To Davos via Dalian

China has made the transition. India needs to take lessons from it on how to balance attentiveness to poverty with the aspiration for prosperity

I was in Dalian, China, last week to attend a meeting of the Foundation Board of the Young Global Leaders YGL. This also enabled participation at the Annual Summit of the YGL as well as the inaugural meeting of a new entity spawned by the World Economic Forum called The New Champions. The third summit of the YGL saw increased membership from a wider diversity of disciplines and a keener focus on the outcome of the taskforces established to grapple global issues like poverty, global warming and water. These taskforces have networked in their societies, built bridges with decision-makers, taken up some worthwhile humanitarian projects and are poised to improve on their learning curve. They still lack wider reorganisation, and hopefully the new launch programmes such as a media event as well as the forthcoming regional meetings will mitigate this deficiency and lead to greater public awareness on their worthwhile initiatives.

New Champions is different from the annual Davos meeting. It targets neither the large corporates nor the established elites but 8220;provides first ever meeting for a new generation of leaders and innovators from around the world to network, co-operate and exchange ideas8221;. These mid-sized success stories deserved a separate platform and Klaus Schwab innovatively devised the New Champions programme to bridge the missing gap. The WEF now represents a full spectrum. At one end, it is Davos, the established venue of the big and prosperous, the New Champions representing a new generation of mid-sized corporate leaders and the YGL, a forum of the young and successful whose career progression deserve encouragement and support. The newly created WELCOME, an electronic platform and the proposed GIN Global Intelligence Network, will enable interaction in real time between 10,000 key decision-makers and 500 leading experts in different disciplines.

A word about Dalian, which I believe is a Russian word meaning 8216;far-away8217; or 8216;distant8217; since prior to its becoming a Chinese territory in 1949, it was part of the Russian empire for 60 years and thereafter with the Japanese for over 40 years. Dalian, a deep sea harbour better known as Port Arthur during the 19th and early 20th century is at the southern tip of China8217;s Liaodong Peninsula, facing the Yellow Sea on the east and the Bohai Sea on the west. With a population of about 6 million, a long coastline of about 1,900 km and a municipality covering an area of about 12,570 sq km, it has now become an IT hub, and an attractive tourist destination and counted in the global 500 Roll of Honour for Environmental Achievement conferred by the United Nations. Any first visit to Dalian now leaves one almost breathless with its six-way highways, multi-storied and well landscaped buildings, manicured tree plantations on drive-ways and a Convention Centre which can accommodate over 3,000 people designed to use modern skills of communication. It has more than a lesson or two for the rest of the world.

First, its scale, conception and design. Dalian is an example of never planning for just today or even tomorrow but for the future when it comes to creating new infrastructure. Recognising that the world is getting interestingly inter-connected there is need for a bolder vision. Planning for just enough is never enough. Creation of excessive infrastructure can pose conventional problems of misallocating resources, encouraging fiscal profligacy, creating NPAs for lending institutions or detracting focus from poverty alleviation. However from a different perspective, infrastructure generates its own momentum, creates multiplier benefits and can foster varied economic activity which may be difficult to capture in the calculus of conventional economics. Dalian is an example of converting an extravagance into an opportunity.

Second, in the Chinese psyche it was about bringing Davos to Dalian. Nobody understood the location of the convention or the congress centre. Everybody only knew the venue of the meeting as Davos or at best the 8216;Summer Davos8217;. Chinese perceive Davos as a symbol of prosperity and power. By announcing the arrival of Davos, it was, in a way, announcing the arrival of prosperity. We in India continue to be somewhat embarrassed about Davos because it is considered too elitist and being in the company of rich and often unscrupulous corporates. Several prime ministers have prevaricated in even going to Davos and one former prime minister, after making all arrangements was persuaded by his more conservative colleagues to cancel his visit at the very last minute. India is torn between accepting its role and legitimate place on the high table of growing global prosperity or to continue to feel embarrassed at its many unresolved problems of poverty and its accompanying low human indices of development. The Chinese are equally worried about their large number of poor, growing pollution, and related health issues. In fact Prime Minister Win Jiabao emphasised that China continued to be a developing country.

The Dalian conference offers us some worthwhile lessons on infrastructure, and a strategy for attracting big global events. Above all, reflecting a greater congruence and confidence in their ability to handle both prosperity and poverty. China has transited to Davos via Dalian. We need to ponder on our own transition.