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Why China More than India?

China?s economy is seen by economists to be growing at a rapid rate, and many are those who gleefully await the Dragon?s entry into financial superstardom. Is China?s economic rise emblematic of a reality in which China will be able to become powerful enough to challenge the primacy of the United States, or an economy getting its fifteen minutes of fame before another billion-plus population club member, India, surpasses China both in terms of its population size as well as economic weight? It probably depends on your biases.

There are those who like to imagine that China will outperform India because of some preconceived notion that the Chinese are more sophisticated than the Indians. This is probably some racist notion that doesn?t take into account that India is a democracy, and thereby more inclined toward innovation, and that China is expanding its economy while keeping its political system quite authoritarian. Which is the more conducive to growth we might expect to be the democratic system. And what estimates about both nations seem to willingly exclude is the effect of poverty on the national economies in question.

Beijing and New Delhi occupy a region that could see great conflagration of the military sort, of the natural disaster sort, or even of immense economic growth. Some of the factors can be controlled by man, others are completely out of Indian or Chinese control. If China opens up its political system more, it may very well be able to stay ahead of India in the game. If not, maybe it will be the case that in a few years people are as enthusiastic about India?s growth as they are today about China?s.