Pursuing high value but low employment industries like IT services for Indian upper cast is why India is so behind PRC. Semiconductor industry is more of the same, but worse. Even less employment or and revenue once famine cycle of semi demand kicks in after every bloc gets their fabs up. India needs cheap dirty manufacturing that employs 100s of millions. But automation, desire for self-sufficiency, and rise of China means countries won't risk concentrating global supply chains in single place like India again. Especially India due to geography.

>India can bridge the income trap.

India @ 1/5th of PRC economic size would have to sustain ~25% growth just to maintain with China growing at modest 5%. Indian pre-covid single digit growth can't even generate enough jobs to keep up with population growth. Reality is India's demographic divident in her most productive states are going to fizzle in 10-20 years, comparable to PRC. Overpopulated and underdeveloped states skews overall trend to 2050s, but these are provinces with level of hunger, malnourishment, stunted and wasted developement on par with North Korea. These are the human capital comparable to uneducated folks that compromise ~200M stuck in informal economy in PRC because they can't be integrated into modern economy. India is going to have to deal with demographic bomb while much poorer than PRC before there's light at end of tunnel.

>China got old before it got rich

Middle income trap is a myth, and if it wasn't PRC is upper middle income and steps away from high income of ~$12,500 anyway. Competent countries "trapped" in middle income still typically grew faster than developed economies as well. The question is really can PRC get powerful before it gets old, and all signs indicate to yes.

>The question is really can PRC get powerful before it gets old, and all signs indicate to yes.

The question is whether the CCP can weather the political transformation when transitioning past the middle income stage. That's the real preoccupation with policy makers in China right now.

> India @ 1/5th of PRC economic size would have to sustain ~25% growth just to maintain with China growing at modest 5%.

If India is 20% of China's GDP, and growing at 5%, and China is growing at 5%, India will remain 20% of China's GDP.

Base effect.

5% of 100 is 5.

5% of 500 is 25.

India needs to grow at 25% of 100 to match China growing at 5% of 500. China will eventually only grow at 1-2%. India may eventually catchup by sustaining 10%+ growth. But it's a long road and forces not in India's favor.

E: to clarify, I mean maintain same amount of growth as China, not maintain same proportion of growth. Same proportion increases actual gap.

Same absolute gap is kind of a weird metric, though, isn't it? If China is 500 and India is 100, and China grows to 50,000 and India grows to 49,600, you would call that "the same gap" but I would call it near-parity...

It's not a useful metric but illustrates how much India is actually lagging vis-a-vis PRC. The gap is widening not converging. The actual situation is even worse if you factor in things like forex trends.

Same thing. India will be old by the end of this decade, and we are not even as rich as China.

If you read the original article, Taiwan is not keen on giving India a semiconductor fab, but who cares, a narrative has been built.