cover image Superpower? The Amazing Race Between China's Hare and India's Tortoise

Superpower? The Amazing Race Between China's Hare and India's Tortoise

Raghav Bahl, Penguin/Portfolio, $26.95 (224p) ISBN 978-1-59184-396-2

Bahl, founder and managing director of India's largest TV news network, compares the superpower prospects of India and China in this meticulously researched but unevenly written study. Contrasting their foreign and domestic policies, cultures, and geographies, Bahl measures their potential for economic growth. Though China doubles its economy every eight years and "spends $1 billion every day to develop world class infrastructure," India has its own advantages: it is the world's largest democracy, 350 million of its people speak English, half its population is under 25, and it boasts a "robust judicial system." Furthermore, India impressed the world with its resilience to the global economic crisis, rebounding with modest inflation, while China experienced deflation and a huge debt. But Bahl warns that India's dithering government could obstruct its potential, lamenting its failure to improve India's crumbling infrastructure while China's "democratic dictatorship" could stymie growth by discouraging innovation. Though the book offers valuable insights into the motivations of the world's two most populous countries, it could have been more tightly edited to eliminate repetition, clichés, and some awkward—occasionally bombastic—phrasing ("India's macroeconomics was beginning to allure"). (Nov.)