Business to business relationship between China and India

During the course of my  work to help build this relationship with special focus of bringing global businesses into Nanjing, I am coming to understand how critical the role of attitude in venturing into new markets. The industry bodies in India who are supposed to be lobbyists for industry living in the socialistic world of India of yesterday. They seek to represent small and medium industry although they have no hesitation to nuzzle closer to the big boys because that brings them credibility. It is not surprising that the big industry groups tend to ignore the industry bodies when it comes to building business to business collaboration.I think this is true on both the Chinese and the Indian side but perhaps more so on the Indian side. 

Clearly there is immense potential of business to business collaboration between China and India but the way to go will not be through industry body lead delegations but direct one to one contact. Most Chinese provinces encourage foreign enterprises to come and explore business opportunities and one can easily make that connection.

This collaboration is at a very early stage of development and has huge potential for rapid growth. Early birds will reap huge benefits.

Collaboration between emerging markets

As the world gets out of the global recession, recovery patterns are clearly emerging. India and China are clearly on the forefront of recovery while the US is slowly coming out of the depths of financial despair. Europe continues to be a laggard with real recovery some distance away in parts of that continent. The economic battles between the US and China will become more and more frequent with the rhetoric going up and down. While the US will jostleg for continued pre-eminence in world affairs China will position itself and its companies in the world market aiming to get a larger share political and economic.
While there will be an increased business to business collaboration between India, the US and Europe mainly on account of better perceived governance structures in India, I think the future will lie in collaboration between China and India.
China and Indian companies will interact more and more vigorously with the former being nudged by the government. There will be turf wars and collaboration happening between the two emerging markets and we are likely to see more of this in the media.
As business people we will need to watch for opportunities that will emerge across the globe. The future for India and China business looks bright.

Google threat and the changing world

Google's threat to walk out of China because attempts to hack Chinese dissident mail accounts is symptomatic of the growing tensions between Western thinking and the emerging China. China this month has overtaken Germany as the world's biggest exporter of manufacturing goods. In a few years China will become the largest global economy. Peace within China's borders is critical to the Chinese to achieve its vision of global greatness. Its multiple ethnicities and huge land mass make it particularly vulnerable to voices of dissent. These if unattended can lead to chaos in that country.
While I do not personally subscribe to curbs on individual freedom, but that is my view which has been nurtured in the free and democratic system of India. This however does not mean that I should be insensitive to Chinese system of governance. Google is mixing business with politics. This is dangerous for a corporate. It will inevitably lead to its downfall, its no expertise in the area. Competition will overtake it and others that are willing to work within a country's system of governance will emerge. The intolerance of democratic societies to other systems is as undemocratic as the systems that they oppose.

Global economics

Inspite of the fact that the global recession has hit US and Europe particularly badly and China has continued to grow apace, Western based analysts cannot resist the temptation of criticizing China's attempt to restructure its economy against the steep fall in demand for their goods and services. Banks were instructed not to reduce availability of credit to Chinese companies. This has prevented lay offs on the one hand but has lead to rise in inventories. Analysts expect that this will lead to piling of bad debt with banks resulting in failure of the banking system as has happened in the west. This analysis stems from lack of understanding of the Chinese system of economic management. People are unable to figure out that how an export economy like China can continue to grow when the importing western economies are in a bind. They expect the Chinese economic bubble to burst in the future with massive global shock waves.
I somehow cannot subscribe to this theory. The Chinese policy making is based on realpolitik and has shown to be highly adaptable to changes. The change from a pure play socialist model of development to a command and control based capitalist model of development has happened seamlessly. New changes being implemented will result in greater and greater demand for goods and services in the Chinese domestic market space. The inventories will slowly be consumed locally and a new growth model will emerge. I am afraid western analysts fears on a Chinese implosion will not come true and they will have to get used to the Chinese economic resurgence in the future.