China and India are growing and set to catch up with the US in 20**, watch this to know when exactly :
http://www.youtube.com/user/tedtalksdirector?blend=1&ob=4#p/u/18/fiK5-oAaeUs
Nice video and some good points. But.
Firstly he is only showing they will catch up in life expectancy and average income. This does not translate into actual power on the world stage. Even when you take into account population.
And he is using Japan as a litmus test to compare India and China against. Japan is extremely different from those two. For example its culture is extremely homogenous. There is little internal division, hence they project their power outward and have been able to develop so fast. Even besides that though - why did he not use South Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia??
But he already said what will prevent his extrapolation from playing out - internal division in China and India.
Thats if they avoid war. Pakistan vs India? Its pretty much inevitable. No to mention the 10 or so insurgencies/independence movements India is currently dealing with. Kashmir? The Sikhs? The huge Naxalite army? Amman? The border skirmishes with China? The current exodus of Tamil Tigers into Tamil territories in India? The constant subversion by the Pakistani and the Balgladeshi intelligence services? All these things take up too much bandwidth for India to really move forward on the world stage. No to mention the saturation of the political landscape with backward looking Socialist and Nationalist movements.
And China - IF they were able to transition to a Western style economy they could have a chance... but that transition would tear them apart. It would require a degree of freedom that would have to allow the Tibetans and Xin Xiang Muslims and other minorities become untolerably vocal. And there is the colossal task or spreading the wealth - all the wealth has been gained in the resource rich coastal areas, hardly anything has penetrated into the poor inland areas.
The Chinese economy is a strawman, overheated to sustain growth. It is overheated because the government instructed banks to give out loans at ridiculously cheap rates. What this means is that businesses did not need to really perform as they would in the West - they get free money from the banks! (Japan did the same thing, result - their 20 years of recession, because they cant allow real reform). Those chickens will eventually come hope to roost, as these businesses start to fail and defaulting on their loans. Its already happening. The Chinese government reckon they need to maintain 8% annual growth to maintain internal stability! This year they've just fall below that. Lets see what happens.
And there is so much more.. Energy for example.. The Chinese dont have any of their own and depend on sea access to Middle EAst. The other option is Central Asia - but here they meet the Russians. Then there is the competion between China/Korea/Japan over the seas, the disputed territories, Taiwan, North Korea etc etc The US simply has no such problems to hamstring it. Not to mention it basically owns the world's oceans and is 2 generations ahead militarily and has projection power that is several heads above the competion.
The video is the typical ramblings of an economist. But only one part of the picture, only taking into account a small subset of variables. Geopolitics and internal cohision (or lack therefore) put limits on the true trajectory - you cant just extrapolate in a straight line, history just doesn't work like that. Japan flew for 30 years, then platowed for the last 20 and is heading down. Same thing will happen with China and India, for similar and different reasons.
/rant
damn, gotta get back to work. its hard on a Friday night, feels like I should be out somewhere