[AIG]

The last 50 years of India's history wouldn't support your position. In all likelihood, by 2020, another 100-200 mil. Chinese will have achieved middle-class status while another generation of Indians continue to wallow in poverty and illiteracy.

[Torie]

Actually India has a larger middle class than China. The past is not always a guide to the future. The only thing that bails out China to some degree is the discipline of its people and Confucian traditions that are more amenable to the entreprenurial ethos and climate vis a vis India. But in the information age, that will not be enough. A freeer society like India is going to gain on China rather rapidly now.