The Star of India

At the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where Senator Kerry tried to steal the limelight with his call for a filibuster, a new star emerged.

India.

Not China, but India.

The country's economy is strong as a direct result of having initiated free market reforms and free trade. Alvaro Vargas Llosa discusses "Eight Myths about India":

Poverty is still high among India’s one billion people, but the real story is that at the end of the 1970s half the population was under the poverty line (as bureaucrats call it) and today less than one third is living in poverty. A majority of the population still works in agriculture and does not participate in the service sector boom, but that is the fault of draconian labor laws that are still holding back many investors from starting up more companies. India’s middle class (almost a quarter of a billion people) is the largest in the world.

And since trade restrictions were dropped in 2001, US companies are competing to serve a big new retail market there.

And unlike China, India is a democracy.