Cool story I guess but at the end I'm left wondering how much of it is true and how much is exaggerated just to sound 'cool'. I can't help but pick up quite a bit of arrogance in his answers.
Hong Kong (and maybe Singapore) might be examples where colonialism was better enclave against some brutal forces or economically advantageous because of a more multi-cultural society.
Malaysia is probably the best success story, but you can easily make a case that India was better off under colonial rule than before or immediately after.
India was the producer of the most sough-after goods in the world - so much that when robbery threatened land commerce, some people thought it was a good idea to try a workaround and commission seaships to try to reach it from around the globle - where america stood in the way.
The damage inflicted to India have been huge. It is only starting to recover. My bets for the next world superpower are not on China (due to upcoming demographics problems), but on India.
B & A are going to be good, but IMHO not as good as India. I see India at the #1 spot around 2050. More people - as a billion. More education, and people moving back from the US to share their experience. Democracy (improving), and a wariness of how leftist reforms seriously damaged their country in the past. If they can fix the bureaucracy, it's going to be quite hot. (and BTW I'm not indian, this is not some personal bias - I just see a lot of potential)
