Meredith offers a compelling look at the major changes in store as America faces increasing competition from India and China--two emerging economic giants.

"A comprehensive primer on the development of these Asian tigers."—Noam Lupu, San Francisco Chronicle The Elephant and the Dragon is the essential guide to understanding how India and China are reshaping our world. With labor now unbound from geographic borders, we're seeing startling shifts in how—and where—nearly everything we buy is made. In a compelling mix of history and on-the-ground reporting, veteran journalist Robyn Meredith untangles the complex web of business and politics, as well as environmental and cultural issues that entwine India, China, and the West. She also outlines how Americans—business leaders, workers, politicians, even parents—can understand the vast changes coming and thrive in this new age.

Meredith offers a compelling look at the major changes in store as America faces increasing competition from India and China--two emerging economic giants.

The rise of China and India will be the outstanding development of the 21st century, raising fundamental questions about both the structure of the world economy and the balance of global geopolitical power. Will China still be a repressive and undemocratic regime, embracing free market economics but only when it suits? How aggressive a superpower will it be? And what about India, whose huge and growing population and economic prospects appear to guarantee prosperity? David Smith analyses the ways in which the world is tilting rapidly Eastwards, and examines all the implications of the shift in global power to Beijing, Delhi and Washington - a shift that will creep up on us before we know it.

The return of the once-dormant economies of China and India to dynamism and growth is one of the most remarkable stories in recent history. The two countries are home to nearly 40 percent of the world's population, but until recently neither had played an influential role in the contemporary global economy. In the past two decades, China and India have liberalized internal economic policy, treatment of foreign investment, and trade, and have experienced economic growth at sustained high rates. From the point of view of the United States, however, the most important development in the Chinese and Indian economies in the long term may be the strides they are making in developing their own domestic innovation capacities. After a long period of underinvestment, both countries have committed to growing their science and education systems to bolster research and further economic expansion. Some observers of the recent growth have said that both countries are surging in their efforts to spur innovation; others have emphasized the potential of one country over the other; and still others have suggested that both China and India have a long way to go before achieving innovation-driven growth. With such a range of views, The National Academies set out to describe developments in both countries, in relation to each other and the rest of the world, by organizing a conference in Washington, D.C. The conference, summarized in this volume, discussed recent changes at both the macroeconomic level and also in selected industries, and explored the causes and implications of those changes.

This comparative study by Chinese social scientists of the Chinese and Indian development experiences over six decades of independent nationhood is witness to the fact that China and India are now looking at each other directly in search of a win-win partnership as both countries transform themselves into economic powerhouses.