Opinion | Boosting China-India ties should be pillar of Hong Kong’s five-year plan

By the second half of the 21st century, the Sino-Indian relationship will become the world’s most significant geopolitical relationship, dislodging even the complex China-US cooperative rivalry. By 2050, the world’s three largest economies are likely to comprise some combination of China, India and the United States. PricewaterhouseCoopers predicts this exact order – with the US having the highest per capita income but the smallest population.

Both Asian powerhouses enjoy significant theoretical complementarity. China leads in advanced manufacturing; India has long positioned itself as a global service hub, specifically in software, digital and high-end professional services. China, with its ageing population, is “investing in people”; India’s demographic dividend positions it as the world’s largest exporter of young and capable workers.

Crucially, they are co-beneficiaries and can become co-architects of a world order no longer unilaterally determined by any single power. From Brics to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Beijing and New Delhi are both firm advocates of a geopolitical realignment away from a Western-led post-Cold-War order. While the modes of governance differ, their peoples share much common ground, with thousands of years of civilisational history and heritage to draw on.