A fresh approach to look at dragons and elephants

"A New Dance"? is what he interestingly calls the budding relationship between China & India - a dance where one and then the other leads, straining to listen to the changing music.

In times when every one is speculating about the two most significant players from the East, and the impact on the world of their probable future, individually or collectively, my friend Tarun Khanna has penned down his own analysis in the book titled "Billions of Entrepreneurs: How China and India Are Reshaping Their Future and Yours"?.

On my way back to India from the WEF summit last week, I did manage to read through the book and it is indeed very well written. Quite well paced, the book is able to keep the interest alive while covering a very large subject at the same time. He demonstrated both the depth and the breadth simultaneously in all the arguments propositioned through the book. It seems that a lot has gone into researching and writing the book and it definitely would whet the appetite of an informed reader who is even partially interested in the subject. I may not completely align with some of the conclusions; however, overall I quite liked the book and am glad that I got the opportunity to read it.

I have to admit I know nothing about how books are bought and sold other than my own experience of buying them, I think the opening of the book may perhaps not excite the reader but after the first 20 pages, the book is a real treat.

The book has many thrusts that one would find interesting to read as I did. Like the similarities in the history of India and China and the fact that the countries are "inverted mirror images of each other". Right indeed, when we talk of the dramatic economic growth which both the countries have made after a scarred history, we can't go without mentioning the fundamental difference there is in their political formations- one is a single-party, communist state and the other is world's largest democracy.

This mirror image is evident in many instances and so is the fact that these two countries have started leveraging from each other's strengths, and the cooperation has already begun. And when they overlap and complement one another, the pundits favorite issue of "Who Wins"? misses the point. As I believe for India, that India doesn't belong to Indians but to whoever wants to leverage India, it is true for China also, and similarly the "powerful pair"? available for all to tap into, including the West.

Another interesting part was about the joint venture between two nations which has the potential to affect world energy markets -- in a sense all world commodity markets have begun to bear the force of simultaneous advent of Chinese & Indian companies. And the good part is that there is "renewed hope"? of such things happening, as China and India dispense with their mutual hostilities and continuously embrace collaboration going forward.

Quoting from the book, "the economic center of gravity is moving East"?, and we already have early indicators of the same, which in turn makes the decoupling of economies not that difficult. It is no more a far fetched dream for entrepreneurs in Asia to ignore Western World and still build companies worth billions. It may happen sooner than anticipated and like in automobiles the "East would not need the West".

I hope the book succeeds in its intent to put out a wake up call for a threat or an opportunity in a quantified form which would in turn lead to what I call a "call for action"? - for those who still believe in the West domination of the world and for those who smell an opportunity in a collaborative enterprise between West and East if undertaken at the earliest.

So as the debate moves on around us about the Chinese hard power and Indian soft power, diverging & competing or joining forces, the world's future evidently and undoubtedly is linked to both of them.