But given that the demographics for India are more favourable than those for China, we could expect that in another 20 years India’s prominence will have grown a great deal – assuming that country continues the process of reform that has helped it to generate impressive growth over recent years.
These figures are all based on the IMF’s Purchasing Power Parity estimates for countries’ respective GDPs. Some might find them a bit abstract – if you doubt that, try explaining purchasing power parity to your mother. But we can appeal to various other “real” indicators to chart the rise of China in particular.