Performance of India, China will fundamentally reshape the world: Rahul at Princeton

Rahul made the comments while interacting with students at the Princeton University in the US.

"There are two large migrations taking place - one is completely free and the other is centrally controlled. The systems respond differently. India and China are two huge countries that are transforming from agricultural countries to urban modern model countries. And that's a huge chunk of the world population," he said.

"And how these two countries do is going to fundamentally reshape the world. It's not my place to say that China should be democratic or not. They have chosen their path and we have chosen ours," the Congress vice president added.

Rahul said that India is not faring well when it comes to competing with China.

"We have to figure out how to get our jobs. We have to basically compete with China," he said, "frankly India is not doing that well."

He also hailed China's One Belt, One Road venture, which is expected to trigger a controversy in India as it is common knowledge that the incumbent government have had issues regarding the same venture.

"And China has a particular vision of the world. It's very clear. And from their perspective it's a very powerful vision," he said.

Raising questions about the government's interests and capacity to deal with such matters, Rahul asked, "Does India has a similar vision? What does that vision look like? How much cooperation is going to be there between us and them? These are basically the fundamental questions going forward. But the thing to realise is that China is moving with tremendous power and we have to work with that."

In his interaction, Rahul underscored the importance of a healthy US-India relationship.

"So India has had a relationship with China and has had a relationship with Russia. It has had a relationship with the US and both the countries. To me, the strategic relationship with the United States is important," he said.