Edward Luce

To paraphrase a famous thinker: "You might not be interested in geopolitics, but geopolitics is interested in you." We are living in a world of indefinite great power competition, not just between the US and China but between the so-called "alliance of the aggrieved and the west". The so-called global south is increasingly where the US-China rivalry is being played out. There is no natural end to this new, less certain, high-risk phase of modern history. How we do business and invest will be profoundly shaped by the new global disorder, just as how the US navigated the original Cold War between the US and the USSR is relevant to today's challenge to US primacy. (Luce's next book, from Simon & Schuster in early 2025, is a biography of Zbigniew Brzezinski, Polish-American diplomat and political scientist who served in the Johnson and Carter administrations.) 

Having covered every US presidential election of the last two decades, Ed Luce is well poised to make sense of the most unusual campaign season in modern memory. After a summer of black swans, from Joe Biden's disastrous debate performance and his withdrawal from the race, to Donald Trump's near-assassination and Kamala Harris' lightning-fast ascent, we can surely expect more surprises to follow. Without claiming to predict the future, Luce draws from his own deep knowledge of the American political and economic landscapes to offer trusted analysis of the state of play, and implications for various outcomes, including those that stretch our imaginations. 

Americans often forget that India is not a formal ally, nor is itever likely to be, so long as it favors a multipolar world order rather than a US-dominated one. But India shares an abiding common interest with the US to contain China, which it will likely continue to outgrow. This has profound implications for future world growth and investment, as well as for the geopolitical competition between the US and China. India may never behave like a conventional ally, and its legal system and politics remain wild cards, but as an investment prospect in an age of decoupling, it will look increasingly attractive relative to the erratic rule of Xi Jinping. (Edward Luce is the author of In Spite of the Gods: The Rise of Modern India (updated 2011), described by The Economist as “the definitive book on the New India.”) 

China’s growth in 2022 is set to fall to five per cent officially (and much lower in practice). India will exceed 7 per cent. This is likely to be replicated for many years to come, which will make India the fastest growing large economy in the world. India will benefit from the growing decoupling of the US and Chinese economies. Apple is now making its iPhone 14 models in India, for example. Though India remains a tougher investment environment than China was over the last thirty years, its demand for capital and the youth of its population make it a far steadier long-term growth prospect than today’s increasingly autocratic China, which is ageing before it gets rich and entering the middle-income trap. The future is not entirely India’s – its legal system and politics remain wild cards. But it will look increasingly attractive relative to China’s surveillance capitalism and the increasingly arbitrary rule of Xi Jinping. Edward Luce’s book: In Spite of the Gods: The Rise of Modern India (updated 2011), was described as “the definitive book on the New India” by The Economist.