BusinessWeek on "Chindia"

BusinessWeek's latest issue is almost completely devoted to China and India - over 70 printed pages and more on-line. Their huge potential, their appetite, their challenges. I have met two of the prime authors - Pete Engardio, based in NYC (but spent years in Hong Kong and other parts of Asia) and Manjeet Kripalani, based in Mumbai - and they know their stuff and have covered the 2 countries for years now.

As I leafed through the issue and some of the data they quote (from various research firms) I found my mind brimming with burning questions:

1) Is the West prepared to absorb $ 2 trillion in exports from the 2 countries expected in 2010, almost triple what it is today?

2) Are China and India prepared to import at least $ 1.8 trillion a year in return so we do not end up with massive trade wars or dramatically reduce 1 above? (By the way a $ 1 trillion in Middle Eastern oil imports would not be a good answer to this question).

3) How many US and European companies are aggressively innovating and moving up the "stack" in their product value chain?

4) How many US and European companies are gearing up to aggressively export to these countries as GE is?

5) What are government and corporations doing to retrain western  labor force to support 3. and 4?

6) Can western labor for "utility" (as against innovation) work be made more competitive with technology (like Jetblue with VoIP) or as wage inflation grows in India and China?

7) What impact will India's projected 1.3 billion people in 2015 (up almost 40% from today) on its already poor infrastructure?   

8) Will Indian and Chinese companies learn to quickly build strong management teams in US and Europe? (It took the Japanese a while to find the right "mix".  Even now vendors like SAP are learning about multi-national management. I find many of the Indian firms micro-managing from India when over 75% of their revenues come from the US and Europe)

9) If China is so far ahead in exports and GDP compared to India, could it not just afford to buy a few Indian services firms and acquire market share, rather than build that capability itself?

10) If China and India were emerging technologies, not markets, where would Gartner put them on its "hype cycle"?

Lots of questions - hopefully lots of people smarter than me around the world are asking similar questions and coming up with answers. We have to thank Pete, Manjeet and the rest of the BW crew for stimulating this discussion.  And introducing the term "Chindia" to Google.

Author's Note: Manjeet Kripalani  at BusinessWeek corrects me  and says  they did not come up with the term "Chindia" - see  her comment below. Nice  and modest of her.