4/8/2012 |

China and India now are widely acknowledged as the planet’s next economic superpowers |

The Context

China and India are two neighbouring countries in Asia who share the two largest population of the world and in fact added together they represent nearly one third of humanity. Globalisation has imposed internal pressure and external pressure to bear on both India and China. For most Chinese and Indians alike, economic life is hard despite the fact that reforms and globalisation have created various new opportunities and as such both countries have witnessed an emerging middle class with Americanised tastes and preferences, irrespective of this however, both countries remain very poor. Although the two countries went to war in 1962 due to some border dispute, they have since tried to normalise relations and in 1995 for the first time trade had exceeded US$1 billion between them.
They have lately received a lot of international attention being viewed as emerging giant economies as they both play key roles at the international level. For example China has been a permanent member of the Security Council at the UN, while India who has lead the Non-Aligned Movement for years and is still vying for a similar position. Furthermore, India has been one of the founding members of the WTO and has played a prominent role as one of the developing nations whereas China has had to fight for decades to obtain its admission into this international organisation.
While both China and India have an extended history of international trade going back centuries ago, both their economies were until recently highly protected and controlled to a large extent albeit that their political systems are very different. China is still a very unique case in the sense that while it has allowed its economy to be opened to Capitalists MNCs, it is still governed by the Communist