India Isn’t China, and MAGA Shouldn’t Think It Is

India is not China, and many of its residents fear it will never be. It’s hard to imagine a future in which the subcontinent’s manufacturing dominates the world, its foreign investment shapes nations’ destinies, and the challenge of its economic system forces the West to reshape its own policies and principles.

But that is, apparently, what the US administration fears. Speaking in New Delhi last week, Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau warned that “we will not make the same mistakes with India that we did with China 20 years ago.” Although he claimed the recently agreed framework for Indo-US trade would be a win-win, nevertheless America did not intend to let India develop new markets just in case “the next thing we know, you are beating us at many commercial things.”