'Banned TikTok, has IITs': Harsh Goenka's post on US podcaster saying 'India is not afraid of China' goes viral

RPG Enterprises Chairman Harsh Goenka on Monday shared a short clip of a US podcaster who hailed India for standing up to China. In the podcast aired on  November 3, 2023, American entrepreneur and author Patrick Bet David said he was very optimistic about India due to some of its strengths like demographic dividends and premier engineering institutes, IITs.  

 

David, who is known for his podcasts, said a war was going on with China and India, with iPhones now being made in India. "You can now get iPhones, on the back of it is - Made in India. Not made in China, but Made in India. Guess who blocked TikTok in their country - India. Who blocked 100 apps of China, India," he said while speaking to Tom Bilyeu, who runs a podcast channel - Impact Theory.

David further said that India is not afraid of China. He said India has seen the mistakes China made with the 'one-child rule' and overexpansion in some areas like real estate. "China overexpanded very quickly, India is watching."

Watch: Xi Lacks Good Foreign Policy, most crucial relationship for Beijing should be India; Fareed Zakaria

China's real estate has plunged into crisis as the top two developers -  Evergrande and Country Garden - are facing huge financial stress. At the heart of the problem is massive supply, leading to a bubble. However, a slowdown in the economy slowed the inflow of cash, causing a meltdown.  

David said China went on overexpansion. "They build cities that look like Paris. I don't know if you've seen the city they built in China. It's a city. Everything Paris has, it has. It looks identical to Paris. If you Google this, same kind of architecture...if I show you the picture you would think it's Paris. They (China) spend billions of their own money to build a city replicating exactly Paris - that's what China did."

The author then underlined China's major problems going ahead and the strength of India. He said the average age of a Chinese person right now is 38.4 years old while in India, it is 27-28. "India's IIT institutes are producing incredible engineers - many companies here (the US) will hire Indian engineers and they're rockstars, better than MIT in many cases. India is very important for the next 20-30-40 years. As long as India is there, China's going to hate it they're not going to like it."

Also read: 'Xi Jinping has not been a good foreign policy president, most important relationship for Beijing should be India': Fareed Zakaria at WEF 2024

Davis also revealed how Beijing is hitting back at Apple for shifting its production from China to India. He said Apple CEO Tim Cook has got a very hard job as in four weeks his company lost $350 billion in valuation. He said this happened because the sale of the iPhone 15 was not in line with expectations. "China is their (Apple) number one market of iPhones they sell. Now China is saying we sell more iPhones in this country than anywhere else,  yet you're giving our business to India."

Apple, which is already producing select iPhone models in India, wants to further reduce its reliance on its Chinese supply chain. The tech giant is expected to move at least 18 per cent of its global iPhone manufacturing to India by FY25, according to an analysis by Bank of America.

The report said that India's targeted policies are capitalising on this opportunity as within just two years of the PLI scheme, iPhones' exports from the country scaled up to $5 billion in FY23. "Apple manufactures the latest models of iPhones in India, a sign of growing confidence in India’s potential to be one of the large manufacturing destinations, as it aims to diversify manufacturing outside China."