加载中…
(2009-07-05 06:38:07)
英国每日电讯报网站7月1日发表Dean Nelson的文章，India cannot bridge the gap with China，摘要如下（英语原文附后）：
印度人造一座桥要多少人？多少年？答案为3000人和8年，这还是客气的估计。有报道说从立项到开通需耗时46年。孟买新开通的大桥跨越阿拉伯海，堪称了不起的成就———这也是东南亚最长的桥。这类似于德里让人叫绝的世界级机场候机楼或地铁，它们让你觉得印度真的在脱离石器时代的落后，甚至一脚跨进西方的最先进行列。但跟印度的许多事一样，一切都不过是表面现象，印度发展的真面目是跟中国———印度自欺欺人地以为不输于这个新世界超级大国———相比有多落后。
印度《商业标准报》昨天登出的一篇评论进行了对照：印度造这座跨海大桥历时8年，而在此期间中国建了7座大桥，包括世界上最长的杭州湾大桥。尽管杭州湾大桥长度是孟买跨海大桥的7倍，但其修桥时间仅4年，是孟买大桥的一半。
但印度发展落后于中国可远远不止4年。去年，我到中国报道四川地震。那是我自上世纪80年代末以来第一次到访中国。他们在此期间所取得的成就让我惊呆了。我记得当年从长江乘船上行，沿途城市仿佛罗利笔下烟雾蔽日的英格兰北部地区———沉闷、污染、贫穷、拥挤。而如今，成都已是一个拥有整洁道路、现代化大厦、酒吧和美味餐厅的城市。居民普遍穿着体面、殷实富足。
上世纪80年代末的同一年，我也到过印度。如今，我发现它的变化何其之少。印度确实出现了气派的商场、骑摩托车的中产阶级人士以及先进的通讯，但总的来说，普通百姓的生活没有明显改善。许多人赤着脚，衣不蔽体，城市里电力供应不足，经常停电，水也短缺，道路更是一团糟。本周末，我将从德里驱车到库鲁谷，300多英里的路程会用时16 个小时。
这种差距更多源于政治而非经济。当中国决定修建桥梁、道路或水坝时，共产党领导人会确保抗议尽快消失。一旦做出决定，工程就会按时完成。政府拥有一种意识形态和爱国的渴望，想要向世界显示中国的效率。印度当然也有长处。其广泛的民主和法治不能容忍中国的蛮干或纪律和专注。所以，当中国人修桥一座接一座时，印度的项目会受阻于政治人物的一通电话、围绕公务员署名代价的谈判、黑帮的觊觎、社区领袖的利益要求．
India cannot bridge the gap with China
By Dean Nelson
July 1st, 2009
How many Indians does it take to build a bridge? And how many
years?
The answer is 3,000 men and eight years, if you’re being generous.
Other reports say it took 46 years from proposal to opening.
The completion of Mumbai’s extraordinary bridge over the Arabian
Sea to link its Bandra and Worli districts is a genuine achievement
- it is the longest bridge in South-east Asia, it looks fabulous,
and will cut drive times for frustrated Mumbai commuters.
It’s one of those projects, like Delhi’s wonderful and world-class
new domestic airport terminal or its Metro, which make you believe
India really is pulling away from its stone-age backwardness and
even leapfrogging the best of the west.
But like many things in India, all is not what it seems, and the
real story of India’s development is just how far it lags behind
China,
A fine leader in India’s Business Standard yesterday laid it out in
stark relief: In the eight years it took India to build the
sealink, China has built seven, including the Hangzhou Bay Bridge,
the world’s longest. Despite being seven times longer than the
Mumbai sealink, the Hangzhou Bay Bridge took half the time - just
four years - to complete.
If only India was just four years behind China in its development.
I visited China last year, to cover the Sichuan earthquake, for the
first time since the late 1980s, when I was a rookie reporter on
Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post. I was staggered by what they
had achieved in that time.
The cities I remember from a river boat trip up the Yangtse were
like Lowry paintings of the smoggy North of England -
dreich,
I also visited India in the same year in the late 1980s, and it’s
extraordinary how little it has changed. While there are some
impressive shopping malls, more middle class people riding
motorbikes, and state of the art communications, there is no
visible general improvement in the living conditions of the mass of
ordinary people. Millions walk barefoot and barely-dressed, its
cities are no nearer providing enough electricity to stop power
cuts, water is scarce and the roads are terrible. This weekend I’ll
be driving from Delhi to Kullu Valley, and it will take sixteen
hours to travel just over 300 miles.
The reason for the gap is more about politics than economics. When
China decides it wants a bridge or a road, or to flood thousands of
villages for a dam, its Communist leadership ensures any protest is
at most fleeting. Decisions are made, some bribes may be taken, but
the work gets done on time. The government has an ideological and
patriotic desire to show the world China works.
India of course is altogether superior. Its vast democracy and rule
of law could not brook China’s brutality nor its discipline and
focus. So while the Chinese move on to the next bridge, Indian
projects are halted by a politician’s phone call, a negotiation
over the cost of a civil servant’s signature, a gangster’s eye for
the main chance, a financially-motivated demand from a community
leader, or a genuine demand from a truly aggrieved community.
Most major infrastructure projects are delayed by scenarios like
these, while the threat of recourse to the courts, where cases can
wait for decades to be heard, is another weapon in the
extortionist’s armoury.
We are supposed to love this chaos in India - it’s all part of the
smell, the colour, a nation of argumentative, unruly voters who
make up the world’s largest democracy where the streets are lined
with Bollywood dancers.
I have days when I love it too, when I prefer the yellow-film shop
windows of sleepy mofussil towns to the glass and steel vision
India’s elite have for their country. I like its old cane umbrellas
with lotus-shaped frames more than the modern Chinese ones Indian
shopkeepers try to foist on me. I love eating lemony Chicken Korma
and caramelised Shahi Tukda (Indian bread pudding) in filthy old
Delhi dhabbas.
I wouldn’t wish the Chinese Communist Party’s style of government
on India, but there is a limit to how seriously you can take the
great Indian progress story.
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