Virtually slamming the Left parties, Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Tuesday said "some people" do not want India to catch up with China.
"There are some people in the country who do not want India to catch up with China...They do not want India to be ahead of China," Chidambaram said in the Lok Sabha defending the Indo-US nuclear deal.
Harvard-educated Finance Minister was provoked by members of the Left parties when they questioned him as to why he was drawing a comparison with India with China.
Amidst noisy scenes created by the targeted Left parties, Chidambaram said, "Some people want China to become economic super power."
Chidambaram said he wants India to emulate China without envying the neighbouring country. "I have no hesitation in saying that I do not want to envy China...I want to emulate China...I want India to become an economic power and economic super power".
He said a country as large as India should be compared with China. "When we talk about India, we should talk about countries which are as large and as complex as India and that is China...We cannot talk about countries which are smaller than India and poorer than India."
The finance minister said China, which draws only two per cent of its energy requirements from the nuclear sources, has mega plans to augment its atomic reactors. By 2020, China wants to build 50,000 MW capacity for nuclear energy and it plans to take it further to 1,20,000-1,60,000 by 2030.
{{/usCountry}}The finance minister said China, which draws only two per cent of its energy requirements from the nuclear sources, has mega plans to augment its atomic reactors. By 2020, China wants to build 50,000 MW capacity for nuclear energy and it plans to take it further to 1,20,000-1,60,000 by 2030.
{{/usCountry}}Chidambaram said the UPA Government has only taken the "dialogue" of the previous NDA Government further. This is because of a question," Do we want to come out of nuclear isolation," he asked.