When I get the question – “Is India the next China?” – to the surprise of many, I respond with a resounding NO! And the Indians should be extremely happy about that. When most people look at India, they see a ton of people and cheap labor. But once you dive a little deeper, the stark differences between India and China start to appear.
Thanks to globalization, China became the manufacturing powerhouse it is today; India missed the globalization train. So India will probably be just fine when the rug gets pulled out from under the global system.
China’s economy owes much of its success to hyper-financialization due to the government flooding projects with loans and capital. Great for the appearance of economic growth, but wildly inefficient and unproductive. In India, capital availability is low, so the projects that get funding are actually productive.
And finally, my favorite topic, demographics. China is a mess; just go watch my videos on that. India is just now industrializing, so their demography has shifted into the chimney we often see (having the same amount of people in their 40s, 30s, 20s and so on). However, this has happened much later and is proceeding much slower than their peers.
On top of all that, India is geographically blessed with access to food and energy right around the corner. Don’t get me wrong, India has its own set of issues, but they are all on a magnitude lower than what China’s got going on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBVOVSxKEYs |