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【中文标题】印度、中国和埃及
【原文标题】India vs. China vs. Egypt
【登载媒体】纽约时报
【原文作者】THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
【原文链接】http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/06/opinion/friedman-india-vs-china-vs-egypt.html?ref=china
到印度去，很难回避的一件事是别人让你与中国做比较。这次的印度之行也不例外，但是我想把比较的范围扩大一点，把埃及也包括进来。印度有一个软弱的中央政府，但是有一个强大的公民社会，因此催生出各个级别的选举和社团。中国中央政府无比强大，但公民社会相对脆弱，人民还在努力争取话语权。至于埃及，它有一个软弱的中央政府，和一个更加脆弱的公民社会。人民被压制了50年，没有选举权，所以其革命很容易就被有组织的团体，比如穆斯林兄弟会来转移方向。但是这三个国家有一个相同点：庞大的30岁以下年轻人群，通过现代科技密切联系，但受教育水平不均衡。
我的观点是，能在21世纪实现高度繁荣的国家，必须能成功地把大批年轻劳动力转化成“人口红利”，而不是每隔十年就爆炸一次的“人口炸弹”；必须给年轻人提供教育、就业和发挥潜力的机会。
《HOW》一书的作者、在印度设有分支机构的LRN公司首席执行官Dov Seidman说，这场竞赛关乎于“谁有能力激发更多的年轻人来创建繁荣的社会。这取决于领导者、父母和教师能否给年轻人创造一个环境，让他们不仅能获得一个工作，还能获得一项事业，从而过上远远超过父母们的生活。”如果无法做到这一点，这个国家的年轻人不但将面临失业，还将面临无法就业的惨状。“在一个沟通紧密的世界里完全脱节，绝望地看着其他人实现自己的愿望。”
如果你的国家既有一个强大的政府，也有一个完善的公民社会，那么就应该有能力应对这样的挑战。如果你什么都没有，那可真成问题了，这就是为什么埃及在苦苦挣扎的原因。中国在为年轻人提供教育、基础设施和就业方面领跑于其它国家，但在推崇自由和探索方面明显落后。印度的未来最令人向往——如果它能有效地加强中央管理和控制腐败的话。我在这里可以深刻感受到向上的动力，尤其在女性人群中间。上周，我参加了能源学院的毕业典礼，被表彰的12名优秀学生中，有11名是女性。
印度人力资源发展部长Shashi Tharoor说：“印度有5.6亿人年龄在25岁以下，2.25亿人年龄在10到19岁之间。所以在未来40年，我们都可以拥有一支年轻的工人大军。”与此同时，中国和整个工业国家的人口都在老化。中国人今天的平均年龄是38岁，印度只有28岁，在未来20年，这个差距还会加大。这才是巨大的人口红利——“当然前提是我们要给年轻人提供足够的教育，包括职业培训和大学教育，让他们充分适应21世纪的国际经济形势。” Tharoor说：“如果我们做得好，印度将成为世界经济的引擎；如果我们搞糟了，那就只剩下一大批无法就业、沮丧绝望的年轻人。”
实际上，一些印度农村中心怀不满的年轻人已经转而信奉毛泽东思想。Tharoor说：“农村人群中有很多毛泽东主义者，他们没有享受到现代化印度所带来的利益。”近年来，印度625个邦里有165个邦发生过毛泽东主义者的暴力事件，这些人充分渗透到那些“印度梦”破裂的人群中。所以，我们面临迫切的压力来把孩子们吸引到学校中。印度有世界上最大规模的免费午餐项目，每天为学生提供2.5亿份免费午餐。印度的科技学术机构数量翻了一番，从8家增长到16家，它还计划新建14所科研创新大学。
宝洁印度公司前首席执行官Gurcharan Das认为，如果没有政府有效的管控，这一切都是徒劳的。他最近出版了一本书《印度在夜间成长：强大国家的自由案例》。“满怀抱负的印度人不知道该把选票投给谁，因为没有人在为公众利益讲话。为什么法院要花15年时间才能伸张正义？为什么修一条路要花12年？年轻人的雄心与政府的表现有巨大的差距。我认为印度的发展已经脱离了国家的前进方向，私人得利，公众牺牲。”
这就是Das为什么说印度在夜间成长，因为政府在睡觉。“但是印度必须要学会在白天成长。如果印度在中国解决政治问题之前，解决了自身的政府问题，那谁是赢家就一目了然了……你需要一个强大的政府和一个强大的社会，这样公民才能让政府负起责任。只有社会精英进入政府内部，印度才会变得强大。只有优秀官员进入私有机构，中国也才会变得强大。”
原文：
It’s hard to escape a visit to India without someone asking you to compare it to China. This visit was no exception, but I think it’s more revealing to widen the aperture and compare India, China and Egypt. India has a weak central government but a really strong civil society, bubbling with elections and associations at every level. China has a muscular central government but a weak civil society, yet one that is clearly straining to express itself more. Egypt, alas, has a weak government and a very weak civil society, one that was suppressed for 50 years, denied real elections and, therefore, is easy prey to have its revolution diverted by the one group that could organize, the Muslim Brotherhood, in the one free space, the mosque. But there is one thing all three have in common: gigantic youth bulges under the age of 30, increasingly connected by technology but very unevenly educated.
My view: Of these three, the one that will thrive the most in the 21st century will be the one that is most successful at converting its youth bulge into a “demographic dividend” that keeps paying off every decade, as opposed to a “demographic bomb” that keeps going off every decade. That will be the society that provides more of its youth with the education, jobs and voice they seek to realize their full potential.
This race is about “who can enable and inspire more of its youth to help build broad societal prosperity,” argues Dov Seidman, the author of “How” and C.E.O. of LRN, which has an operating center in India. “And that’s all about leaders, parents and teachers creating environments where young people can be on a quest, not just for a job, but for a career — for a better life that doesn’t just surpass but far surpasses their parents.” Countries that fail to do that will have a youth bulge that is not only unemployed, but unemployable, he argued. “They will be disconnected in a connected world, despairing as they watch others build and realize their potential and curiosity.”
If your country has either a strong government or a strong civil society, it has the ability to rise to this challenge. If it has neither, it will have real problems, which is why Egypt is struggling. China leads in providing its youth bulge with education, infrastructure and jobs, but lags in unleashing freedom and curiosity. India is the most intriguing case — if it can get its governance and corruption under control. The quest for upward mobility here, especially among women and girls, is palpable. I took part in the graduation ceremony for The Energy and Resources Institute last week. Of 12 awards for the top students, 11 went to women.
“India today has 560 million young people under the age of 25 and 225 million between the ages of 10 and 19,” explained Shashi Tharoor, India’s minister of state for human resource development. “So for the next 40 years we should have a youthful working-age population” at a time when China and the broad industrialized world is aging. According to Tharoor, the average age in China today is around 38, whereas in India it’s around 28. In 20 years, that gap will be much larger. So this could be a huge demographic dividend — “provided that we can educate our youth — offering vocational training to some and university to others to equip them to take advantage of what the 21st-century global economy offers,” said Tharoor. “If we get it right, India becomes the workhorse of the world. If we get it wrong, there is nothing worse than unemployable, frustrated” youth.
Indeed, some of India’s disaffected youth are turning to Maoism in rural areas. “We have Maoists among our tribal populations, who have not benefited from the opportunities of modern India,” Tharoor said. There have been violent Maoist incidents in 165 of India’s 625 districts in recent years, as Maoists tap into all those left out of the “Indian dream.” So there is now a huge push here to lure poor kids into school. India runs the world’s biggest midday lunch program, serving 250 million free school lunches each day. It’s also doubled its number of Indian Institutes of Technology, from eight to 16, and is planning 14 new universities for innovation and research.
But this will all be for naught without better governance, argues Gurcharan Das, the former C.E.O. of Procter & Gamble India, whose latest book is “India Grows at Night: A Liberal Case for a Strong State.” “The aspirational India has no one to vote for, because no one is talking the language of public goods. Why should it take us 15 years to get justice in the courts or 12 years to build a road? The gap between [youth] aspirations and government performance is huge. My thesis is that India has risen despite the state. It is a story of public failure and private success.”
That is what Das means by India grows at night, when government sleeps. “But India must learn to grow during the day,” he said. “If India fixes its governance before China fixes its politics that is who will win. ... You need a strong state and a strong society, so the society can hold the state accountable. India will only get a strong state when the best of society join the government, and China will only get a strong society when the best Mandarins go into the private sector.”
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