印度能不能成为中国的竞争对手？
2023-01-19 09:45阅读：
日本首相岸田文雄上周对华盛顿的访问提醒美国人：日本已经成为美国最重要的盟国。但上周末参加阿南塔中心举办的印度-美国论坛的经历提醒我，印太地区的未来在很大程度上取决于印度。
人们可以通过比较印度和中国的经济来了解亚洲的历史。根据世界银行以环比物量计算的国内生产总值（GDP）数据，1980年，印度GDP为中国的64%。到2001年，当中国加入世贸组织后，印度经济规模仅为中国的28%。尽管在21世纪经历快速增长，但到2021年，印度经济发展进一步落后于中国，仅为中国经济规模的17%。尽管印度在人口方面追赶上了中国，建立了世界级的网络产业，但依然没能崛起成为与中国在亚洲和世界所占重要经济地位相匹敌的制造业强国。
Can India emerge as a rival to China?
Manufacturing hasn't been a strong suit, and technology alone won't
do the trick.
Walter Russell Mead, The Wall Street Journal
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's visit to Washington reminded
Americans last week that Japan has become America's most important
ally. But my visit to the Ananta Centre's India-U.S. Forum here
over the weekend reminded me that the future of the Indo
-Pacific rests largely in India's hands.
The history of Asia can be read in comparing the Indian and Chinese
economies. According to World Bank figures in chained dollars, in
1980 India’s gross domestic product was 64% of China’s. By 2001
when China joined the World Trade Organization, India’s economy was
only 28% as large as China’s. And, despite several years of rapid
growth in the 21st century, by 2021 India’s economy had fallen even
further behind and equaled only 17% of the Chinese economy. Even as
India has caught up with China in population and built a
world-class cyber industry, it has not emerged as the kind of
manufacturing powerhouse that could rival China’s economic weight
in Asia and beyond.
Uneven development has been a more important driver of world
politics throughout modern history than many people understand.
Britain’s early lead in the Industrial Revolution made it both the
workshop and the master of the world in the 19th century. As the
rest of Europe caught up with Britain, Western powers managed to
dominate virtually the entire world.
Japan’s early industrial success made it the greatest power in Asia
by the end of the 19th century, and Imperial Japan was sometimes
called the “Britain of Asia.' Regional supremacy went to the heads
of Japan’s rulers, and they embarked on a destructive and
ultimately ruinous quest for hegemony. Now China’s success has made
it the greatest regional power and tempted some in Beijing to
follow the path of Imperial Japan.
If India’s economy had kept pace with China over the past 40 years,
India would currently have a GDP of $10 trillion instead of $2.73
trillion. Between the military spending an economy of that size can
support and the economic and political clout it would give Indian
businesspeople and diplomats, there would be no “China threat' in
the Indo-Pacific. When and if the gap between India and China
begins to close, the balance of power in Asia will also start to
shift, and China will need to rethink its approach to regional and
world politics.
America’s problem in Asia is not that China is too rich. It is that
India is too poor. In the short to medium term, the imbalance
between the two Asian giants requires the U.S. to work with our
allies to keep Chinese ambitions and power in check. But even as we
focus on the clear and present danger, we must keep the big picture
in mind. The U.S. and India have disagreed and will disagree on
many things, but America’s national interests are firmly tied to
India’s success.
India’s great economic achievement to date has been the development
of a world-class information economy. Cities like Bangalore and
Hyderabad have become important centers of IT, and the rise of the
Indian tech sector has helped build an emerging Indian middle
class. Cyber alone, however, won’t be enough to achieve the
transformational growth that India needs. If India wants to end
poverty at home and emerge internationally as China’s peer, it must
become a great manufacturing power.
The World Bank estimates that in 2021 India had more than 360
million children 14 or younger, 112 million more than China. IT
will provide jobs for only a fraction of those young people. For
the hundreds of millions of Indian workers who do not speak English
and have limited mathematical skills, factory work offers the only
feasible path out of poverty.
Manufacturing for the world market has not been India’s strong
suit. Rickety infrastructure, expensive and unreliable electric
power, complicated labor and land laws, and a frustrating
bureaucracy prevented India from joining previous waves of Asian
industrialization. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Vietnam
and of course China all outperformed India in the race to
industrialize.
Today, however, a confluence of international and domestic factors
is giving India a chance to catch up. Internationally,
manufacturers are looking to reduce their dependency on China.
Domestically, the populist government of Prime Minister Narendra
Modi wants broader prosperity than the cyber economy on its own can
provide. Years of investment in highways, railroads and ports
combined with regulatory reforms have reduced if not eliminated the
obstacles that long kept foreign investors at bay.
While Indians work on making their country more attractive for
foreign investment, American policy makers need to remember that
Indian economic growth is critical to American goals in the
Indo-Pacific. As American trade policy adjusts to the new era of
great-power competition, we need to ensure that made-in-India
products have access to American markets.
