Frequent Weekly Standard contributor Dan Twining emails his thoughts on one of the most underreported economic stories out there. While China gets most of the attention on the business pages, India has quietly positioned itself to be a dominant player in the 21st century world economy. If fact, MIT’s Yasheng Huang argues that India “might be more competitive than China” in the years ahead. Twining observes:
China’s rise is changing the economic and strategic landscapes in Asia and beyond. But the rise of India is an equally compelling story, and one that promises to have similarly tectonic effects on the world economy and the global security order. In this piece, MIT professor Yasheng Huang picks apart some of the “China myths” prevalent among Western and Asian analysts — myths that have obscured India’s emerging dynamism and potential to outperform China in the long run. He even twists on its head the conventional wisdom that India should model its economic reforms on China’s. Instead, he urges the Chinese government to take a close look on India’s emphasis on education, transparency, and governance. “Unless China embarks on bold institutional reforms,” he writes, “India may very well outperform it in the next 20 years.”
