The single most important metric in predicting a country's future population quality (like average education level) which translates to productivity is a country's FEMALE literacy level (IQ is second for a populous country thanks to the Bell Curve). India is currently at 65% while China is at 95%. Since we are talking about people and social change, improvements can only come slowly over time and over human generations.@AndrewS @Sardaukar20
Don't forget their much acclaim DEMOGRAPHIC DIVIDEND and each year is getting bigger. They think this will sustain their economic development for years to come...LOL.
Indian social planners are painfully aware of the job to support a large (and growing) low-quality population from cradle to grave. Not an enviable task for at least the next 80 years. Economic growth rate correlates positively with birth rate. India's birth rate is declining but its productivity is not rising fast enough to compensate.
China averted its own time bomb/social instability with massive job creations for unskilled workers through infrastructure building and migratory worker policies. Now the most worrisome generation (Chinese born in the 1960's) are in retirement or soon to be. It is the urbanization of this Chinese generation that shaped China today. They deserve all the credit.
By not aligning with China, Modi/BJP is hurting India in a huge way as it is clear China has no plan to relinquish its position as world's factory. The biggest incentive for the RCEP ASEAN members is to take over the sunset industries in China and next is Africa with its huge potential markets where China is doing a super job acclimatizing Africans with Chinese products. India is nowhere and chose the wrong side. Modi and his nationalists/socialists are betting that its huge population can make the domestic economy flourish without foreign competition. China's own experience from the 1700's and onward say differently. As India lacks most basic natural resources and must buy expensive upstream imports, Indian industries will remain constrained and consumers receiving overpriced and/or inferior products. Like China's mass exodus to Southeast Asia in te 19th Century, India's best and brightest will continue the current emigration trend and holding back Motherland's own progress.
It is self-delusional for India to think it can stay within striking distance of China. The gap is increasing, not decreasing. The current Indian rhetoric makes it effortless for China to pull India's strings to divert India's limited resources to unproductive areas such as an arms race or space exploration. India should listen to Deng's advice to stay low and bides its time. At the current or even slightly elevated growth rates, it is impossible for India to EVER escape from the middle income trap. The good news for China is that India probably won't listen.
