WI: Both India and China economically liberalize and prosper?

That said, with the Himalyas between them, India and China could very easily maintain good relations, and see each other as natural allies. Economic liberalization is all well and good, but many in both countries will likely still worry about economic colonialism. They have 1-3 billion consumers and producers between them, and they’re fairly evenly matched, so perhaps they’ll want to trade with each other over the western powers, as much as possible.
I'm not sure about this part. If Mao is out of the way for China, then they most likely will remain friendly. But there is still the border dispute, and if both countries industrialise early, would they resolve their border issues or go to war like in OTL?
Tibet is a core issue for China, and except Nehru, most of the Indians saw Tibet as a buffer between them and a Communist China
 
I'm not sure about this part. If Mao is out of the way for China, then they most likely will remain friendly. But there is still the border dispute, and if both countries industrialise early, would they resolve their border issues or go to war like in OTL?
Tibet is a core issue for China, and except Nehru, most of the Indians saw Tibet as a buffer between them and a Communist China

Certainly possible. I'm just positing one scenario, which is likely, but I think your proposal is just as likely. Perhaps part of this could be China never annexing Tibet. Heck, lets throw in Xinjiang as an independent East Turkestan (likely a Soviet puppet in this case) and now China and India don't share any land border at all. China does not lose much economic value, and perhaps the two countries could agree to keep Tibet as a mutual buffer zone - perhaps even a Condominium arrangement.
 
Certainly possible. I'm just positing one scenario, which is likely, but I think your proposal is just as likely. Perhaps part of this could be China never annexing Tibet. Heck, lets throw in Xinjiang as an independent East Turkestan (likely a Soviet puppet in this case) and now China and India don't share any land border at all. China does not lose much economic value, and perhaps the two countries could agree to keep Tibet as a mutual buffer zone - perhaps even a Condominium arrangement.
Yeah, I guess that's the best way for them to cooperate. While the US relationship with China would probably be antagonistic (due to China being Communist and all), I'm guessing the US would see India more neutrally, to contain China First and view India as a grey area partner, like Britain in the interwar period.
 
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Could other areas in South East Asia take off even more? A surviving south Vietnam, Taiwan, a first world malaysia?

Taiwan did take off, and is also not in East Asia.

Malaysia was as rich as South Korea in the 1980s; it's not as rich now because it's had some really bad economic policy, like overinvesting in roads in order to encourage people to buy cars from the state-owned automakers where South Korea kept suppressing consumption until the 1990s in order to promote exports. But even then, Malaysia is about as rich as the better-off parts of Eastern Europe, like Poland and the Baltics. I think generally people underrate how rich Malaysia is and how rich Indonesia is (Indonesia is about comparable in GDP per capita to China) because of crypto-racism from Chinese people. Western ideas of race in East and Southeast Asia are filtered through a Chinese lens, and the Chinese racial discourse holds that there's a superior Chinese race and an inferior Malayo-Polynesian race, so obviously it's inconceivable the Malays could be living in not-poverty.
 
Taiwan did take off, and is also not in East Asia.

Malaysia was as rich as South Korea in the 1980s; it's not as rich now because it's had some really bad economic policy, like overinvesting in roads in order to encourage people to buy cars from the state-owned automakers where South Korea kept suppressing consumption until the 1990s in order to promote exports. But even then, Malaysia is about as rich as the better-off parts of Eastern Europe, like Poland and the Baltics. I think generally people underrate how rich Malaysia is and how rich Indonesia is (Indonesia is about comparable in GDP per capita to China) because of crypto-racism from Chinese people. Western ideas of race in East and Southeast Asia are filtered through a Chinese lens, and the Chinese racial discourse holds that there's a superior Chinese race and an inferior Malayo-Polynesian race, so obviously it's inconceivable the Malays could be living in not-poverty.

Typo?

Also, I think you may be overstating Western ideas about Malay inferiority. I’m pretty sure most people in the West of any stripe just don’t think about Malaysia at all, and the majority that do just know it as the place that held the skyscraper record for awhile.

I can’t use myself as an example because my father-in-law did lots of business in Malaysia, so I’m an outlier by association, haha.
 

Yeah, I meant Taiwan is in East Asia, not Southeast Asia.

Also, I think you may be overstating Western ideas about Malay inferiority. I’m pretty sure most people in the West of any stripe just don’t think about Malaysia at all, and the majority that do just know it as the place that held the skyscraper record for awhile.

Yeah, so my point is that because people in Western countries don't think about Malaysia much, their ideas of it are filtered through people who think about it more, i.e. Chinese people.
 
Yeah, so my point is that because people in Western countries don't think about Malaysia much, their ideas of it are filtered through people who think about it more, i.e. Chinese people.

I think Westerners are even less aware of Chinese views of Malaysians than they are of whats going on in Malaysia to begin with. The rare time I hear anything about Malaysia in the media (aside from the infamous flight), its generally modest but positive economic stuff.
 
Just got me thinking; should a stronger India and China create a reasonably powerful third bloc in the cold war, how would the cold war be affected?
 
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