[세계 경제]인도VS중국VS이집트

OP-ED COLUMNIST

India vs. China vs. Egypt

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Published: February 5, 2013

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/06/opinion/friedman-india-vs-china-vs-egypt.html?ref=opinion&_r=1&

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.”

요약

인도는 중앙 정부의 권위는 약하지만 시민 사회는 강력하다. 중국는 중앙 정부의 권위는 강하지만 시민 사회는 약하다.이집트는 중앙 정부도 약하고 시민 사회는 매우 약하다. 그러나 세 국가들의 공통점이 하나 있다. 30세 이하의 젊은 이들이 점점 기술과 밀접해지지만 균등하게 교육을 받지 못한다는 것이다. 

필자의 관점에서 이 세 국가 중 21세기에  가장 번영한 국가는 과잉인구에서 젊은 이들의 인구배당금(demographic dividend·인구 수 증가에 따른 경제적 혜택)’효과가 가장 큰 국가라고 한다. 이러한 경쟁은 누가 더 많은 젊은 이들에게 더 많은 영감을 주고 기회를 주는 지에 대한 것이며 단순히 일자리, 커리어가 아닌 더 나은 삶을 위해 리더, 부모, 선생들이 이러한 환경을 만들어야 한다. 이러한 것들을 실패한 국가들은 고용을 할 수도 없으며 고용이 될 수도 없을 것이며, 세계와 단절이 될 것이다. 강력한 정부와 강력한 시민 사회 중 하나라도 없다면 문제가 될 것이다. 이집트, 중국, 인도가 겪고 있듯이. 

노동 연령이 늘어나고 있는 지금, 중국의 평균 노동 인구의 연령은 38세인데에 비해 인도는 28세로 그 차이가 점점 커지고 있다. 이는 인구배당효과(전체 인구에서 생산가능인구 비율이 증가하면서 경제성장률이 높아지는 현상)가 엄청날 것이다. 이것이 옳다면 인도가 세계의 주력이 될 것이며, 이것이 틀리다면 젊은 이들은 취업을 못하고 좌절할 것이다. 실제로 불만을 품은 몇몇 인도 젊은 이들은 모택동사상(마이쩌둥사상 : 중국공산당의 지도자인 마오쩌둥이 마르크스-레닌주의를 중국의 현실에 맞게 창조적으로 계승 ·발전시킨 독자적인 혁명사상)에 의존하고 있다. 최근 몇 년 동안 625 지역에서 165개의 폭력적인 모택동사상 주의가들의 사건이 있었고, 그래서 가난한 아이들을 학교로 보내려고 압박하며 인도는 매일 무료 급식을 제공하는 세계에서 가장 큰 급식 프로그램을 운영하고 있다. 또한 인도의 기술 교육 연구소의 수는 8개에서 16개로 늘렸고, 혁신과 연구를 위해 14개의 새로운 대학을 계획하고 있다. 그러나 이는 더 나은 정부가 없다면 무의미하다고 P&G의 CEO는 말한다. 젊은 이들의 열망과 정부의 성과 차이는 너무 크다. 

 강력한 정부와 책임이 있는 정부를 잡기 위한 강력한 사회가 필요하다. 인도는 최고의 사회가 정부에 참여할 때 강력한 정부를 얻을 수 있고, 중국은 최고의 고급 관리들이 민간 부문에 참여할 때 강력한 사회를 얻을 수 있을 것이다.