Yeah, but most of China's population lives in the eastern half of the country.
Outside the Thar desert in the north-western corner of India, their population is much more spread out geographically.
Well at least you can explore mineral resources in those mostly empty areas. The Indians cannot do that.
Because the Australian services sector is much stronger and of course its population is much lower, which means their commodities exports cover a smaller population per capita. But even in the absence of a strong commodities sector, they have far higher productivity in the non-mining sectors of their economy compared to Russia.
It is kind of easy to forget that most of Russia is basically covered in permafrost. The easy to mine places are already dug. Totally different.
Russia also went through the Soviet collapse.
Which makes their failure in the tech sector even more embarrassing. I am beginning to think there's a European-wide curse on being unable to produce large technological companies.
There is no such thing. In the EU the problem is kind of simple. The individual markets are too small and everyone speaks a different language. Often don't use the same currency. And if you do create a business, it will either be bought by larger US companies, or crushed by them.
Russia has a larger more uniform population. But they also suffer from lack of the Chinese Firewall. So US companies can muscle in with their larger capital.
Yandex was their one big company but outside the CIS countries, they were totally irrelevant. Once the war broke out, one of their co-founders fled to Israel if memory serves.
It is not just Yandex. There are other companies like VKontakte.
Like all other billionaires these people store most of their wealth offshore. The guy from Yandex fled to Israel so he could keep his ill gotten gains it is as simple as that. I mean the company was even headquartered in the Netherlands just to avoid paying taxes.
Outside of a few areas with a strong Soviet legacy (MIC, nuclear energy), Russia doesn't have much to offer. It's not as dependent on oil or fossil fuel exports as many Western "experts" claim but it's a more backward country than you would have us believe.
Have you ever tried going off the beaten track in the US? I bet you would love to visit West Virginia as well.
Because that is the kind of place people typically depict when they try to show how backwards Russia is.
Wages are always the best indicator of the true productivity levels of a country because GDP stats are imprecise measurements. Wages cannot be faked and companies will never overpay workers compared to the baseline productivity of an economy, because then you get an wage-inflation spiral if wages increase much faster than productivity for a long amount of time. So wages in Russia are basically at the same level as in China, which is to say fairly low by Western standards.
Ever heard of cost of living? Wages converted to USD are not everything.
I am more optimistic about China given its central role in many industries of the future, whereas Russia is still very reliant on older tech (fossil fuels, nuclear energy and ICE vehicles). I am not forecasting any sudden decline. I just think they will muddle along like they have until now but unable to meaningfully converge with the West.
Russia always has periods when it opens, and when it closes. Right now they are closing.
You call it older tech, but the thing is, they do have their own oil which could last them for decades. Their already explored gas deposits would last them a century or two. Their oil exploration industry has developed fracking equipment, which will likely be used in the Urals region, and they are developing offshore drilling equipment. So why do you think they should be in a particular rush to change? To electric cars? Made with imported materials?
Rosatom is investing in technologies like lithium ion batteries and hydrogen fuel cells. They are the ones most interested in it because their business is making electricity with nuclear power. They also have people with strong skills in both physics and materials. Their mining business is also working on how to extract lithium from deposits available in Russia. But I doubt this will happen short term.
