Donald Trump’s embrace of India’s Narendra Modi is a picture of US double standards in its trade war with China
- India’s protectionism and its human rights infringements attract much less open criticism from the US than China’s. Perhaps, the US’ targeting of China is more about Beijing’s success in shifting the global balance of power
As a student of development economics at university back in the early 1970s, there were few books more provocative or indispensable than Barrington Moore’s 1966 tome, The Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy.
Over 50 years on from Moore’s book, many would say the question has been emphatically answered. From almost identical starting points in 1950, China’s gross domestic product is now more than twice India’s. Indeed, more than 10 of China’s provinces have a larger GDP than India’s richest state, Maharashtra, and two Chinese provinces – Guangdong and Jiangsu – together have a GDP of US$2.7 trillion, equal to the whole of India.
China today is the world’s top trading power, exporting more than eight times India’s exports, and the world’s leading manufacturer. Note that Hong Kong, exporting US$568 billion in 2018, Singapore exporting US$412 billion and Taiwan exporting $335 billion, are all bigger exporters than India.
While China has lifted an estimated 850 million out of extreme poverty, with just 3.1 per cent now living in poverty, almost 22 per cent of India’s population still lives in extreme poverty.
