The history of the 21st Century will be written at the intersection of the national interests of the leading and emerging powers.  While the United States is the preeminent global power today, by mid-Century the emergence of China and India will rearrange the global landscape.  As with tectonic plate shifts, there will be early warning signs, tremors, which forecast the more massive shifts of the future. Although this phenomenon has been recognized, belatedly, in Washington, D.C., New Delhi, and Beijing, there has been a noticeable absence of any strategic planning to deal with problems that will arise concurrently with such large shifts in power. Since the issues of mid Century will be created or constrained by the policies of today, the world cannot afford to wait for the normal unfolding of events. 

A report from the U.S. National Intelligence Council (NIC) likens the rapid rise of China and India in the global scene as being much like the “advent of a united Germany in the 19th century and a powerful United States in the early 20th century.”  The NIC predicts this rise will usher in a new era in which the two “will transform the geopolitical landscape, with impacts potentially as dramatic as those in the previous two centuries.”  As basis for this judgment, the NIC cites high economic growth, expanding military capabilities, and large populations as fundamental indicators contributing to the rise in “economic and political power” of these Asian giants.

We predicted this outcome in a book published in 2000, Power Transitions in the 21st Century.  Since then, China has overtaken the US in terms of GDP, and India’s economy will become the third largest in the world in 30 years.  This economic transformation will create a “mixture of awe, opportunism, and trepidation.”  When one considers that the combined populations of India and China make up nearly one-third of the global population, and that their respective economies have experienced average growth rates of 9.5% and 6% over the past twenty years, it is easy to grasp the tidal wave of change that is being generated in Asia.

Already China is a global leader in mass manufacturing and annually attracts the lion’s share of global foreign direct investment.  India, on the other hand, leads the world in design, software, services, and precision industry, while lagging for now in attracting foreign direct investment. 

World leaders are just now appreciating these global trends. But since these trends culminate in a distant future, leaders continue to focus on the immediate and more demanding.  The risk of inattention and the lack of policies implemented today for impact tomorrow represents a staggering failure of vision.  Sustainable policies that integrate the interests of the US, China, India and the EU must be put into place soon or the global community will face the consequences of giants at odds with each other rather than sharing the mantle of leadership under an umbrella of common preferences.

Business applications flow from the research agenda of the Consortium

The Consortium brings together the intellectual assets that reside within key universities in the United States, India, China, and the EU. In turn, these institutions reach out to their governments and policy makers with policy options and advice that meets the mission of the Consortium.  While fleeting attempts have been made in the US to look at the emerging nation phenomena, few have engaged Universities and intellectual leaders in those target countries.  Within the United States, there are many universities with Chinese programs, only a few with programs dealing with India, and virtually none that link the three and attempt to integrate both academic research and policy relevant papers into a coherent analysis dealing with what will happen when all three countries and the EU are more equal in power and influence than today.   

Three academic entities in the United States, each with distinct capabilities, have developed this concept: the Mark O. Hatfield School of Government at Portland State University, which specializes in policy issues and publications; the School of Politics and Economics at Claremont Graduate University, which specializes in advanced quantitative and theoretical work on the US-China-India issue; and the Business School at La Sierra University in California with its in-depth expertise of the business communities in all three countries.   

All Consortium partners conduct fund-raising activities for the Consortium. The purpose of these activities flows from the recognition that the research encouraged by the Consortium must serve its global mission. The Consortium holds an international conference annually. Interested parties are welcome to inquire for more details.