Expanding Asian Influence

Surfing the net the other day, I came across a peculiar statement by the US Intelligence Report on the future of the ecconomic world in the next ten years. What they said didn't really surprise me, because I had been suspecting something of the sort sooner or later, but its intersting that the United States finally starts to notice the growing trend.

The report, Mapping the global future, takes place about fifteen years in the future, and projects a completely changed world (yet the united states remains the dominant power) when the Asian countries of India, and China have finally reached their promise and become some of the leading powers in the economic world, along with the oil controling islamic counties.

Twenty five years ago, no one would have suspected anything of the sort. Yet today alot has changed since the begenning of India a little more than 50 years ago. One major factor that seems to be working for it, is its nag for new and emering markets such as the computer industry which, by the way, has given Indians a new steriotype whether they like it or not.

China, India's major competitor in Asia for outsourcing has one major drawback that India may be able to exploit over the coming years. This drawback is that while they control the major manufacturing markets, from shoes to carpets, they have not been able to get their hands on the new markets that have poped up over the last decade. India and China are about equal in the realm of population (india recently beat china with a wooping 1.2 billion!) they both cater to different sectors of the world market.

So, if they are both the same, what is the difference?

India while still new to globalization, has a democratic form of government, which although stil very recent, has proven to me more stable than the Communist goverment in China. But more importantly India also huge literate population with world class instituions such as the IIT's which are the worlds leading technology colleges.

But Indians beware! My gut feeling is that this ecconomic boom that India has been experiancing over the past five years, is only temporary. India's recent prosperity is not equally distributed amoung its population. While the cities speed forward toward the information age at lightning speed, its rural areas are still in the middle ages.

India cannot forget its socialist roots, and forsake democratic socialism for the sake of american capatilism. As India enters the new age, it must keep one hand on its past and its culture, while reaching out with the other to grab its destiny and future place in the globalized world economy.