Why a Chinese high-speed train to Kolkata could put peace on track

India's security apprehensions about Beijing should not solely dictate its infrastructure and technology partnerships.

By Sandeep Gopalan (Connections)

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Published: Sat 15 Sep 2018, 8:56 PM

Last updated: Sat 15 Sep 2018, 11:02 PM

A bullet train connecting Kolkata in west India with Kunming in southwest China? Sounds fanciful? Perhaps for ordinary countries but certainly not for the brilliantly ambitious Chinese construction machine. China is proposing to connect Kunming with Kolkata by bullet train - traversing Myanmar and Bangladesh along the way. Although it is not clear that the proposal is more than talk at this stage, India should seize the initiative and engage China to bring the project to fruition. Here's why.
India has some of the worst transport infrastructure in the world. Its entrepreneurs and young population are foiled in their aspirations by this creaky infrastructure. Businesses cannot transport commodities to their factories or their products to markets efficiently.
Small farmers are unable to transport agricultural produce to urban markets where their goods would fetch better prices. Ditto for small-scale rural entrepreneurs. Both are prey to middlemen who exploit these difficulties and suppress profitability for the actual producers. And this chokehold on income stymies further investment into production by farmers and rural businessmen and inhibits development outside urban areas. In addition, substantial amounts of time is lost on clogged roads - this could be better spent on productive activities or on improving the quality of life. Research by the World Bank, KPMG, Ernst & Young, among others has documented the severe constraints placed by poor infrastructure on India's development.
The dreadful infrastructure is not just a drain on business. India's horrendous roads claim over 150,000 lives in accidents every year. By way of comparison, about 35,000 people die on America's roads. In addition to these deaths, there are potentially hundreds of thousands of injuries suffered. The 150,000 deaths and injuries are a mass tragedy for which the government must claim the largest slice of blame because of the shambolic state of road construction and maintenance. Moreover, vehicle safety requirements are not fit for purpose and are further compromised by corruption and ineptitude in enforcement.
As a result, avoidable accidents on Indian roads deprive families of both income and the companionship of their loved ones.
India has much to learn from China's experience with infrastructure development. China's expenditure on roads was 10 times greater than India's from 2001. China is already at pole position in the race for high-speed train connectivity. It is developing bullet trains that reach speeds of up to 400 kmph and is racing toward even better magnetic levitation trains that reach speeds of about 600 kmph. Currently, the bullet train from Shanghai to Beijing travels at about 350 kmph - covering the distance between the two cities in about 4.5 hours. China's bullet train network already exceeds 22,000 km and continues to expand. Crucially, China's bullet train track construction manages to add about 2,000 km per year - outpacing every other country.
And China's transport surge is not confined to traditional modes - it is also likely to assume leadership in autonomous vehicles. The scary thing is that China was a non-entity in self-driving cars just a few years ago. Over the last three years, Chinese companies are investing massively in self-driving vehicles. For instance, Baidu - China's answer to Google - is developing its Apollo platform to connect AV (autonomous vehicle) software and hardware to become the "Android for automated vehicles." It has partnerships with BMW, Daimler, Ford, and others.
India risks being left behind in the world's race. It is currently invisible in technologies that are likely to become pervasive in the coming decades - Artificial Intelligence (AI), high-speed transport, drones, robotics, and predictive analytics. Au contraire, China is either leading or actively chasing leadership in these domains. Therefore, India needs to partner with China to build critical infrastructure so that its young population is not left behind.
The Kunming-Kolkata bullet train is just one example of win-win partnership. Chinese companies are probably better suited to build bullet train networks in India because they are used to dealing with similar bureaucratic gridlocks, land acquisition problems, local disruptions, etc. If India overcomes its security apprehensions and employs Chinese companies to build bullet train networks to connect the major urban centres, its rapidly urbanising population will be able to realise the commercial benefits that accrue as a result of good infrastructure. Conversely, absent such infrastructure, rapid urbanisation will result in clogged transport networks, supply-demand mismatches for necessary goods, inefficient use of time, and poor quality of life.
India could also partner with China to deploy drones to provide medicines, food, and other aid to rural and remote areas - imagine how many lives may have been saved in the recent floods in Kerala if drones had been used. Similarly, Indian companies could leverage Chinese self-driving car technology to produce autonomous vehicles for Indian roads. Based on research predictions, AV are safer (by reducing driver error) and ought to reduce the number of road deaths and injuries drastically. Moreover, self-driving cars and trucks will reduce the demand for private vehicles - contributing to less crowded and cleaner cities.
Finally, there is a cold and hard reason for partnership with China. The Asian Development Bank estimates that Asian countries will need to spend $1.7 trillion per year until 2030 to maintain growth and tackle poverty. According to the ADB, India's climate adjusted infrastructure investment needs are about $5.1 trillion for 2016-2030. There is simply no way for India alone to domestically find these funds for infrastructure investment - the government's tax revenues and bond-issuing capabilities are unlikely to be sufficient.
China can help fill the gap by financing construction - as it has done in other Asian countries.
India's security apprehensions about China should not solely dictate its infrastructure and technology partnerships with that country. By mitigating these risks with robust contractual protections, China's bullet trains could be a vehicle for peace between the two Asian behemoths. It is only with transport infrastructure that Indian citizens can get aboard the development express. Otherwise, they will remain on the platform as their Chinese counterparts whiz by.
Sandeep Gopalan is Pro Vice-Chancellor at Deakin University, Australia


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