Observing that India and China share a very unique set of characteristics, former Union Law Minister Subramanian Swamy has said that the two Asian giants can collaborate in many areas, including IT sector.
"India and China can collaborate in various areas including IT, alternate fuel development, thorium based nuclear energy research etc. A collaborative attitude will be a winning game for both India and China," Swamy said in his
keynote address to the Global Indian IT Professional
Association (GITPRO).
Addressing Indian professionals at a function
organised by GITPRO, at Cupertino in California, Swamy said, "India and China share a very unique set of characteristics, both of them are billion population countries."
In his speech on "Competing Or Collaborating
Economies" Swamy said together the two countries were 50 per cent of world's GDP till about year 1750 AD, lost their position, and now growing at about 8.5 per cent growth rate.
They are regaining their positions and are only next to the US in the GDP, and US, China and India would form a triangle of leading economies in the next 50 years, he added.
"They (India and China) are the only large neighboring countries that have not been involved in any kind of conflict in the last known 2700 years except in 1962" he said.
"We in India need to evolve a policy to preserve the ancient relationship between both the countries without sacrificing their national interests," the Janata Party president said.
While infrastructure was China's key strength, India enjoyed advantage in skilled labour, he said.
"There are lot of areas in which both the economies can collaborate. Indian infrastructure and education systems needs improvement, and the only country which has a potential to match US innovation is India and the key ingredient for
innovation is Democracy, this is where India has an edge over China."
"India's population would not only surpass the Chinese population but it would be younger and that would also be an advantage to India. While working on collaboration, India also has to compete with China in exports," he said.