They started out in close proximity, were identical by 1980, and they ended up 35 years later with a 5x difference between them. Why? Poor choices that India made along the way. The point being, the sort of growth China has seen is not automatic, it isn't a given at all that India will make the right choices that lead to it becoming another economic superpower. It may make the right choices. China was only able to generate that expansion through very aggressive focus on traditional industry and manufacturing. India isn't following anything like the path that China did, I don't see where they're going to generate the extraordinary foreign investment that China did by using old-style manufacturing as a magnet for capital that they could then reinvest into domestic expansion. To say nothing of the fact that that style of industrial empire and manufacturing is disappearing, and that disappearance is going to accelerate with leaps in automation that are happening now. It's being discussed as an advancement trap for developing nations, where the ladder of advancement gets wiped out for developing nations by AI, robotics, etc (eliminating jobs that otherwise could employ hundreds of millions of people in places like India and China).
GDP, five year increments
India $100b (1975) | $190b | $236b | $326b | $366b | $474b | $834b | $1.68t | $2.1t (2015)
China $163b (1975) | $191b | $309b | $360b | $734b | $1.2t | $2.3t | $6.1t | $11t (2015)
They started out in close proximity, were identical by 1980, and they ended up 35 years later with a 5x difference between them. Why? Poor choices that India made along the way. The point being, the sort of growth China has seen is not automatic, it isn't a given at all that India will make the right choices that lead to it becoming another economic superpower. It may make the right choices. China was only able to generate that expansion through very aggressive focus on traditional industry and manufacturing. India isn't following anything like the path that China did, I don't see where they're going to generate the extraordinary foreign investment that China did by using old-style manufacturing as a magnet for capital that they could then reinvest into domestic expansion. To say nothing of the fact that that style of industrial empire and manufacturing is disappearing, and that disappearance is going to accelerate with leaps in automation that are happening now. It's being discussed as an advancement trap for developing nations, where the ladder of advancement gets wiped out for developing nations by AI, robotics, etc (eliminating jobs that otherwise could employ hundreds of millions of people in places like India and China).