SILICON VALLEY -
China may be the destination for short-term
investors, but if you are in it for the long haul
you might want to bet on India, according to an US
economic expert.
Ahead of President George
Bush's visit to India this week, Clyde Prestowitz,
president of the Economic Strategy Institute and a
former counselor to the secretary of commerce in
the Reagan
administration, has said the
President is traveling to India to enlist New
Delhi as a major new ally that can serve as a
counterweight to China and Iran.
"Such an
alliance would represent a major shift in
America's foreign-policy calculus that had for
decades favored Pakistan over India," Prestowitz
wrote in the San Jose Mercury News today.
Comparing China and India, Prestowitz has
said that although China is far ahead of India,
with an economy that is twice as large and growing
faster, it has vulnerabilities over the long term.
The same lack of the rule of law and due process
that allows it to quickly bulldoze homes for
skyscrapers, for example, has also led to
corruption, rising inequality and social unrest.
Conversely, India's apparent weaknesses -
a cumbersome democracy, lack of central planning
and unrestrained population growth - could be
long-term advantages, he wrote. China's economic
superpower ambition has flaws, including graft,
waste, and an aging population. India, in
contrast, enjoys many hidden, long-term
advantages, the author of Three Billion New
Capitalists: The Great Shift of Wealth and Power
to the East said.
