For a long time the common wisdom has been that China and India have nothing in common except their size.
But that is changing. The shift is symbolised by next week’s meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping, eager to burnish his credentials as a leader of nonaligned nations, and India’s new prime minister, Narendra Modi, who portrays himself as a decisive economic reformer. The two will meet in Mr Modi’s home state of Gujarat on his 64th birthday on Wednesday.
Already Chinese companies have made inroads into India on a scale unthinkable several years ago, when economic ties between the two most populous countries in the world were limited to volatile spot trade in steel and iron ore.