I am not assuming things. I am going by what Islamism’s leading lights have said (including Pakistan’s Mawdudi), and what Islamists do when in power. Can you name any major Islamist who advocated or advocates equal rights for non-Muslims?
How did I disrespect a name when I stated his name? I didn’t add an insult or make fun of it.
Picocio here are the projections from Goldman Sachs in the “BRIC” thesis. BRIC=Brazil, Russia, India, and China. Mexico and South Korea were later added to the group. Its basic idea has been accepted by US foreign policy observers and most business leaders. You can read about it here. BRIC - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia I assumed it was known worldwide, but I forgot that in Pakistani foreign policy discussions the focus is on the superpower, the neighbor (India), and a small country that is not even nearby (Israel). The future of the world will be shaped by the rise of China and India to superpower status (joining the US, which will remain a superpower) and the rise of other nations such as Brazil and Russia.
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The 22 largest GDP’s in 2025** (in trillions and rounded)
- USA 20
- China 19
- Japan 6
- India 4
- Germany 4
- Russia 3
- UK 3
- France 3
- Brazil 3
- Italy 2
- Mexico 2
- South Korea 2
- Pakistan 0.4
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The 22 largest GDP’s in 2050** (in trillions and rounded)
- China 70
- US 39
- India 38
- Brazil 11
- Mexico 9
- Russia 9
- Indonesia 7
- Japan 7
- UK 5
- Germany 5
- S. Korea 4
- Pakistan 2
Other notables: 11 Nigeria, 12 France, 14 Turkey, 19 Iran, 22 Bangladesh
Perhaps I was wrong about Indonesia. However, there is a difference between being a large economy and a world power. Italy has an economy the size of the UK and France today yet it is not considered a world power. Indonesia has a big geographic problem if it wants to exert power: China. As powerful as Indonesia may be in its region, it will be dwarfed by China. Therefore its sphere influence will be very limited. At best it can dominate Australia, New Zealand, and Malaysia but the more likely scenario is China will be the dominant influence over these countries.
Mexico will face a similar problem with a superpower on its border. India will be constrained a bit by China but it will be so large in its own right that it will reach superpower status. Its size vis-a-vis China’s economy in 2050 will be about that of the USSR compared to the US economy during the Cold War.
Brazil, while basically the economic size of Mexico and Russia, and far smaller than the three superpowers, will rise to great power status because of its favorable geography. It is by far the largest country in South America (right now it has 200 million people, 5th in the world)
**Per capita GDP of the 22 largest economies in 2008 (in thousands)
**1) US 47
2) France
3) Canada
4) Germany
5) UK 44
7) Japan
8) S. Korea 19
9) Russia 12
11) Mexico 10
12) Brazil 8
14) China 3
19) Pakistan 1
21) India 2
Per capita GDP of the 22 largest economies in 2025 (in thousands)
- US 57
- UK 52
- Canada
- France
- Japan 46
- Germany
- S. Korea 37
- Russia 26
- Mexico 23
- Brazil 13
- China 13
- India 3
- Pakistan 2
Per capita GDP of the 22 largest economies in 2050 (in thousands)
- USA 92
- S. Korea 90
- UK 80
- Russia 79
- Canada 76
- Germany
- Japan 67
- Mexico 63
- Brazil 50
- China 50
- Turkey 46
- Iran 33
- Indonesia 22
- India 20
- Pakistan 7
- Bangladesh 5
South Korea will be more developed than the leading Western European nations and Canada, Russia will be on par with the UK and Canada and ahead of Germany, Japan, and Italy while Mexico will catch up to Japan and Germany. Brazil and China will continue to trail but would rapidly close the gap. Turkey would be the most developed major Muslim state. India would be very poor in per capita terms and Pakistan would be in an abysmal state if the projections hold. India and Pakistan start from the same per capita point today but India is projected to increase 20x while Pakistan will improve only 7x.
Size matters as well to world power status. Let’s look at the population projections for 2050.
- India 1.6 billion
- China 1.5 billion
- USA 400 million
- Pakistan 344 million
- Indonesia 311 million
- Nigeria 279 million
- Bangladesh 265 million
- Brazil 247 million
- Congo 203 million
- Ethiopia 186 million
- Mexico 147 million
- Japan 109 million
- Russia 104 million
- Germany 71 million
- France 61 million
- UK 59 million
- Korea 52 million
Total Population by Country, 1950, 2000, 2015, 2025, 2050 (Medium-Fertility Variant)
The populations in developed countries will stabilize or decline, with the exception of the US which will continue to grow through immigration and it has a higher birth rate than other developed countries.
Using this data here is what I think the world will look like in 2050:
There will be three superpowers in 2050, with China the biggest but the US far more technologically advanced than it. Brazil will be a regional superpower in South American and a great power worldwide while nations such as Mexico and Russia will exert significant regional influence (conceding that Russia’s region is very large). The UK, France, and Germany will be about the same size so none of them could dominate Europe and will be smaller than Russia, which will also overtake two of them in development. Japan will remain developed but will be dwarfed by neighboring China so it will no longer be a significant player on the world stage. If the EU integrates militarily and in foreign affairs it could become a fourth superpower, but it will be the weakest of the four. As far as Muslim states go, Turkey will be the most powerful, although it won’t have that much muscle in the Middle East.
The rise of India to superpower status had to be terrifying to Pakistani leaders. Pakistan is projected to have slow economic growth yet explode in population. This is a toxic mix. The question is what will Pakistan’s leaders decide to do? Will they continue to stake a claim to Kashmir when they will be facing a superpower over it? Tethering itself to China is probably the best thing it could do but even that will not help it against India. Moreover, as China becomes a superpower with global interests the importance it places on its relationship with Pakistan will steadily decline. In short, Pakistan is in deep trouble and needs to start developing fast.