Many Indians ask me similar questions. They think that China and India can take off together. I believe so, too. They say that the 21st century will be the age of the Asia-Pacific. China opened a little earlier in 1978 while India opened in 1993. In the Western world, many studies including one by Harvard University, say that India will overtake China in next decade or so. You know, we are changing. Shanghai built 4,000 skyscrapers in the last ten years. It happened after we opened to the outside world. People always ask me the secret of China's development. What can we learn they ask me.

Tell us, too.

It's an easy answer. We had a good leader Deng Xiaoping and his ideas.

His ideas of reforms and opening up of China have helped the country grow. We were a closed country. Land was valueless. People are wondering where the money came from to build so many buildings. In the earlier system, land could not be sold in China. It has no value since it was owned by the State, by the government and by the nation. But, now in Shanghai, one square metre is valued at $1000 (about Rs 40,000) to $2000 (about Rs 80,000). We can sell the rights to use the land. That is the new policy and because of it foreign businessmen are investing here.

When we go to Mumbai, we see lots of slums. We had lots of slums 15 years ago. We had many poor people in Shanghai. We did not call it slums but poorly developed homes.

Now, you cannot see such homes in the entire downtown area because the "right to use" of that land has been sold and builders have built skyscrapers. Poor people got money or homes. Shanghai could develop because the poor got a huge amount from builders who also earned due to the skyscrapers. Another model was BOT (Build, Operate and Transfer). In Shanghai you see so many bridges, tunnels and long roads. In the beginning, the government built a bridge at cost of $100 million (about Rs 400 crore). It was the three years budget of the local government. It was a huge investment and the government had no money to build more bridges. But now, more than five such bridges have been completed.

Government "sold" the first bridge to foreign investors to operate at market prices. On the Huangpu River, there are two bridges -- the Nanpu Bridge and the Yangpu Bridge, as well as a tunnel, it was sold for six billion yuan (about Rs 31 billion) to a private party owned by Rong Zhijian, son of former Vice-President Rong Yiren.

He recovered his money by collecting toll. The government got six billion yuan to build more bridges.

Deng Xiaoping gave a call that China should concentrate all its resources in building infrastructure instead of defence spending. Deng's analysis was that there will be no third world war. Many critics had said that People's Liberation Army has been neglected. But Deng insisted that infrastructure was very crucial for China.

It's crucial for India too. Indians should know that there is no China threat. China wants peaceful relations between India and Pakistan. We don't want a nuclear arms race in South Asia. In India, I told friends that I am not opposing peaceful use of nuclear energy. But I opposed India's nuclear test because it's useless. Now bombs are used only by terrorists.