Giant AffairAnna Greenspan / text
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Giant Affair
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Walk through one of the main complexes in Shanghai's Pudong Software Park and you come across a prominently
displayed sign for Infosys, one of India’s most respected IT firms. The same complex also holds Satyam – the first of India’s
software services companies to set up offices in Shanghai. Nearby is the headquarters of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS),
the largest software services company in Asia, which currently runs an outsourcing center for GE in the nearby town of
Hangzhou. TCS is owned by the Tatas, one of India’s most prominent business families. Across the river, on the other side of
town, is NIIT, the principal software training center in India’s private sector. NIIT has been operating in China since 1998
and now runs an extensive two-year course in 25 provinces, training around 20,000 students to be software professionals.
There is widespread speculation that Wipro, the only one of India’s giant IT firms yet to have a presence in the city, will
establish a Shanghai office very soon.
It is no surprise that Indian software companies are setting up in China. They, like everyone else, sense great opportunity in
one of the largest, fastest-growing economies in the world. What makes the activities of Indian companies particularly
interesting is that they are helping to create links between these giant neighbors – two countries that have been
estranged since the mid-20th century. With over a third of the planet’s population and the two most rapidly developing
societies in the world, China and India are beginning to forge what will undoubtedly be one of the most important
relationships of the 21st century.
For thousands of years the Sino-Indian ‘border’ was crisscrossed with trade routes. The flows of goods and ideas –
particularly with the spread of Buddhism – had a profound influence on shaping the entire culture of Asia. As K.M Panikkar
writes in "India and China: A study of Cultural Relations", "the thousands of years of contact between India and China
constitute one of the central facts of Asian history. It is this prolonged contact which has been the major factor in the
shaping of the Asian mind, for, from China its influence radiated to Korea, Japan, Mongolia and other more distant lands."
In recent centuries these links cooled and – after the Sino-Indian War of 1962 – they were almost completely severed. By
the end of the twentieth century the two populations had become strangers to each other. Speak to the ordinary
Chinese or Indian about their neighbors and they will more likely respond with stereotypes (not necessarily negative) or
comments about strange eating habits than reply with any real knowledge or insight. Sometimes it seems that India and
China appear even more exotic to each other than they do to those in the West. (This is partly due to the fact that,
although flights are beginning to open up, it still costs about as much to fly from Shanghai to Bombay as it does from
Shanghai to New York.)
Yet, despite this estrangement, the fate of the two countries has shared an almost uncanny resemblance, beyond
anything that can be explained by mere geographical proximity. Both are demographic superpowers with more than a
billion people each, and both are proud nations with ancient histories whose power waned throughout the modern
period. They felt similarly overwhelmed by colonial influences, and, in response, both developed strong leaders who led
their respective countries to national independence. Both Nehru and Mao created highly independent modern states
which pursued strategies of cultural and economic protectionism (swadeshi and zili gengsheng). These were eventually
abandoned – or at least radically reinterpreted – as both India and China adopted policies of economic reform and
liberalization, opening themselves up to the world.