Chindia

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China and India
For the landmark in Târgovişte, see Chindia Tower.

Chindia is a portmanteau word that refers to China and India together in general, and their economies in particular. The credit of coining the now popular term goes to Jairam Ramesh, an Indian politician. China and India are geographically proximate, are both regarded as growing countries and are both among the fastest growing major economies in the world. Together, they contain about one-third of the world's population. They have been named as countries with the highest potential for growth in the next 50 years in a BRIC report.

The economic strengths of these two countries are widely considered complementary - China is perceived to be strong in manufacturing and infrastructure while India is perceived to be strong in services and information technology. China is stronger in hardware while India is stronger in software. China is stronger in physical markets while India is stronger in financial markets. The countries also share certain historical interactions - the spread of Buddhism from India to China and trade on the Silk route are famous examples.

However, there are also geopolitical, cultural, and political differences between China and India that some argue would make this term inappropriate. The effects of the Sino-Indian War of 1962 have meant that relations between the countries have been cautious and slow. While China is a temperate continental state India is confined within the Indian sub-continent and has a tropical climate. Culturally, China is connected to the developed East Asian nations of Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan. India is culturally associated with South Asian countries such as Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Their political systems are also vastly different, with China being ruled by a single party and India being a democracy. The commonly-cited complementary nature of China and India's economies is also being questioned as the service sector in China is rapidly growing and threatening to match or overtake India's within a decade, while India's manufacturing sector has seen tremendous growth in recent years. There is also the realization that China has far larger geopolitical footprint and influence in the world and continues to grow a substantially faster rate economically than India. Moreover, academics have cited that the most important relationship in the world in the 21st century will be between China and the United States, which Niall Ferguson and has termed Chimerica.

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[edit] Video

  • Chindia : The next Decade Senior Business Week writer Pete Engardio, credited for having made the Chindia neologism famous, compares the rise of both China and India in this online video conference.

[edit] External links

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