At the beginning of this millennium, experts and analysts had written reams about how the balance of power and trade was shifting from the West to the East. China and India were seen as propelling this, and the two countries were spoken in the same breath as future powerhouses that will be pivotal in a new economic order.By then, China had firmly established itself as the factory of the world, whereas India was moving up as a provider of back-end services as multinationals outsourced their…

This post was originally published on South China Morning Post.