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Sounds like being a U.S. vassal state is an excellent place to be.
Which is actually truer than one may think. Most U.S. “vassal states” do excellently, including much of Europe, Israel, Saudi Arabia, etc.
The primary reason behind that is they are not vassal states. The U.S. doesn’t have vassal states (outside of maybe Puerto Rico) and yes it has expectations of its allies but those are surprisingly low compared to even the shitties states to be vassals of. Compare what the U.S. expects of Saudi Arabia or Japan (what impositions does it place?) to what Russia expects of its vassal states (many of which it has literally taken over by force), or China (look at what China is doing to BRI countries like Pakistan and Sri Lanka…hollowing their economy out and getting paid for the privilege…) or even India (which has gone on an all out economic war against Mauritius because a couple of clowns in their government said something they didn’t like).
Heck, even to the extent China or India are succeeding economically it’s because of the U.S. economic ties. China is almost entirely built by American investment over the past few decades. And even the subject of this specific story, Zoho, part of the Indian IT ecosystem, is entirely a result of US economic partnership starting in the 90s.
It’s not an exaggeration to say that American “vassal statehood” is literally the only path to economic success and prosperity since WW2.
One thing often forgotten is that the trade surplus of Germany and Japan was so high that it was literally squeezing out the growth of other export developing countries. That kind of artificially overleveraged bubble is unsustainable for any nation, and the Japanese failed to make the neccesary reforms till it burst. Germany managed to come out fine, while setting the stage for the rest of Asian tigers to rise.