The people's republic was established in 1949 without improving the standard of living much for the next three decades. Then Deng Xiaoping came along and abondoned organizing the whole sphere of the economy in favor of letting companies produce as much as they could sell. And the US right across the Pacific ocean happened to be very happy to buy cheap goods en masse. Without that foreign money pouring in, it would've been much harder to pay for all that poverty alleviation.

India, too, has had Five Year Plans, but they don't seem to have helped that much. If they could get foreigners to give them more money, though...

I think India is torn apart by its own racial and religious problems, not to mention the notorious caste system, but that's story for another chapter

In the very least, the Chinese gov, at Mao's time or at Deng's time tried to provide general welfare and equity to all of its citizens. Even though Mao's delusional thinking resulted from perhaps old age made that dream impossible and left the coutry iredemmable damaged til Deng.

India is much more diverse, including at a genetic level. The Han Chinese are one people, whereas Indians are clustered in hundreds of populations of around 3 million that have managed a higher level of endogamy than Ashkenazi Jews for over 3 millennia:

Source: chapter 6 of "Who We Are And How We Got Here" by David Reich.

“We welcome foreign investment and advanced techniques. Management is also a technique. Will they undermine our socialism? Not likely, because the socialist sector is the mainstay of our economy. Our socialist economic base is so huge that it can absorb tens and hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of foreign funds without being shaken. Foreign investment will doubtless serve as a major supplement in the building of socialism in our country. And as things stand now, that supplement is indispensable. Naturally, some problems will arise in the wake of foreign investment. But its negative impact will be far less significant than the positive use we can make of it to accelerate our development. It may entail a slight risk, but not much.” — Deng Xiaoping

I’m sure you know better though.

Thank you for the nice quote. You seem to think it contradicts what I said, but I don't see it that way. The importance of foreign investment was exactly my point.

Maybe because I said that he "abondoned organizing the whole sphere of the economy"? But the economy is no longer 100% state-owned like it was in 1978, is it not? (I'm having trouble finding reliable figures, but I vaguely recall it being around 40% of GDP nowadays.) Of course GDP has grown 40x since then, so even just 40% of that represents 16x growth and Deng wasn't wrong about the socialist sector benefiting from foreign investment. It's just that the private sector grew even more.

That doesn't mean the sphere of the economy isn't being organized, though. Deng's reforms were just a new stage of that development.

> The decisive difference is that China was reestablished as a people’s republic led by a communist party

The communist party doesn't lead.

Its political edicts are a complete mumbo jumbo. Tell me of a single sane person who can decipher any meaning from the phychomumbling of party heads on CCTV. Even CPC members themselves have barely any understanding what the hack their own party line is.

> which organizes the whole sphere of the economy to improve the overall standard of living.

The communist part did not organise anything, it literally been doing nothing except floating belly up on the water 20 years straight from 1990 to 2010, while Western money kept piling on them.

I will not deny that some state companies attained a level of commercial success, and that some select municipalities had moderately competent hired hands working for them. But this was hardly a result of any deliberate effort.

> China has eliminated absolute poverty whereas India is still struggling to provide basic food security.

You have to say it's Chinese people who eliminated the absolute poverty, and not the talking head only showing in a village for a few hours once a few weeks to deliver ideological sermons from a loudspeaker.

Saying the opposite would be an insult to ones intelligence when it's the party, and especially local party heads, which consistently keep rural people downtrodden.

Mumbo jumbo? I’ve read the CPC’s latest five-year plan, and it seemed pretty clear and concrete to me. Anyone interested can do the same: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQEtwcbYa9hTqs7y...

Based on my research into China’s poverty alleviation program I can only say you’re completely misrepresenting it. It’s a wide-ranging effort that includes the CPC building infrastructure, hospitals, and schools in the far reaches of the country. Of course you’re right it’s something all Chinese people should be proud of.