Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s visit to Washington reminded Americans last week that Japan has become America’s most important ally. But my visit to the Ananta Centre’s India-U.S. Forum here over the weekend reminded me that the future of the Indo-Pacific rests largely in India’s hands.
The history of Asia can be read in comparing the Indian and Chinese economies. According to World Bank figures in chained dollars, in 1980 India’s gross domestic product was 64% of China’s. By 2001 when China joined the World Trade Organization, India’s economy was only 28% as large as China’s. And, despite several years of rapid growth in the 21st century, by 2021 India’s economy had fallen even further behind and equaled only 17% of the Chinese economy. Even as India has caught up with China in population and built a world-class cyber industry, it has not emerged as the kind of manufacturing powerhouse that could rival China’s economic weight in Asia and beyond.
Uneven development has been a more important driver of world politics throughout modern history than many people understand. Britain’s early lead in the Industrial Revolution made it both the workshop and the master of the world in the 19th century. As the rest of Europe caught up with Britain, Western powers managed to dominate virtually the entire world.
Japan’s early industrial success made it the greatest power in Asia by the end of the 19th century, and Imperial Japan was sometimes called the “Britain of Asia.” Regional supremacy went to the heads of Japan’s rulers, and they embarked on a destructive and ultimately ruinous quest for hegemony. Now China’s success has made it the greatest regional power and tempted some in Beijing to follow the path of Imperial Japan.
If India’s economy had kept pace with China over the past 40 years, India would currently have a GDP of $10 trillion instead of $2.73 trillion. Between the military spending an economy of that size can support and the economic and political clout it would give Indian businesspeople and diplomats, there would be no “China threat” in the Indo-Pacific. When and if the gap between India and China begins to close, the balance of power in Asia will also start to shift, and China will need to rethink its approach to regional and world politics.
America’s problem in Asia is not that China is too rich. It is that India is…
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