Read your recent posts. Pretty good stuff. You are a hardworking and smart guy with a lot of experience and good logic. Certainly most of your predictions would right, especially for China. Here are my two cents.
1. There are always smart money behind the persperity of a coutry, a region, or a sector, etc. The thing that matters the most is where the money is flowing to. "soft" or "hard" people does not mean much. Besideds, how could Indians are hard people?
2. The groups that has the most capital has the most power. Not the people. Say a policy could benefit 90% of people for a country, say United States. If this policy is against the will of the Capital, it is not going to happen.
Good luck to you and me!