A Comparative Study Between Five Year Plans Of India And China

Originated from Planned Economy Mechanism, Five Year Plan had oncespread all over the world in the middle of last century as an important tool tomanipulate the development of the economy and then abandoned afterdissolution of the Soviet Union in the1990s. Unlike most countries, India andChina have persisted Five Year Plan, which proved to be a powerful tool inboosting economy, facilitating system transition and impulsing socialdevelopment. The simultaneous rising of these two Asia giants leads to ahotspot in comparative research of development models. Meanwhile, as adevelopment tool, five-year plan has attracted little attention in related studies.This thesis suggests that, as a development tool with all the basic propertiesof public policy, Five Year Plan should be characterized as a public policyaiming to guide the economic and social development. From the perspective ofpublic policy theory, this thesis systematically examined the policy environment,policy process, policy change and policy goal implementation of India andChina’s five-year plans and tried to summarize the similarities and differencesbetween India and China’s Five Year Plans with an explanation of the cause.This thesis holds that the different policy environment of India and China,the different political institution in particular, is the main cause of the differencebetween Five Year Plans of India and China. On one hand, the establishment ofIndia’s Five Year Plans involves broader participation and input owing todemocratic political environment; on the other hand, it consequently suffersfrom discontinuity of policy, poor policy execution and disturbances incentral-local government relationship. While democratic centralism in Chinamakes the Five Year Plan mandatory style and government-led process butexecuted more effectively due to the efficient administrative system and closecentral-local government relationship.