According to travel guides, Chindia is a place in Romania where Vlad the Impaler, a bloodthirsty 15th-century monarch who inspired the fictional Count Dracula, watched his victims put to death. But in the argot of today's financial markets, Chindia is a magical land where China's and India's economies supposedly combine to produce untold riches.

It is an alluring vision that has gained lustre from Hu Jintao's visit to India last week, the first by a Chinese president for 10 years, and by both sides' sonorous pledges to set aside past quarrels and stride together into the future. There is just one problem: the idea that their economic destinies are inseparably intertwined lacks any basis in fact.