Thiruvananthapuram, March 7 Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said on Saturday that China has built a "superb and unmatched" industrial system in the world, but the neighboring nation is "coercive and undemocratic".
Rahul, answering questions during a dialogue with the Information Technology (IT) fraternity at Technopark here, said that China has captured the industrial production side while the US, India, and most of the world are "playing in the consumption space".
He said that, in his view, the real jobs are in the industrial production sector, not the consumption side, like the IT sector.
"The disappointing thing is that we have allowed China to simply capture it (industrial production)," Rahul, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, said.
"China has built a superb industrial system that is unmatched in the world. But we do not like their coercive system. We do not like the fact that they are not democratic," he added.
He said that if India can build an industrial production system while maintaining the country's democratic values, "it would be a huge service to the people of India and the world".
Another concern he raised was that most of the military power was moving towards electric motors and batteries, as seen in the Ukraine-Russia war or the ongoing conflict in West Asia, and that this technology is dominated by China, not by India, the US, or Europe. "That is a huge problem," he said.
The LoP said that India was the only country that could make such a transition from internal combustion engines to electric motors driven by batteries.
"We are the only ones with the scale to make that transition. The US and Europe, as far as circular mobility with electric motors are concerned, cannot compete with China anymore.
"I think that, given the right policies and vision, India can compete with the Chinese or with electric mobility circular motion. If we do that, we will create a large number of jobs," he said.
He further said that China is currently having a free run, but he wanted them to be concerned about India coming up in that space.
Rahul further said that in India, very few businesses are engaged in industrial production.
"Most of the big businesses, like Adani and Ambani, do not produce anything. They sell products that damage our local production. We need to have an attitude of production," he said.
The LoP contended that there is also a political aspect to this.
He said that the current Goods and Sales Tax (GST) system is designed in a way that harms producers.
"It basically kills producing states and helps consumer states," he said.