Roving Periscope: For first time in 46 years, the US to grow faster than China, says Zakaria
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: For the first time in 46 years, the USA will grow faster than China.
President Xi Jinping’s policies are not working and China is stumbling, veteran Indian-American journalist Fareed Zakaria has said.
Speaking about the pressure and tension building up in China, he said India can take advantage of the slowdown in the Chinese economy.
“They (the Chinese) are going for zero-Covid policy and they are getting zero growth,” the media quoted him as saying on Saturday.
Referring to the concerns of Chinese Premier Le Keqiang, who raised alarm this week over his country’s slowing economic growth, Zakaria said China is not growing as a country. Its growth estimate for this year was 5.5 percent. For the first time in 46 years, the US will grow faster than China.
He said President Xi Jinping’s policies are not working, but he has a tight grip on power. Using the anti-corruption façade, he eliminated a lot of his enemies and rivals.
The Chinese economic growth will head southward into the 4 percent range, which is terrible for them, given their demographics. They need growth, and they are still only a middle-income country. The forces that propelled China’s growth were the private sectors…The state-owned enterprises of China are as badly run as the state-run parts of the Indian economy, he remarked.
“Unless there is a course correction, I suspect a significant Chinese slowdown for several years,” Zakaria said
India, he said, is best positioned to take advantage of these concerns. Externally, the concerns are that China is becoming expansionist and predatory. Internally, China’s slowing growth is a major concern. India can pick up this slack in some areas by manufacturing goods at a lower price than China.
“India needs a more open, business-friendly, and can-do attitude. It needs to cut down mountains of red tape that still exists. PM Modi is doing a good job economically and has implemented second-tier reforms,” he added.
Zakaria also underlined the threat aimed at India through Chinese foreign economic policy. “From a strategic point of view, India must be worried about a Chinese foreign economic policy that is strategically oriented to encircle India.”
About South Asia, he cited the crisis in Sri Lanka and the proximity between China and Pakistan.
“The circumstances behind the Sri Lankan crisis were unusual and countries have become more aware (of China’s debt trap),” Zakaria said, adding, “India has to accept that Pakistan has essentially aligned itself with China and that has larger strategic implications. China is allying itself with a neighboring country with a history of hostility, disputed territories, and of sending militancy with the objective of destabilizing India.”
About China’s India policy, Zakaria said it surprised him that Beijing did not make more efforts to ease tensions with New Delhi. “It is another example of Xi Jinping’s non-pragmatic policy. Except for India, China has resolved border disputes with all other 15 countries around.
“Part of it is because it involves Tibet. For China, the issues that it regards as the integrity of Chinese territory and creating a kind of Han-dominated China have always been hard. Maybe they view India as the only country in Asia that could equal them,” Zakaria added.
