn from India. But learn what?
From their experience in economic reform, from their success in reform of the education system, from their approach to reform of the health care system more than a few pundits have been discussing this.
The way I see it, China also needs to be learning from India’s experiences in political system reform. Because only with an intense reform of the political system and a push for democracy and rule of law can the binds the political system places on economics, culture and education be cast away, and achievements in reform of economic, financial, education and cultural systems attain consolidated and further development.
India has the highest population of all democratic countries and its number of voters in main elections amounts to over 670 million. That a democratic system can be maintained in a third world country like India is worth celebrating in itself. Although India’s democracy isn’t perfect, progress is slow, and has come across setbacks, these setbacks are technical matters and can be fixed. In fact they are being fixed as we speak. This goes to show that democracy has the ability to fix its own internal problems, as well as the ability to avoid recurrences. India’s democratic politics have always been pushing the economy’s rapid development and incessant scientific innovation, the strengthening of the flourishing service sector and the improvements of people’s lives. [Full Text]
