In a word: No.

With elaboration: No, not in the sense that pundits mean “Asian economic miracle.”

I’ll explain in a moment. I’m writing this post in response to some recent comments made by the former governor of India’s Central Bank, Duvvuri Sabbarao. In his words, “If you had the Japanese miracle, the East Asian miracle, the Chinese miracle, an Indian miracle is a tantalizing prospect and quite possible.”

Ah. The Japanese, Chinese, East Asian miracle. It’s a well documented phenomenon, where formerly poor, often destitute countries across East Asia – Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Korea, and now China – pulled themselves out of poverty, and, with astonishing 10% GDP per capita growth year-on-year for decades, manage to catapult themselves into the ranks of the world’s wealthiest.

It’s also a very controversial phenomenon, one which economists, academics, and media speculators have been discussing for years. Why does it happen? Why not in other parts of the world? Why not in Africa or Latin America or the Middle East or right next door in Southeast Asia (Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia fell into a stupor after the 1997 Asian financial crisis), or indeed, until now, in India? Theories abound, from government policies such as export industrialization, to “Confucian culture”, to good ole’ neoliberal capitalist/market theory.

Listen, I’m no academic, and I’ve only taken basic economics classes. But I did live in Korea and China for a decade, and I’ve worked in India as recently as this January. From my experience, a major reason why Korea, Japan, Taiwan – and now China – have had such successes, and other countries have not, is because of a largely overlooked reason: homogeneity, and the resulting societal cohesion.

A lot of what constitutes “smart economic policy” and “stupid economic policy” is pretty well known. Many economists broadly agree on what’s a smart move and what’s a stupid move. No, not when it comes to advanced economies, and people will argue over the finer points of why Japan is stuck in deflation or whether austerity or increased government spending is the right way to go. But the basics? Yeah. Government spending on basic infrastructure? Thumbs up. Clear laws and accountability? Double thumbs up.

The big secret, I suspect, is that often economists know what the economic ideal is; they just don’t know how to get there. The thing is, the how is often a political problem, not an economic one!

Let’s go back to East Asia – specifically to Korea, which I know best. How did Korea develop so damn rapidly? The simple reason is that they took the right economic approaches. The government leveraged US aid (and cleverly guilted Japan into giving Korea aid as well) to support new industries, and focused on building modern infrastructure. They electrified the countryside, built highways and ports, and even basically cofounded what is now the world’s 4th largest steel company to provide steel for their new construction needs. They invited foreign investment, and took advantage of Korea’s cheap labor to provide Korean companies a global manufacturing advantage – which, combined with modern, efficient infrastructure and major government support, made Korean companies a winner on the global stage.

It’s a story that China is now echoing in it’s rise, and I suspect it’s a path that Taiwan and Japan took as well (Singapore and Hong Kong are different, being city-states). Obviously, it’d be great if the entire developing world could replicate this success – but it’s not happening. Why?

Well, on the surface, it’s easy to tell the rest of the developing world to simply follow what East Asia did – as is indeed what’s been happening. Hey, Argentina, want to be like Japan? Just slash the deficit, make it easier to hire and fire workers, and encourage foreign investment, and all will be fine!

…welp.

The problem is, the reason why Korea had so much success was because it implemented these policies fluidly, efficiently, with little difficulty – no riots, mass demonstrations, voter revolutions, companies breaking against the grain. When the Korean government said there will be POSCO, lo-and-behold, POSCO appeared – and began production just four years after its founding. Voila! No fights within the government about whether or why they should start a steel company, no interest groups fighting for a piece of the action, no legal suits or liability issues or angry residents demonstrating because their land got stolen. It just happened.

Compare that to POSCO’s proposed steel plant in India, which, despite having been proposed a decade ago, looks like will never producing steel – ever. It’s not even a steel company, it’s a steel plant! And ever since it was proposed? Legal issues, bureaucracy, local disputes, land demonstrations, ore leases. Every which way, interest groups, red tape, obstacles. There’s nothing physical preventing the POSCO plant from appearing, but the Indian political situation is simply making it impossible.

That, in a nutshell, is the difference, ladies and gentlemen. Korea is a land of Koreans, and nobody else. India is a land of five, six, seven major world religions, dozens of languages, hundreds of ethnic groups, thousands of castes – and uncountable political parties and interest groups, all of which are very loud and very insistent. OK, sure, China has 55 officially recognized ethnic minorities, but the population is over 90% Han, most of the troublesome minorities are repressed by the government, and these days, everyone in the know speaks Mandarin Chinese. And of course, there’s only one political party. (For a quick but illuminating comparison, read up on the Chinese Special Economic Zones – then check out India’s similar ongoing attempt, which has been mired in red tape for years. Note also that their first SEZ was actually before China’s, in 1969 – but it failed).

And that’s why India is not the next “Asian economic miracle.” Sorry, folks. The divisions, the inequalities, the political fights and chaos and bureaucracy and legal battles and identity politics just make it far too difficult for India to implement such a cohesive development and economic policy.

But hey hey hey, not so fast. When I said “No, India is not the next ‘Asian Economic Miracle'”, I meant it in a Chinese or Korean or Japanese sense. But that doesn’t mean it’s curtains for India. On the contrary, I’m actually fairly upbeat about India’s long-term prospects – for in its very weaknesses (factionalism, bureaucracy, a chaotic legal system) lie its strength as well. Much has been made of the fact that India is a democracy, with some saying it’s all a farce and dysfunctional, others (frankly, oftentime liberal American saps who’ve never been to India) thinking that this automatically makes India a great, free country. But say what you will about it – it’s stable. Though it’s chaos, it’s a political stable one, and it’s difficult to imagine a future where the Indian political structure is overthrown, even as parties rise and fall. China, on the other hand… well, they’ve been doing a pretty good job so far, but people have been speculating for years about the stability of the one-party system, and the Chinese government is clearly extremely cautious about its own stability. If they’re worried, maybe we should be as well.

So at the end of the day, India might have the last laugh. Only time will tell. But for the time being, India ain’t the next China, or Japan, or Taiwan.