Frenemies? Smith Expert Lays out the Stakes of China-India Summit:

SMITH BRAIN TRUST -- Leaders in China and India will meet Friday with their economies poised to be among the three largest in the world by 2025. Despite the increasing trade between the two countries, unresolved border disagreements and India’s large trade deficit in relation to China are straining the relationship, says Anil Gupta, the Michael Dingman Chair in Strategy & Globalization at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business. In a CNN guest column coauthored by Haiyan Wang, MBA ’95, Gupta says geopolitical tensions nonwithstanding, “the confluence of recent developments make this an opportune time for a fundamental transformation.”

Gupta and Wang, co-authors of The Silk Road Rediscovered, give a snapshot from the evolution of China-India relations. They say Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi “appears determined to permanently fix India's weakness in infrastructure and manufacturing," while China is the world's grandmaster at infrastructure.

“Given the ongoing slowdown in the domestic economy, Chinese infrastructure companies are eager to pursue opportunities abroad," Gupta and Wang write. "Importantly, they also have access to a large pool of relatively low-cost capital. As they look outside China, India easily emerges as the largest and fastest growing opportunity.” Read the entire commentary at CNN.

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