Abstract
“The Dragon and the Elephant” between China and India is an important manifestation of global multipolarization in the 21st century. As engines of global economic growth, the two rising powers have followed similar courses of development but possess important differences in modes of development and urban development, which have attracted the widespread attention of scholars. From a geospatial perspective, and based on continuous annual night light data (Defense Meteorological Satellite Program-Operational Linescan System, DMSP-OLS) from 1992 to 2012, this paper conducts a multi-scale comparative analysis of urban development differences between China and India by employing various approaches such as the Gini coefficient, Getis–Ord Gi* index, and the Urban Expansion Intensity Index (UEII). The results show that: (1) The urban land space of the two countries expand rapidly, with the average annual expansion rate of China and India being 5.24% and 3.85%, respectively. The urban land expansion rate in China is 1.36 times faster than that in India. Resource-typed towns in arid northwest China and the resource-typed towns in central India have developed rapidly in recent years. (2) The unbalanced development in India is more prominent than in China; and the regional and provincial development imbalances in China are shrinking, while India’s imbalances are improving slowly and its regional differences are gradually widening. (3) The spatial pattern of land use in both countries shows significant coastal and inland differences. The difference between the east, the central regions, and the west is the main spatial pattern of China’s regional development, while the difference between the north and the south is the spatial pattern of India’s regional development. (4) There are obvious differences in the expansion intensity of core cities between the two countries. From 1997 to 2007, the expansion intensity of core cities in China was relatively higher than that in India, while that in India was relatively higher than that in China from 2007 to 2012.
Highlights
China and India are two rising world powers and are often referred to as “the driving force of Asia in global change“ [1]
After the accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, China has rapidly integrated with the international community and the global economy, and the total lights in China changed greatly
China has rapidly integrated with the international community and the global economy and has gradually become the developing country that attracts the most foreign investment
Summary
China and India are two rising world powers and are often referred to as “the driving force of Asia in global change“ [1]. To promote the rapid development of the economy, economic reforms and liberalization measures were implemented in China and India in 1978 and 1991, respectively. Since the implementation of reform and opening-up policy of China, the total GDP of China has increased from 0.15 trillion dollars in 1978 to 12.24 trillion dollars in 2017, with its world ranking having risen nine places during that period. Since the implementation of economic reforms in India, the total GDP has increased from 0.26 trillion dollars in 1991 to 2.6 trillion dollars in 2017, and its world ranking has risen by 10 places during that period. Similar developmental histories and different developmental paths and models of China and India make their competition and development relations widely concerned
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