The Upcoming Superpower of Asia is India, not China

I was just reading an interesting article I found in the Washington post. The article slams China for being locked into the last century and being nothing more than an assembly plant nation. Evidently "made in China" should really say "assembled in China" as most of the parts for the products come from other places.

India on the other hand is moving foward into the 21st centrury leading the way in many technological fields. India's population is young, well learned, and many can speak English. Also India isn't growing a lop-sided country that consist of many more males than females. China's one child law is eventually going to catch up with them and turn out for the worst.

China has about 5 times indias nucler arsenal and also a much bigger and more powerful army.
Also India has less money then CHina.

India is a strange country, with it's mixture of science and poverty existing side by side. It has the highest incidence of AIDS in the world, and some of the most brilliant mathematical minds on the planet.

The thing that China has going for it is its militaristic structure. The people are accustomed to being oppressed. Plus China practically owns the US currency system.

It'll be something of a test of different concepts. China, of course, is communist, but that's changed over the years, and its gone into a sort of 'unfreemarkety capitalist' phase, and its also a one part system, a 'Unitary Government' where the economy is centrally planned. India, on the other hand, is an open democracy with socialist undertones, and has something of a mixed economy. Both have relative advantages and disadvantages.

Regardless of the size of their armies and economy now, its what they can do in the future that will dictate if they are a super power. The US exploded from an unimportant backwater into a global superpowr because of capitalism and the free market and the benefits of an open society with an emphasis on science and technology and individualism. THe other 'unitary' governments and centrally planned economies of history have done extremely poorly, but have shown an ability to advance rapidly when the need arises (i'm thinking nazi wonderweapons and rapid mobilization of their economy, along with the extreme modernization and industralization that the soviets were able to go thru ).


So I don't know which of the two will be the next big thing, but I'd think that it would be a very important time in history. If its china, how much of it is because of the 'big man' rule, and what effect will that have on western democracies, will they, reasonably enough if china is successful, develop into more totalitarian and dictatorial states, or even be overpowered by such states nearby? Or if India wins out will that cement the idea that democracy and the open system are better? Not to say that India is a perfect demoncracy, since it has roving paramiliaries, a struggle politicaly between Socialists and old school nationalists-fascists, widespread sectarian violence, and, unheard of in real democracies, entire states going thru famines.

The figures here show that India doesn't actually have the highest incidence of AIDS, either worldwide or continent-wide.

The rest of your post, I agree with

Not really. Only because of our buying habbits, they need those habbits as much as we need thier cheap labor. So there is no "owning" here. If another country tomorrow figured out a way to outproduce China in wares the USA wanted/needed, China would dry up.

You're right; poor choice of words on my part. I was referring to the Chinese holding so many of our IOU's in the form of bonds, etc.

I couldn't agree more.

I work for one of the biggest banks in the country, and we've recently outsourced all of our reconcilement work to a company in India. Not only the accounting work, but also support of our systems. We've had 2 guys in town from Bangalore for the past 3 weeks, and they're impressive. Very smart and extremely polite with an incredible work ethic. The programmers are no different - we have 3 of them on staff, all from the same company in Bangalore. On top of that, 6 months ago I started dating an Indian girl - I could explain her the same way...

I think India is definitely going places economically & socially. It seems like they're finally joining the West completely. With a work force like this, they can't go wrong. Nothing against China, but I think India had a little bit of a head start on industrialization, due to the Brits...

The only thing that bugs me is that many, many American jobs were eliminated when we outsourced. Granted, my company is much more efficient and profitable now, but that can't be good for the economy any way you look at it.

nonsense

everyone knows that you've got to have a hamburger industry to make it as a superpower, and that's one thing that India doesn't have.

of course, they could go Chic-Fil-A...

No offence but I would like us to look further into the "knowledge hub" that India is.

CHina:

Literacy:
definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 90.9%
male: 95.1%
female: 86.5% (2002)

India:

Literacy:
definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 59.5%
male: 70.2%
female: 48.3% (2003 est.)

If knowledge is based on literacy then I'd have to give that a no, India is not a knowledge hub when 40% of the population is not litterate.

I have nothing against India, in fact I think Indian people are great and the Indian civilization was one of the main pillars of humanity. However, I have to use facts and observations to deduce the Indian progress and how realistic it is for India to surpass China as the article proposed.
I am not about to highlight the infrastructure and living standards as those had been discussed many times before.

India gained her independence from the British earlier than most and like most colonies primed for independence, India was stocked with enough educated leaders and bureaucrats, the economic reserve was ensured to be adequate, the major infrastructures whether it was financial, judiciary, political, transportation or communcation, were in place and in an English speaking world, Indians are the most English literate of all non-aligned countries.

In addition, after WWII, India was not devastated by the war and was poised to be one of the main suppliers of resources (human or otherwise) to help rebuild nations devastated by the war. That's how the US managed to enjoy the best economic growth ever duirng the 50s and 60s.

After 60 years, what happened? Just because of the latest freeing of financial contraints which led to natural economic growth does not mean that India is ready to be the top economic dog.

Another way to gauge if India is as real as advertized is to look at similar Indian originated nations around the area(Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri-Lanka,...) like China originated nations such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and ethnic relatives such as Korea and Japan. This will give us a general trend where India is headed and where China is headed.

No doubt India will continue to grow and I am quite sure that in the future India will be an economic force with teeth but to consistently blast China and utilizing baseless comparisons will only lessen India's credibility because so far it is only India that had been propagating 'India better than China' propoganda that was based on wishful thinking and non-existent benchmarks.

So far, the see-sawing of Sino Indo relationships has been based on the whims of the reactionary Indian leaders. I still have not forgotten Fernandez's unwarranted "China is India's No. 1 enemy" comment. It was only when the BJP lost its majority in the parliament that relations with China began to thaw. Now it is the neo-cons of the west who is trying to incite what the BJP was doing in order to divide the two most populous nations in the world for its own gain.

I for one would like the Indians to see through all these and work towards the growth of their country without trying to drag China into their own insecurity and lack of national focus which were the main reasons for the stagnation of the last 60 years.

Down to the end, India in the past generally disliked to say the least of China for several reasons. India constantly compares herself to China while China compares herself to US and the west.

This author seems to focus on the PRC's temporary "flaws" & attempts to perceive them as long term disadvantages.
this is especially the case with the currency re-eval. the PRC will re-evaluate the Yuan when it is in her interest to do so, not because of foreign pressure.

& of course this article goes back to bragging about india's supposed advantages in education & information technology. i wonder whether this author is going to basically assume that the PRC will stay in one place in those fields & never progress, if so, he's in for a rude awakening.

as for knowing english, its nice & its convenient, but when it comes to teaching foreign languages, we should focus on MANY foreign languages (like the US does), not just english. Russian, German, French, Persian, Korean, Hindi, & others will all be useful