By SOMINI SENGUPTA and HOWARD W. FRENCH Published: April 10, 2005
Dibyangshu Sarkar/AFP — Chinese spectators waved Indian and Chinese flags Saturday to welcome the Chinese prime minister, Wen Jiabao, to Bangalore, India.
EW DELHI, April 9 - Wen Jiabao, prime minister of China, began a four-day visit to India on Saturday just as the two countries - a third of humanity - are coming into their own at the same moment, with the potential for a dynamic shift in the world's politics and economy.
The impact on the global balance of power, the competition for resources and the health of the planet is causing many analysts and political leaders to sit up and take notice.
"Both countries have waited 3,000 years for this moment," said Gurcharan Das, the former chief executive of Procter & Gamble India and now an author.
One time rivals who went to war in 1962, India and China today find their economies growing at a remarkable clip. Both have a giant appetite for energy. Both are hungry for new markets. And both, it seems, are now gingerly testing the possibilities of doing business together.
It is not an accident that Mr. Wen began his visit not here in the capital but in Bangalore, the southern high-tech hub whose phenomenal rise China has eyed.
Trade is booming between them, especially as seen from the Indian side: after the United States, China is now its second largest trade partner, and it is growing by a giant 30 percent each year to an estimated $14 billion this year.
For the United States and the rest of the world, the effects of the sudden awakening of the Asian giants could be profound. In the years ahead, it may mean more downward pressure on wages, the outsourcing of more jobs, greater competition for investment and higher prices for scarce resources.
Indeed, Beijing's overtures toward India, though clearly made with the economic opportunities in mind, are also being contemplated with a keen awareness of China's rivalry with the United States. Washington has also courted New Delhi, lately promising to help make it a major world power.
India and China say they will push hard to resolve a decades-old border dispute. There is talk of a free trade agreement as well as joint oil exploration and purchases of commercial airliners. China may even endorse India's bid to become a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, or at least strongly hint at its support.
But Stephen P. Cohen, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, says relations could become difficult.
"As long as their relationship remains trade, economic ties, cultural, even kibitzing with the U.S., that is fine," Mr. Cohen said, "but as soon as you get some confrontation, on the border, Chinese goods flooding into India, or an incident at sea, or in Tibet or Nepal, then things quickly become much more nationalistic and complicated."
Indeed, competition is as much the byword as cooperation. The day after Mr. Wen arrives here, work is set to begin on India's first Indian-built aircraft carrier.
China is increasingly on people's minds here, both as a model to be learned from and a cautionary tale. From boardrooms to think tanks to op-ed pages, Indians speak often nowadays of matching their neighbor's success and power, or as some now dare suggest, surpassing it.
"Reinventing the silk route" was the headline of a column on Tuesday on the op-ed page of The Economic Times, a financial daily. The latest edition of Business World, a weekly, asked on its cover: "India and China: What can they do together?"
The short answer is more and more. Chinese-made toys, toasters and televisions have proliferated across the Indian marketplace. On any given day, a shopper at Chandni Chowk market in Delhi can pick up a Ganesha idol, or electric versions of the traditional oil lamps,or water pistols used to splash passers-by during the spring festival of Holi - all made in China.
India exports raw materials for China's booming construction industry, largely ore, iron and plastic, and its pharmaceutical companies have begun producing drugs for the Chinese market.
Indian software services companies, too, have set up shop in China for development and customer support. At least one Indian company, Zensar Technologies, has set up a joint venture with a Chinese firm and is bidding on a large e-government contract in one Chinese province.
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