The Washington Post quoted Arvind Subramanian, CGD senior fellow jointly appointed at the Peterson Institute, on Timothy Geithner's trip to India.
From the article:
"Arvind Subramanian, senior fellow, the Peterson Institute for International Economics and the Center for Global Development:
The Chinese are the competition -- don't forget it
"The fact that the visit is taking place at all is important. This is the Obama administration's effort to elevate the relationship. India is not the economic powerhouse that China is, but this signals that India is getting there.
"For both sides it is important. For the U.S., one can detect a kind of frustration with China."
The India trip "is not necessarily a deliberate playing off, but it is good to have a balance. And for India, it does not want to be seen as playing second fiddle on everything to China."
Subramanian said the United States could find a natural partner in India if it wanted to build a coalition to encourage China to let its currency appreciate, a move that would make China's goods more expensive and help alter some of the trade imbalances around the world.
"In the developing world, there is huge overlap," among the types of goods produced, making countries such as India and China direct competitors and making the Chinese currency issue "a global, multilateral issue, not a U.S. issue alone. The Chinese have trapped the whole region. My advice to Geithner is be skillful and try to tap this and convert it into something that affects the global economy.""