India, China or America?

Last year, November, US President Obama visited India. His visit was very important for both the countries, as very few US presidents have visited us before. He delivered a very good speech at the Parliament. A notable thing was that he concluded his speech with a “Jai Hind”. Do you get the importance of a US president crying out “Jai Hind”? Yes, it means that India has risen to a level that the largest economy, US is acknowledging that India is a strong contender for a global super power. The visit was followed by many media channels holding debates about India being the next superpower. I heard some voices there arguing, that it’s China, not India. Further some opined America will maintain its position of being a global super power. What a super power constitutes of? Does the title go to a nation possessing most nuclear warheads? The definition is not that easy to state in this little writing space. Briefly, it means a nation with a position in international space which has the ability to influence events around the world. Let’s take a closer tour to the three countries to try and decipher the future. A few months ago I read in a reputed Indian daily that India has more poor people than the entire sub Saharan Africa! Can a superpower have more poor people than an entire subcontinent? Very unlikely. We are a superpower in scams. No doubt.

So is the world appeasing us? Are we yet ready to become a super power? I need not tell you, what happens when a partial/incomplete matured child is treated maturely? The child will behave unexpectedly and throw tantrums and create unease and may get depressed himself too. Same might be the case with our nation today. We are yet not ready to take on the global power’s position.

The future (superpower) belongs to the one who will have money (i.e. finances) and power (i.e. influence). Keep in mind the sequence first money and then power. So here we are talking about nations and not individuals. In case of nations, everything straightens down to pure business interests. In order to survive as a super power you must know when, where and how to exercise your money and power. America, the world’s largest economy, has been playing it good, until the sub prime crisis hit it hard. You see the money (i.e. finances) component got impacted and the super power’s designation got challenged. When a top spot gets challenged all of them below it run to claim for the top spot. Same is the case now in the world. There are many arguments, who will rein the top spot? American economy has been the largest economy for many decades now. In the 1980s Japan grew rapidly, challenging America to overtake and become world’s largest economy. But the innovations and lead in the software technology kept American economy always way ahead of the Japanese.

Today, China, second largest economy, has grown rapidly and quietly. It is constantly growing at a rate of 9% and above and is expected to supersede the American economy by 2030. Currently, China seems to have both money and power. They are sitting on foreign currency reserves of $2.85 trillion, the highest reserves in the world; the second highest is distant with around $1 trillion; India has a meagre $298 billion. Foreign reserves are used as a gauge to measure a country’s financial strength. So you can say that today China’s overall wealth is around $3 trillion. Now you can realize the stake China holds for the US economy. China holds most of its assets in American dollars. If China were to sell all the dollars in a day the dollar will drop to half of its value today or may even drop more than that. But doing such may prove suicidal for the Chinese. China has resorted to dollar pegging for accumulating this tremendous reserves. China is the largest exporter to America. The Chinese have undervalued their currency so that they can export their products at relatively cheaper rates to America. The dollars they earn are pumped back in American economy by buying treasury bonds and various assets. The result of this is more and more profits for the Chinese and fatter assets in dollars. The Chinese have established a SWF, a fund manage by government, which invests in various countries for a strategic investment. The fund is used to build China’s food and energy security, as it is a nation with a large population. According to some reports China is already the world’s largest economy by PPP (purchasing power parity). It has gained the required money component. As it has money it will have its influence (power) too. In the recent years China is playing assertive. It is now trying to exercise its influence by claiming Arunachal Pradesh as its own part and issuing stapled visas to people from Jammu and Kashmir. It’s their way of saying that they have arrived. I know you may argue that they are a communist nation, the point I am trying to highlight here is the strategic thinking process they possess and how committed the government is to their interests and issues.

OK Now let’s come to America, err… Sorry Pakistan, an ongoing case, an American consulate employee has shot two Pakistanis in a busy Lahore market, who tried to rob him. Pakistan has charged the diplomat with charges of murder and the trial has begun in a court. America is arguing its diplomat fired in self-defense. Pakistan refuses to buy the argument. In response, the American government has threatened to “kick out” the Pakistani diplomats from America and close all consulates in Pakistan. I need not tell you who will win here. I believe by now you might have got the strategy, thinking process and the attitude a super power needs to possess. If you don’t have the attitude, you can’t carry it. Oh, are you thinking I am unfair to India? Lets come to India, 157 people are killed, later 60 hours of rigorous combat, 6 terrorists are holed up in a world heritage centre, they destroy it considerably, we can compensate the casualty. We lost many police officers and a CWG commander, how are we going to compensate this casualty? One terrorist was caught. Yes, you got him right, he is alive. We are still feeding him. And probably he’s the safest person in this country, today. Incredible India! Our government is unable to save our citizens in our own country, whereas other countries see to it that their citizens are safe in other countries too! I hope we don’t catch Osama bin Laden, coz its 2 years now and Kasab is still not executed, don’t forget the judgment was in High court, more years to go. I believe Osama will not be executed for at least a decade. By the time he reaches his sentence he will be close to his expiry date. Citing Kasab’s case, I think Osama may have already made his mind to get officially arrested only in India!

I know there may be some jingoists here who may think that I am singing paeans of other countries and despising our country but I am just mentioning the facts as they are. Sorry for that. But, this current state of affairs is due to the negligence of our rulers. Our rulers consider their relatives as the only citizens and bestow the showers and favors on them. Our rulers are busy gathering money and stashing them away in Swiss accounts and other tax havens. We are earning money by working daily, while our rulers’ are busy gathering more money, daily.

In India, punishments are more of a tokenism with a few days of arrest, a few media coverages, later these chaps get bail, as the dust settles, these chaps are back to business.

Unlike India, in China has a firing squad, which executes a criminal and guess what the bill for the executing (shooting) is also being charged to the family of the criminal! They don’t even use peoples’ money to punish criminals. We also lack the strategic thinking which the Chinese and the America have. Our foreign and financial policies are not aligned to gain long term benefits.

We do have money and surely we have a huge potential to generate a lot more money that’s the reason the world is appeasing us. That is the significance of the “Jai Hind” cry from the US president. We have the money. We have the workforce. The only need of the hour is to channelize these to the correct opportunities. We must not be blindfolded with this appeasing. The world today knows, we have huge potential to generate money and are prospective customers. But we must make sure that while buying their products we are able to also get the best deal for us. In exchange for these deals we must gain safeguards in other areas such as technology transfer, energy security and regional security. Customer is the king of the market. And India is fast becoming the largest customer. Make sure we are the King! We need to increase our stake in the global economy but for that we first need to look into ourselves. Let’s address the internal issues first, let alone the external (i.e. international) ones. We need to invest more in our infrastructure and increase our competence. Our polity must be purged from corruption and transparency needs to be in the government’s driver seat. Only then, we can be a real super power. It doesn’t stop here; you also need to behave like a super power not a soft power.

Long live India…..

Jai hind!