India is more likely than China to reach the global power status in the 21st century, having the advantages of a democracy and a young skilled workforce fluent in English, an Asian affairs expert has said.
"The forces that will determine which nations will dominate the 21st century may yet favour India's emerging reach for global power status more than China," Asian affairs expert Jim Holland said, recalling similar remarks by Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath as also US Undersecretary of State Nicolas Burns.
Nath during his recent visit in Washington had said, "China may win the sprint, but India will win the marathon."
'India to be world's knowledge hub'
Holland wrote in Thursday's Washington Post that current straight-line projections of China's rise to power neglect developments and adjustments in other Asian countries, particularly in the region's two great democracies, India and Japan. "While the US and India argue about problems of the future, such as intercontinental outsourcing, the US-China quarrel smacks of the Bretton Woods conference of 1944."
Holland cited Nath's remarks that India is set to become "a global knowledge hub, with a central place in the transnational movement of knowledge and services." Nath had also stressed India's comparative advantage of a large and young educated population, and literacy of 70 per cent with many of the under-30 literate being fluent in English.
Burns has recently said, "the greatest change you will see in the next three or four years is a new American focus on South Asia, particularly in establishing a closer strategic partnership with India."
All the trends -- population, economic growth, foreign policy trends -- indicate that "there's no question that India is the rising power in the East," Burns said in May.
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