After decades in which China was the great emerging player on the planet, to the point of becoming the second largest economy in the world and rivaling the United States, the next great phenomenon of growth in world geopolitics may be India.
With more than 1.4 billion inhabitants, the country is expected to overtake China this year as the most populous country in the world, according to projections. In addition, last year it became the fifth largest economy on the planet.
Estimates by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) released last week pointed out that the Indian Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will grow 5.9% in 2023 and 6.3% in 2024, more than double the global variation, which should be 2 .8% this year and 3% next year.
This scenario takes place at the same time that China seems to be going into decline: last year, for the first time since 1961, there was a drop in the number of inhabitants in the country, and the aging of the population has been reducing Chinese productivity.
These factors, combined with the effects of the severe lockdowns of the Covid Zero policy (abolished from the end of 2022) and the increase in state interference in the economy since Xi Jinping came to power ten years ago, have meant that China’s economy grew only 3% last year, the second worst result since 1976 – the weakest performance was the 2.2% increase in 2020, the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic.
At the end of 2022, when it assumed the presidency of the G20, India announced its intention to lead the developing countries. “India’s G20 presidency will work to promote a universal sense of unity. Hence our theme, ‘One Earth, One Family, One Future’”, declared Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Is India on the way to becoming a global player, along the lines of what China has become in recent decades? Not necessarily.
Despite the recent growth, the country faces difficulties in generating jobs, especially those offering good wages, which ends up causing many people (especially the younger ones) to give up looking for work.
Data from 2021 from the World Bank showed that India’s labor force participation rate, i.e. the percentage of people employed or seeking employment among the population over 15 years of age, was only 46%, while in China and in the United States the rates were 68% and 61%, respectively.
Chandrasekhar Sripada, a professor at the Indian School of Business, said in an interview with CNN that India “is sitting on a ticking time bomb”. “There will be social tension if it is not possible to create enough jobs in a relatively short period of time”, warned Sripada, who pointed out that high unemployment in India is a result of low quality education.
The professor praised recent changes in public policy in Indian education, which are putting “reasonable emphasis on skills development now”, but that such measures will take years to generate significant impacts in the labor market.
In an interview with People’s GazetteIgor Macedo de Lucena, economist, doctoral student in international relations at the University of Lisbon and member of Chatham House – The Royal Institute of International Affairs and the Portuguese Association of Political Science, highlighted that India has been experiencing “robust” growth, but short of what China achieved before Xi came to power.
Despite probably being outnumbered, China should end 2023 with a GDP of US$ 19.3 trillion, much higher than that of India, which should be US$ 3.7 trillion.
Lucena mentioned that other factors may prevent India from becoming a global player – among them, the profile of its foreign policy.
“India has more intense internal conflicts than China, a geopolitical problem with Pakistan and there is also a lot of this view of Brazil of not meddling in the specific issue of conflicts. [entre outros países]. So, some points of India make it much more of a regional power than in fact a superpower, like the United States or China”, explained the expert.
“There is no big Indian agenda of an international plan, like the Chinese New Silk Road [programa de investimentos em infraestrutura em outros países] and American initiatives. India’s economy is very focused on services and these are linked to companies, industries and international banks”, explained the economist, who mentioned the large number of products aimed at the Indian domestic market, which cannot go beyond the country’s borders, while the Chinese focus fell heavily on exports.
Russian friendship
Another issue that could trouble India is that its questionable foreign relations and internal human rights problems are already being noticed by the international community.
While it does not support Russia in the war against Ukraine, it has not condemned Moscow and continues to maintain close ties with the country of Vladimir Putin.
Russia is India’s biggest arms supplier, and Indian imports of Russian crude oil have grown since the Kremlin invasion of Ukraine to the point where they now account for more than the sum of purchases of the product from Iraq and Saudi Arabia.
On the issue of human rights, India is internationally condemned for violence against women and persecution against Muslims and Christians: the organization Open Doors placed the country in 11th place in its most recent list of oppression of followers of Christianity in the world.
“These problems diminish India’s long-term ambitions,” Lucena pointed out.
#Largest #population #planet #GDP #growing #world #average #India #China