HBS Working Knowledge has an interview with the authors of a recent India-China article which created a lot of buzz with its contention that entrepreneurs could help India overtake China. Say the authors Yasheng Huang of M.I.T. and Tarun Khanna of HBS:
The different composition of the Chinese and Indian diasporas has to do with the different time periods during which each diaspora settled overseas and the different circumstances under which it did so. The Indian diaspora consists more of professionals; the Chinese consists more of entrepreneurs outside China. The implications of the differential structure of the diasporas is only now being appreciated, at least in the commercial arena. India has been particularly unreceptiveexcept until very recentlyto embracing the diaspora.
We think [economists, policy specialists, and business people] see it as a new and intriguing way to look at a centuries-old comparison. The best endorsement for our article is the way in which it has been disseminated. In India, it has spread by word of mouth and been reprinted in numerous newspapers and magazines. In China, one is hard pressed to find public discussion of the article; though the message is being discussed, we’ve been told, in other, less transparent forums. This is, in some sense, part of the very point of the article!
