A nation’s successful coordination of investments in infrastructure produce powerful results. In the early 1980s China and India were on equal economic footing notes the World Bank. Deng Xiao Ping, the leader of Communist China at the time, launched a peaceful revolution towards prosperity. His efforts mirrored those of Dwight Eisenhower, a contemporary of Ping’s, a few decades earlier in the United States.
The former peasant, Red Army General and world leader systematically began investing heavily in his country’s infrastructure. Ping launched what became the modernization of The Peoples Republic of China. First he concentrated efforts on building a modern superhighway system similar to the ones in Europe and the United States. Then Ping directed improvements to the nation’s ports, railways and airports. As a result nearly half a billion Chinese were lifted above the poverty line inside of 20 years. China’s economy reached annual double digit growth into the 2000s.
India, by comparison, underinvested in its infrastructure. As a result, its economy saw little significant growth during the same period. Today, China’s economy is many times larger than that of neighboring India. India and many other nations are struggling. They are unable to make needed infrastructure improvements.
Dan McNichol is a number-one bestselling author and an award-winning journalist. His published books, articles, thought-leadership papers and speaking events focus on mega construction projects in the United States and The Peoples Republic of China.
McNichol recently contributed to a front page story in The New York Times titled, “Trump-Sized Idea for a New President: Build Stuff”. The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) / Boston Chapter named McNichol as one of nation’s outstanding journalists in 2014 and again in 2003. McNichol contributes to worldwide media outlets including: The New York Times, Engineering News Record (ENR), ABC World News, CBS News, CNN, Fox News, British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) network, China Central Television (CCTV), TV Tokyo, MSNBC and PBS’s The NewsHour, National Geographic Channel, Discovery Channel, History Channel. McNichol is a frequent voice on National Public Radio (NPR).
ENR Magazine recently tapped McNichol as the magazine’s national correspondent for a cross country tour. McNichol and Aileen Cho, ENR’s senior transportation editor, drove in a 1949 Hudson Commodore with the tagline, “America’s infrastructure is as old, rusty and energy defunct as our original Detroit lead-sled.” The journalists wrote ENR print and online cover stories about the nation’s ailing infrastructure.
A former White House appointee, McNichol served the President on US policy issues surrounding transportation and infrastructure between 1991-1993. McNichol has worked in official capacities on the nation’s largest infrastructure projects: California High Speed Rail (2017), San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge Replacement (2013) and The Big Dig, a.k.a. The Central Artery / Third Harbor Tunnel Project (2000).
