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I think long-term, I would still bet on India over China. Not only does China have an impending demographic crunch, India is a democracy with an enormous Englis

I think long-term, I would still bet on India over China. Not only does China have an impending demographic crunch, India is a democracy with an enormous English-speaking population and friendlier ties to the West. Look at the Indian space program for some really inspiring examples of doing fantastic things on a (relative) shoestring budget. Assuming they aren't completely done in by climate change, I wouldn't be surprised if India became the dominant power in the second half of the 21st century.

plinkplonk 8y ago
"I wouldn't be surprised if India became the dominant power in the second half of the 21st century" I would (Fwiw, I am in Indian, lived for years in the USA, now live in India). Aside from climate change, India has tremendous problems with respect to literacy, religious intolerance, lack of engineering/manufacturing skills (outside the space program) , emigration of its brightest young people etc etc. Any nation can progress only when it has competent leadership for a few decades. In India, across political parties, we have utterly terrible leaders with little education and less common sense. If anything I (personally) predict India will decline as the century progresses. (imo ime, ymmv, etc, saying this before the super patriots of India(n origin) accuse me of being some kind of traitor to our glorious destiny)
- oblio 8y ago
  > we have utterly terrible leaders with little education and less common sense I don't want to rain on your parade (I'm not Indian), but from outside, despite their impressive on paper CVs, your past leaders were even worse, based on their results.
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