Big news coming from India and China:
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said on Sunday that China and India should work together to lead the world in information technology, jointly heralding a new “Asian century.”
We’ve talked before about China’s superpower potential, and I have come to the conclusion, as many people have, that India just may eclipse China in that respect. So what if they join forces?
India has gained global repute as a hub of software professionals while China is strong on computer hardware. Wen suggested they should collaborate, not compete. “Cooperation is just like two pagodas (temples), one hardware and one software,” Wen said.
Many fear-mongers are criticizing sending western manufacturing jobs to China, and outsourcing tech jobs to India. What happens when they combine thereby increasing competition on the global market? Ah, the ever-continuous arc of employment evolution. Agricultural, industrial, and now service-based economic models are now being taken over by up-and-coming powers. What will be next on the horizon? What kinds of jobs will be the jobs of the future?
Get the RSS
Comments to this entry
Curzon
April 10, 2005
4:01 pm
But beyond that, I don't see China and India "teaming up" because of the following:
1.) "A recent history of war and conflict compounded by India's political niavete":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Indian_War
2.) An undefined border through Kashmir, Tibet, Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan, and beyond. China and India share a border of approximately 1,500 miles, but there are no land crossings because both sides have claims on the others land. (Although by comparison, China does have border crossings into Afghanistan and Burma.)
3.) China's long-lasting support for, and militay aid to, Pakistan.
How can these guys expect to join forces when even Canada and the US can't get along! (Except in the occasional successful joint enterprise here and there...)
Gabriel Mihalache
April 10, 2005
4:38 pm
What I can tell you is that the kind of IT work that gets outsources is the kind that is the least creative, the most repetitive, the least profitable, and the least R&D-relevant. There's a lot of custom software developed for a particular client, fitting that particular client's needs, but really few groundbreaking work, the kind that US companies can afford to undertake.
Western nations outsourced the boring, repetitive stuff and kept the innovation, research and development at home. Outsourcing programmers are, in their vast majority, only a step upwards from the typing monkeys.
Now, there are some interesting projects or products done entirely offshore, with local management, a.s.o. but these are the exceptions.
As for China and India becoming superpowers, I'd have to say, as I did elsewhere on this site, that the most important asset of the US is its culture, its idea, and, yes, its freedom. This is becoming increasingly important but also increasingly ignored in the US, as far as I can see.
I don't think that China can be another USSR, with India's help or not. The superpowers of tomorrow will be of a different sort, one which, unfortunately, I can't exhaustively define.
praktike
April 10, 2005
4:59 pm
ComingAnarchy.com » Blog Archive » India-China Border Dispute Solved?
April 11, 2005
6:42 pm
kamesh
April 12, 2005
4:59 pm
But as there is a great need to invest in R&D in US and elsewhere, their corresponding governments are shying away from that. There has been a decline in the government spending in R&D work in the recent past in US.
US has been the leading technology contributer and user. There is very less market for these tech products without US. Now the question is can US invest huge amounts in R&D with the burgeoning deficts and Iraq conflit.
Regards,
Kamesh.