China and India portend an economic future tipped in their direction, not ours. This seems to be the year of writers showing us that future. Earlier I reviewed Silicon Dragon, which showed us the somewhat halting steps of high-tech entrepreneurs in China, and also A World Without Poverty, which showed us the entrepreneurial fervor that exists even among the poorest of Bangladeshis.
Tarun Khanna appears set to show us the full-throated future of the Asian economy. In Billions of Entrepreneurs: How China and India Are Reshaping Their Futures, and Yours, he writes
For the first time since the rise of the West, entrepreneurs in Asia can ignore New York and London almost entirely, and still build companies worth billions.
Two of these companies are Mahindra & Mahindra, the John Deere of India, and Huawei, China’s Cisco. Both provide examples of what Khanna calls ‘mutualism,’ cooperation between the two countries. M&M is using China for manufacturing, Huawei is tapping software talent in India. This kind of activity presages China and India as almost complementary economies, in Khanna’s mind.
Khanna thinks the will make the two countries a juggernaut, and that is what he intends to explore in this book. He says he will take readers deep into both China and India, and show us just what kind of entrepreneurial forces are emerging there. He promises they will be significant. His opening chapter is thorough, thoughtful and engaging. More soon on this book.
UPDATE: See the Big Think Breakdown here: China and India Don’t Need Us.
