Aakar Patel |If China surpasses us as the world’s most powerful economy, then will it sweep India?

Historian Max Hastings describes World War II as a death struggle between two giant monsters – Adolf Hitler’s Nazi army against Josef Stalin’s Soviet troops. The rest, Winston Churchill’s speech and the US’s struggle against Japan in the Pacific was at best a juggling show, which is the fact that the nationality of the murdered person revealed.

The great competition of our time also has only two powers: Donald Trump’s United States of America and Xi Jinping’s People’s Republic of China. The rest of the world is a noisy juggling show. The competition between the United States and China is not military, at least not yet military, but the stakes are similar and higher in many ways.

From the outside, it can be seen as the struggle between the West and Asia for global economic dominance. Usually, we will or should support our fellow Asians to the West, but in my experience, Desis is neither secure nor small. Let’s leave it there.

What China needs is time. In 1991, when India entered this new phase called “liberalization”, we were balanced with China in an economic way. Average Indians produce average Chinese. Indeed, China has undergone ten years of reform before this, which is seen as an advantage over us, but in terms of a position below India, it is an advantage. In industry and agriculture, unlike India, it has been closed for decades. Unlike us, this pain arises from the Chinese leadership that has caused ordinary Chinese people to suffer unpaid suffering.

Over the next 35 years, China’s average annual GDP grew by 9%, and its economy was progressing faster than any Western power. Over the past decade, China’s growth rate has dropped to an average of 5.8%, similar to India’s growth, but the base has grown five times.

If China adds another decade without distracting it, it will overshadow the United States as the world’s largest economy. It has done this with the so-called PPP clause, but in a decade it is also likely to be bigger in absolute terms. The second place in the world that has occupied 150 years is completely unacceptable to the United States. Western political scientists like John Mearsheimer say China’s rise will inevitably lead to conflict because the so-called Thucydides Trap theory is that war is the result when the rising power is about to replace dominance. In this theory, violence is the result, because in this case the existing dominant force will never accept the second place and will conquer its competitors, anyway. Some believe that this may be a Western way of looking at things, with Asian powers intervening in global affairs with no interest in the ways Europe and the United States have done over the past two centuries. They believe that China’s rise will not threaten bases around the world, or be bound by institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the United Nations Security Council. Therefore, the United States should consider evaluating the significance of China becoming the first. But, like Thucydides’ trap, this is just a theory, and no one knows how China will act when it is eclipsed.

Over the past eight years, the United States has tried to stop and stop China’s economic progress. It denies that Chinese companies use advanced semiconductors. It imposes duties on Chinese exports, using fentanyl drugs as an excuse, as much as using “dumping.” It accuses China of building transcendent capabilities in industry, although this is often called export-oriented growth. During Donald Trump’s second president, it tried to impose such high tariffs that trade would become impossible.

Unfortunately, for the United States, this has failed. Stock and bond markets are firmly telling President Trump that any idea of ​​isolating China will cause damage to the U.S. economy, forcing him to go back.

China has won time now. How long does it take? I believe it is enough to see it. The Trump administration’s focus has shifted from trade to tax cuts, which will take up most of the energy for the rest of the year. With the 2026 U.S. Congress midterm elections, Mr. Trump will have a lower appetite for the reckless foods made in the past few months. That will also take China’s time. Given Mr. Trump’s trade gambling failed, his successor may not go the same path after 2028.

Over the past eight years, the Chinese have prepared for the trade war. They removed state support from troubled real estate businesses, letting them collapse and letting capital flow to the industry. They attempted to build markets for global export markets outside the United States and consolidated supply chains through deals in Africa and Latin America.

The United States is now China’s third largest trading partner, second only to Southeast Asia and the European Union’s ASEAN group. Most importantly, they accelerated their lead in a range of future-oriented technologies. Trump’s U.S. leverage on Xi Jinping’s China has been reduced.

If the situation lasted until the first time in 200 years, the world’s largest economic force would not be Western, but Asian. This will affect all countries, although governments in any country, including the United States, are ready for this transformation.

The author is the President of Amnesty International in India. X: @Aakar__Patel