Once upon a time, two rival countries shared a troubled boundary. It was a long border, traversing rivers, mountains, deserts, glaciers and dense jungles. Both countries had suffered under a brutal colonial power for over two centuries, but miraculously gained freedom almost at the same time in the late 1940s, a few years after the end of World War II. Alas, their independence was marked by a violent division, a virtual civil war in which millions died, led by two charismatic leaders who carved up the turf between them.
Both countries took off on diametrically opposed political ideologies. One became a liberal democracy, the other a totalitarian dictatorship. But for the first two decades of their existence, their per capita incomes did not diverge much, despite their vastly dissimilar economies. Then a policy convulsion shook one country in the 1980s. It liberalised, opened its economy to foreign trade and investment, and took a shine to free markets. Its economy soared. In less than two decades, it left its “traditional rival” gasping for breath. The world called the race “over and out”.