, Columnist
It’s Hard to Be the Next China, Not Impossible
The main obstacle to India becoming an export powerhouse may be the pull of its own protectionist past.
India’s protectionist instincts conflict with its export ambitions.
Photographer: JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images
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Is the global monetary order ready for another reboot?
In the 1960s, Japan and Europe exported their way to post-World War II prosperity under the fixed exchange rates of the Bretton Woods agreement. The U.S. went off the gold standard in 1971, but the established way of doing things didn’t collapse. Thirty years later, China essayed the role of being the world economy’s periphery and selling cheap widgets to a revamped core — the West and Japan — with the help of an undervalued exchange rate.