Please
note my understanding on China is limited to my cursory reading about the
country over the years. Also since we spent only 6 days and that too majorly on
eastern side of China our understanding is restricted to what we
saw/understood. The blog hasn’t been reviewed or edited and hence is more of
first thoughts. I had promised myself that I will pen down my thoughts unlike
our last visit to Indonesia. Im sure I have missed a lot of stuff so will keep adding
and refining the blog as we go along.
I distinctly remember
January 2006, passing out from college it was time to step into the real world.
I was slated to join Infra team @ Edelweiss Institutional Research Desk. The
team was working on a mammoth assignment “The Grey Revolution” – 1000 pager on
the India Infra story. Since we are at it a big shout-out to Priyanko Panja for
giving me an opportunity to be a part of his team and to Siddharth Sanghvi for
helping me become a decent analyst (hope I have become a decent analyst). All
through those crazy 8-9months, multiples times the conversations veered towards
will India be the next China? To give you an example India was slated to add
75,000 MW (give or take…it’s a 10 year old data point) in 12th five
year plan (2012-2017) whilst our installed capacity would have been ~150,000 MW
(number is not relevant, magnitude is).China on the other hand was adding 50,000
MW a year and it made me wonder what scale is this?. And then there were odd
anecdotes of politicians promising to make Mumbai the next Shanghai.
It took me ~13years to see
the scale for real. And 13 years passing by means the scale was even bigger and
insane in some cases. Once every 2 years me and my colleagues at Anived PMS try
and visit a country which is ahead of India on some parameters or is emerging
as a manufacturing hub or technology giant etc. Around 2 years ago we had
visited Indonesia; this time around it was China. While we had planned the
Indonesia trip on our own, we were aware that China would be tough from a
language and food perspective. Hence amongst all the options available we went ahead
with a weeklong trip with Veena World. Traveling in a tour has its own nuances
and I must admit it was a memorable first experience for me. We covered the
cities of Beijing, Xian, and Shanghai mostly on eastern side of China.
As soon as we stepped into
Immigration at Beijing you could sense the scale of the country. There were 20
terminals or so where International travellers could scan their passport, enter
their finger prints. We were out of immigrations in less than 10mins.
Beijing –
Beijing is to China what Delhi is to India. It’s the political capital of
China. Weather was extremely chilly with day temperatures hovering around
11-14degrees. While Beijing did have scale with tall towers it did have an old
world charm to it. Real Estate is extremely cost across China and especially in
city areas where it costs approx. 5-7crs for a 500-600 sq. feet house.
Unfortunately we were not able to see any houses to be able to comment on
quality of construction, spacing etc. It has a population of ~22-23mn and
ageing population. People prefer their children to study in private schools
which are extremely expensive although government schooling is subsidized/free.
Places we visited - Temple
of Heaven, Jade Garden, Great Wall of China, Tian’anmen Square, Local Shopping.
·
We could see large number of senior citizens
playing cards, local Chinese games, Chess etc at temple of heaven. Could have
been 200-300 of them.
·
Great Wall of China is ~20,000 kms in its
length. There is a popular myth that
it’s the only structure on earth which
is visible from moon
·
Tian’anmen Square/Forbidden City - they let
50,000-60,000 people daily. There was a long weekend due to which there was
insane crowd. Forbidden City is so massive it takes 2 hours to reach the
absolute end of the structure. Ancient architechture is brilliant with zero use
of screws/bolt
·
Local Shopping – Bargaining in China like the
country is of a MASSIVE scale. Things which are originally quoted at 100Yuan
end up selling at less than 10Yuan in most cases. And while we may feel that only Indians bargain, you can
see Europeans, Americans etc bargain big-time as well
Beijing
to Xian Bullet Train ride – It was highlight of our trip
having heard of the Ahmedabad-Mumbai Bullet Train. The distance of ~1200kms
takes only4.5 hours and costs ~INR 5500 for second class ticket. It costs ~ USD
18mn-25mn/per km (this is based on Google) to develop the bullet line. Im not
sure how many high speed trains n line China has but the network will be
insanely huge. One of the stations which came on the way had 36 platforms and
there were ~7-8 trains standing on various platforms.
The journey was supremely
comfortable, train was extremely clean. Seats can be moved 360degrees and the
direction is changed based on which side the train is heading. The team ensures
that the train is phenomenally well maintained. Drop a plastic wrapper and the
cleaner will be there next 2nd to clean it.
Xian
– We
reached Xian in the evening around6.30ish. The weather was let’s just say
awesome. It seemed like a winter evening in Dharamshala or Chandigarh. As we
started driving towards our hotel one thing that struck us was that the entire
city was beautifully lit-up almost Diwali like. Every corner of the city be it
the bell tower, wall dividing the new town with the old was lit up in an
extremely grand manner. Street light across the city had beautiful red lanterns
for company. Yahan electricity free hai
kya?? was the thought that came to our mind. There was a beautiful water
show near the bell tower in the night. (We were lucky catch-it)
Xian used to be the capital
of East Asia in the past (not sure about the timelines).Xian is also the home
province of current Chinese Premier Xi Jinping. Your premier Prime Minister
Modi had visited Xian was repeated multiple times in interaction with various people.
Places to see – Largely
famous for Terracotta Warriors which has life-size figures of various soldiers
etc. Around 8500 of them
Evening in the city was so
pretty that we skipped a few sightseeing events and instead grabbed a glass of black label at an Indian Restaurant to soak
in the stunning night scenes (Black label 60ml was ~650 INR which we thought
was fairly cheap). We even managed a km walk post reaching the hotel it was
so stunning
We took a flight and headed
for our last stop Shanghai.
Shanghai –
It’s the financial capital of China and houses the Shanghai stock exchange. The
city is divided into new and old by Huangpu river which is ~100kms long. The
entire city if lit up during the night time almost 500x of Times Square type.
Buildings, most of which are in excess of 70-80floors are completely lit-up
with Red, Green, Blue, Rainbow lights. The night cruise is a phenomenal
experience – chilly weather, beautiful lights all around – it’s breath-taking
to say the least.
Places we visited – Jin Mao
Tower Observation Deck (88 floor building and the elevator took 40 secs to
reach the top), Bund Water Front (again beautiful during the evening/night
time),
We
also took a 15mins to and from journey of Mag Lev train which covers ~ 65kms
and has a top speed of 430kms/hour.
Shanghai
has 25 metro-lines operational right now and they will have 35 lines by 2025
Shanghai
to Beijing – We had no idea why we dint directly flew to
Mumbai from Shanghai. We again took the bullet train but were much less excited
as we had already done the journey once and post Maglev 300kms/hour seemed a
tad little slow JJ
Some
tid-bids about China which we learnt on the trip
·
80% of Chinese people don’t really follow a
religion. 20% follow Buddhism and some other religions. They do however follow
a few customs similar to India like
praying for well-being of departed souls, lighting of diya’s in temples etc
·
Chairman Xi Jinping as he is addressed to by
Chinese is only the 2nd leader to have become a permanent head of
the government after chairman Mau. There will be no elections in China till Xi
Jinping is at the helm. Chairman Mau was instrumental in integration of various
provinces into People’s republic of China (much like SVP in India)
· Economy is clearly slowing both in reported
data terms as well as what people observe on the ground. This is after 4
decades of growing at break-neck speed.
o It
was very evident that the economy cannot slow else the excesses will ensure
that it will collapse. There were more cranes at work atop 40-50 storey
buildings in one city and its outskirt than what I have seen in whole of India
(im not kidding). In a ride of 40-50kms because you are cruising at 300km/hour
we would have seen may be 500-1000 cranes per 5-7kms. The
whole country is under construction. And here we are worried about an odd Pune
or Gurgaon being under the grey dust.
·
Language is a huge barrier. Barring the
guides and may be couple of staff at hotels, it was impossible to communicate
even in broken English. Words like water, towel etc would get blank responses.
Recommend to carry an app which converts English into Chinese
·
Beijing/Shanghai had huge pollution related
issues even as late as 2007-08. We have seen tonnes and tonnes of videos of
people walking in these cities with masks on. The government in an overnight
decision decided to move all factories outside the cities. In next 5-6 years
this was done at break-neck speed. It would be near impossible to do something
like this in India given the lack of unity in our polity
·
Elderly people/senior citizens have been
moved outside of the main cities. Obviously there are monetary benefits to relocate.
Again would be impossible in India. These are things that semi
dictatorial/non-democratic/state is always right countries can do.
·
While we marvel at the infra that has been
created there are a lot of unanswered questions 1) Are these projects actually
viable 2)What is the quality of assets owned by State Owned Banks (huge
directed lending/owned by the state itself). Maglev while it’s a great tourist
attraction and science marvel don’t think the project will ever be viable from
a RoI perspective.
·
On the ground we dint find too much of
affinity to brands either in case of clothes, fashion accessories, shoes etc.
This is contrary to what we had heard. Cant thump the table on this one.
Some
read through for India
·
One of the biggest joys of being a part of
this trip was that middle-class India is traveling; leisure is becoming an
important aspect of life. People are traveling, they are learning, they are
questioning, they are demanding and (the part I hate) they are writing India
off. India agle
100 saal main bhi aisa nahi ho sakta. I really have 2-3 thoughts here 1)
do we really want to go the China way in excesses. We havent seen the end yet 2)
What are the challenges of a being democratic country (We all marvel at the bullet
train in China but we don’t want one as
there are people who still don’t have food to eat) 3) We will be somewhere
between where we are today vs where China is over next 15-20 years and as my
tweet said “Ladies and Gentlemen tighten up your seat-belts, even if we get to
a % of where China is in next 15-20 years its going to be a hell of ride”
·
My personal belief is India is young, India
is restless, India aspires, India dreams. Sure we will have our challenges but
we have 130crore people who are working on finding solutions to these problems.
Also India has reached here in spite of the Politician. A good CEO and good
government will execute better. Poor one will take 5-10 years more to achieve
the same.
·
Through last winter across various larger
than life weddings got a chance to interact with a lot of NRI’s. These are
people who travel to India once in 3-4 years and they see massive changes for
the good. Sometimes being too close to the action is not a great thing.
·
We will have the metros, we will have world
class airports, we will have bullet trains, and we will add a few more statues.
It’s a matter of time.
Its only apt that im writing
the closing paragraphs of this blog, sitting in an Aaram chair at my native in
Ranveri, Gujarat. We used to travel in bullock carts as kids, then cycle and
now due to the proximity (~250kms from Mumbai) we usually drive down. Barring
medical/hospitalization which still has a long long way to go, every-thing else
that you need for a good life is now available here.
While all of you are aware
of my political leanings I have made a conscious effort to stay clear of it. I don’t
know how history will read Narendra Modi’s 1st term (2014-2019), but
as far as global image of India goes he has improved it manifold. This feedback
was time and again shared by our Indian travel guide, by our fellow travellers.
The world knows India and its premier Narendra Modi and has a lot of respect
for India.
#proudindian
#eternaloptimist #jaihind #vandemataram
