China and India, the world's two most populous countries, used to be described as giant ships passing in the night, such was the paucity of economic and other ties between the two neighbours. But they are starting to sound the foghorns as they draw closer.

Perhaps the most important shift in perception has been from the fast- growing, increasingly powerful Chinese side, which long dismissed India as being backward in contrast. Huang Jinxin, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, recalls that standard Chinese school textbooks compared India unfavourably with China on key indicators. "Based on India's comparative experience, the Chinese concluded that development and democracy were a trade-off," she says.