Billions of Entrepreneurs: How China and India Are Reshaping Their Futures—and Yours

Chapter Fourteen

Corporate Bridges

Linking China, India, and the West

Throughout history individuals have tried to construct bridges between China and India. Indian monks took the Buddha’s teachings to China. The Indian doctor Dwarkanath Kotnis joined Mao’s army to treat Chinese soldiers wounded in the Sino-Japanese War of 1937. Nehru reached out to China, only to have his affection rebuffed with hostility and misunderstanding. History is also replete with people who have tried to interpret China and India to the West. The China historian Jonathan Spence has written eloquently about the attempts of outsiders—physicians, missionaries, and scholars—to change China over the centuries.¹ While many of the would-be change agents have succeeded in integrating ...