They’re Rounding the First Turn! And the Favorite Is…

Anticipating President Bush’s February trip to India, Nicholas D. Kristof evaluates the other Asian giant ready to seize the 21st century as the great world power. While autocratic China boomed over the past decade, democratic India has lumbered under the weight of its overly bureaucratic civil society and socialist economic policies, producing fewer jobs than its potential. But with flourishing software and technology companies and a huge reserve of English-speaking workers, India presents competition and lucrative opportunities for Western businesses in the service sector. Still, Kristof picks China to win the “great race of the 21st century.” Despite its repressive governance and thinly-veiled social inequities, China’s state-of-the-art infrastructure, open economic policies, and expansive manufacturing base surpass India’s creaking bureaucracies and decrepit roads. Outsourcing centers may spring up around India’s teeming cities, but vast swathes of its rural poor still suffer from an immense poverty and crippling governmental neglect. – YaleGlobal