Thread by @shrikanth_krish

It is well known that China's Per-capita income is close to $18K in PPP terms - over twice that of India that languishes at $7-8K

But what's interesting is that while India is poor almost everywhere, China already has several provinces that have PCIs on par with Western Europe

Let's take India -

Barring small states like Delhi and Goa, there is not a single major state in India whose PCI is in excess of $12K

Haryana and Telangana are the richest at $11K and $10K respectively

UP and Bihar are the poorest at $3.1K and $2.4K

So the whole country is in that narrow range between 3K and 11K. Even a capital city region like Delhi has a PCI of about $18K - about the same as China

Now let's look at China

While the nation's PCI is 17-18K, it has several regions way above $30K!

Beijing: $40K. (20MM)
Shanghai: $38K (23MM)
Tianjin: $34K (13MM)
Jiangsu: $33K (79MM)
Zhejiang: $28K. (54MM)
Fujian: $26K (37MM)
Guangdong: $24K. (104MM)
Shandong: $22K (100MM)

That's almost 430MM people - nearly a third of the population, enjoying a first-world standard of living!

So while we tend to think of China as middle income, let's not lose sight of the fact that about a third of the country is as rich as Europe already

China's poorest provinces like Yunnan, Heliogjiang, and Tibet are at PCIs of $11K, $12K, and $12K respectively

That's as rich as Haryana and Telangana.

So China's poorest states are a notch richer than the "Stars" of India like Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra!!

I dont think too many have internalized this.

We don't even have a metropolitan region in this country whose Per-capita GDP is anywhere close to that of large provinces like Guangdong and Jiangsu!

Sobering

Another point to note

While India's poorest regions are among its densest - UP, Bihar (with 800+ per sq km)

In China its densest provinces are among its richest!

Jiangsu, Shandong, Zhejiang, Guangdong (all above 500)....let alone metropolitan provinces like Beijing, Shanghai

Postscript : @harshmadhusudan pointed out that PPP for intra country comparisons can be dicey as the PPP factor can be very different for say Shanghai vs Tibet

Sure. But the purpose here is provide a rough sense of how affluent the richest parts of China are

@harshmadhusudan As a purist, in that case we must desist from provincial comparisons even in local currency, given that it is much cheaper to live in Bihar than Bangalore!

Yet we do compare, given that both belong to the same monetary union

A methodological imperfection we put up with

@harshmadhusudan Post-script 2 :

It's also interesting to compare China in 2018 with China in 2000 - how did these different regions look that year

Barely 18 years ago

So 18 years ago the per-capita GDP of a city like Beijing was less than $10K. Less than the PCI of a state like Haryana or Telangana today. Barely half of Delhi's PCI in 2018

Today Beijing is at $40K

In the year 2000, the PCI of a large province like Guangdong was $4.7K - about the same as that of Rajasthan or West Bengal today.

Today Guangdong's PCI is at $24K - about the same as that of Romania