Economic reforms produced different outcomes in China and India. This is because, despite the direction of reforms being very similar, the resultant policy regimes in the two countries were very different. China retained important roles for the public sector and the government, particularly in matters of planning and policy coordination, but India tended to leave everything to the market. Initial conditions, including health, education, and the structure of the economy were favourable for higher growth in China. In addition, certain policies of India made some essential inputs and services relatively expensive, affecting its competitiveness in a liberalised economy. With time, however, it was becoming apparent that China was growing much faster than India. While it is noteworthy that Chinese data was, strictly speaking, not comparable to those of other countries, even alternative estimates show that Chinese manufacturing growth rates were substantially higher during the second half of the last century (Nagaraj 2005). In particular, China was emerging as a major global industrial power and was capturing a higher share in global merchandise trade with every passing month, but the Indian share virtually stagnated. With this, China came to be known as the world’s factory and the largest exporter of high-technology manufactures (Chandra 2012). However, those still willing to bet on India highlighted its capability in information techno­logy (IT) and it became almost like a cliché to reckon India as the world’s software developer or the world’s back office (Nagaraj 2017; Otchia and Otsubo 2022). So much so that when Chinese President Xi Jinping visited India in 2014, he observed, “the ‘world’s factory’ and the ‘world’s back office’ could together drive global economic growth” (Nair 2014).