Tuesday, November 11, 2003
Paul Kennedy on the BRIC's
(Via Arul) A month back, I had posted the Goldman Sachs study on the so-called BRIC countries -- Brazil, Russia, India and China. In this article, Paul Kennedy, author of The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers addresses some of the implications of the rise of the BRIC countries. In particular he raises some of the geopolitical consequences of the rapid growth of these countries, issues that aren't raised often in the mainstream media.
Russia will grow at a faster pace than Brazil, but will taper off by mid-century. China's year-on-year increase in gross national product of around 8 percent will slowly ease to 5 percent, a figure most other countries would die for. And the forecast for India is the most striking of all: a 5 percent to 6 percent annual growth rate that will not fall away in the next 50 years, leading to a 35-fold increase in its per capita income. Whew.
But the report is also fascinating because of its implications for the world's power balances. If this projection holds, Brazil will have overtaken Italy's economy by 2025, and France's by 2031. Russia will pass the UK in 2027, and Germany in 2028. In fact, the report suggests that by mid-century only the United States and Japan will rank among the world's top six economies (G6).
What this implies is a world in 2050 of three really big powers (ed: the U.S., China and India) and a cluster of medium-sized ones, like Japan, Germany and Britain, with France and Italy (because of population decline and slow growth) beginning to fall off the map. This is not good news for Europe, and perhaps the best ever argument for real unification.
But it is also not good news for our current hyper-power, the United States, to be overtaken by China as the world's largest economy ($45-$35 trillion), and closely pressed by India ($27trillion). To be sure, the average American will still enjoy a larger income than the inhabitants of China and India, but the gap will have narrowed significantly and - and this returns us to Lenin's point - those two Asian powers will be able, if they so choose, to match U.S. defense spending. The full implications of such developments cause one's head to spin, but one thing seems clear: Neither the Indian Ocean nor the Western Pacific will be "an American lake" in 50 years' time.
Russia will grow at a faster pace than Brazil, but will taper off by mid-century. China's year-on-year increase in gross national product of around 8 percent will slowly ease to 5 percent, a figure most other countries would die for. And the forecast for India is the most striking of all: a 5 percent to 6 percent annual growth rate that will not fall away in the next 50 years, leading to a 35-fold increase in its per capita income. Whew.
But the report is also fascinating because of its implications for the world's power balances. If this projection holds, Brazil will have overtaken Italy's economy by 2025, and France's by 2031. Russia will pass the UK in 2027, and Germany in 2028. In fact, the report suggests that by mid-century only the United States and Japan will rank among the world's top six economies (G6).
What this implies is a world in 2050 of three really big powers (ed: the U.S., China and India) and a cluster of medium-sized ones, like Japan, Germany and Britain, with France and Italy (because of population decline and slow growth) beginning to fall off the map. This is not good news for Europe, and perhaps the best ever argument for real unification.
But it is also not good news for our current hyper-power, the United States, to be overtaken by China as the world's largest economy ($45-$35 trillion), and closely pressed by India ($27trillion). To be sure, the average American will still enjoy a larger income than the inhabitants of China and India, but the gap will have narrowed significantly and - and this returns us to Lenin's point - those two Asian powers will be able, if they so choose, to match U.S. defense spending. The full implications of such developments cause one's head to spin, but one thing seems clear: Neither the Indian Ocean nor the Western Pacific will be "an American lake" in 50 years' time.
