The best teachers and CEOs will tell you that performance is a function of expectations, and those with higher expectations get more out of their students and employees. So it is with nations.

When national leaders create high expectations and follow them up with good policies and rules, citizens and businesses respond and nations prosper. This is in part the secret of China's success, and today it no longer thinks of itself as a Third World nation but as an emerging Asian tiger and a global power capable of challenging America.

China's attitude at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) is quite simply, how do I take advantage of it.

Although we were in the same camp at Cancun, China was quietly angling to make the best deal for itself, while India was grandstanding as leader of the Third World, harping on special treatment for poor countries. While our basic position was correct - rich nations must cut farm subsidies and open their markets - our mindset at the negotiations was wrong.

Unlike Africa, we are no longer a poor, victimised country, but a rising economic power getting ready to conquer world markets. Sure, we have poor people but we are also one of the fastest growing economies in the world, with growing exports, record reserves, and clear competitive advantages.

I did not envy our articulate commerce minister at Cancun. Arun Jaitley wanted the rich countries to open their agricultural markets presumably because we might then sell them our commodities.

But the truth is that our rice (barring basmati) is of lower quality and of higher price than Thai or Vietnamese rice. The price of Indian wheat is also too high. So if the rich were to accept Jaitley's advice, others would benefit not India.

The lesson from Cancun is that we must first put our own house in order. Implement agricultural reforms, and this can be done as Amrinder Singh has shown. Today, our politicians, not the market, decide wheat and rice prices (via MSP) and they raise them annually to win elections.

Since growing these crops is riskless, our farmers have become slaves to rice and wheat when they should be growing higher value crops. Second, we must lower tariffs, not because of WTO but because lower tariffs will make us more competitive, drive down our costs and raise our exports. Third, we must reform our customs procedures for both importers and exporters — for, saving one day's transit time is equal to a one per cent tariff cut.

Like China we should use the WTO to do domestic reform.

The prime minister believes he sets high expectations. After all, doesn't he keep talking about an 8 per cent economic growth rate? The problem is that he does not follow through with actions.

His government announced the reform of labour laws, eliminating small-scale reservations, an end to Inspector Raj, as well as significant agricultural reforms, which if implemented would set us on a solid path to becoming an agricultural power. But nothing happened, and our export potential remains unrealised.

Part of setting expectations entails carrying the people with you. Hence, the PM must educate our people that trade is a positive sum game in which everyone can win; that their suspicion about the WTO is misplaced.

In fact, it is our biggest hope because we aren't part of any trading block and depend on multilateral trade. I sometimes wonder if our PM could bring the same passion to making his people prosperous as he does to Pakistan we would be a more successful nation.