The rise of India and China is NOT at the expense of the West. It is all about human liberty.

The West is rapidly fading even as the East is rapidly rising. The scale of change is large. As a result, there is significant angst in the West. For instance:

A few months ago, the New York Times published a column by two distinguished commentators, Ian Bremmer and David Gordon, with the eye-catching title “Rise of the Different.” Bremmer and Gordon argue that it is important to distinguish between the “rise of the rest” from 1945 to 1990 and the recent “rise of the different.” The countries denoted as the “rest” emerged under the tutelage of the United States and to a great extent, modeled themselves after the United States economically and politically.

Bremmer and Gordon argue that the “different” states—including China, India, and Russia—are in another category. Relatively poor, more politically varied and unstable, they refuse to accept the legitimacy of the U.S.-led international system. They also have less experience in leadership within that system. For all of these reasons, Bremmer and Gordon predict that the “rise of the different” will “shake the global system in unpredictable, uncontrollable, and quite possibly detrimental ways.” [Source: Lan Xue: “The Shifting Global Order: A Dangerous Transition or an Era of Opportunity?”, Governance, Volume 25, Issue 4, pages 535–538, October 2012[

So much for "Western" paternalistic fools who would much rather the East remained poor for another 100 years. Little do they know that Asia was always more than half the world's economy - till the last couple of hundred years. Things are just reverting to NORMAL. In this normal, the only "detriment" will be for those who act in racist, supercilious, or otherwise antsy ways.

Get used to it. The entire axis of global geopolitics, prosperity, and innovation is shifting BACK to where it belonged: the East.

Unfortunately, racist discourse is common even now. I quote McCloskey who cites Gregory Clark's racist language as recently as in 2007!

Gregory Clark asserts ... a theory of sociobiological inheritance in his Farewell to Alms (2007). Rich people proliferated in England, Clark argues, and by a social Darwinian struggle the poor and incompetent died out, leaving a master race of Englishmen with the bourgeois values to conquer the world. Clark will have no truck with ideas as causes, adopting a materialist (and, as he believes is implied by materialism, a quantitative) theory of truth. His method, that is, follows Marx in historical materialism, as many scholars did 1890 to 1980. But he does not carry out his promise to show his argument quantitatively.

The argument fails, on many grounds. For one thing, non-English people succeeded, as for instance the Chinese now are succeeding. And such people have always done fine in a bourgeois country. (in The Bourgeois Dignity. Why Economics Can’t Explain the Modern World)

A number of Western country residents do not understand why they are wealthy (liberty, dignity). They do not understand that it is just a few key ideas that liberated them from their PATHETIC POVERTY AND SERFDOM. The West was a plague-famine-war-stricken basket case till 1700 or thereabouts. Just like Afghanistan is today.

In fact, the transformation of the West from abject squalour, disease and poverty (many lice- and mite- infected citizens of the West were able to afford to take a bath only once a lifetime) owes itself to just ONE idea: liberty. In my view liberty includes dignity. McCloskey isolates it as a separate idea. So be it. But basically it is all about LIBERTY.

But please note that the East was not without its incipient idea of liberty. Indeed, there was MORE liberty in India than the West ever had till perhaps the 19th century. It is only now that India lags the West on liberty.

So note that the prosperity of the West is NOT genetic. It is all due to one idea.

And people's ideas can change in a few years. The East too is beginning to appreciate liberty. And as the East appreciates liberty, the entire dynamics of it is economies will change.

Those who want to curtail other's prosperity, or feel threatened by the rise of India and China better step back from their conversation based on power. Let them focus on humanity.

We don't want CHARITY. We want RESPECT.

The West should respect and cooperate with this change, and learn to PARTNER with the East.  Lest the East trample it under its feet in anger.

Let me quote Deirdre McCloskey:

All triumphalism about the "West" should go. It should be replaced by gratitude for liberty - a universal value. There should also be no angst expressed about the East which will soon overtake the West.

[However,] the emerging powers—what Bremmer and Gordon call the “different” states—have become increasingly active in the global forums that are aimed at addressing these problems. It is the strong economic growth of the Brazil, Russia, India, and China (BRIC) countries that has helped the global economic system to avert a greater global economic recession.

Recently, during the IMF’s effort to raise $456 billion in order to save Europe from the debt crisis, the emerging countries committed over $100 billion, including a $43 billion contribution from China. In comparison, the United States was unable to make any contribution because of its own financial difficulties.

[T]he “different” are not that different after all. Instead of making trouble for the global order, they can help rebuild the global system in constructive, equitable, and cooperative ways that will benefit all, including the United States and its traditional allies.

However, this much more hopeful scenario will not appear out of blue. It will largely depend on the attitude and actions of the established powers. If they see the “rise of the different” as a threat to their hegemony in global affairs and take efforts to contain that transition, we may indeed enter a new era of global affairs with unpredictable and uncontrollable outcomes.

But if the United States and its traditional allies are willing to accept diversity, show empathy with the “growing pains” experienced by rising countries, and govern with them in a mutually respectful and cooperative way, a new global governance system that is stable and effective will still be possible. This is the future we should all strive for.