The issues brought up in this discussion about "India and China - A comparison" here, including the comments posted by visitors, are noteworthy, if not for Economics or History, then at the very least General Paper :
http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/randomaccess/entry/the-chinese-think-big-we
Among the many insightful comments posted by visitors to the blog post, a Professor Ramesh Manghirmalani from Oxford comments :
Mainland China has been subject to the biggest stock market booms and busts of the past five years. The Shanghai Composite soared from a low of 1,030 in June 2005 to a high of 6,036 in October 2007, before plummeting back down to 1,706 by November 2008. Since then, Shanghai has rallied back to 2,652 -- still well short of half of its peak. Ironically, the best way to profit from Chinese growth may not be through investing in China itself, but by focusing on Asia's other Chinese-dominated economies.Although mainland China boasts a population of more than 1.3 billion, the roughly 60 million "overseas Chinese" constitute one of the most potent economic forces on the planet. The overseas Chinese dominate the trading, banking and property industries throughout Southeast Asia. With the assets of the worldwide Chinese diaspora estimated as high as $3 trillion, the overseas Chinese may represent a greater economic force than mainland China itself. The Chinese make up a majority of the population of Singapore (75%) and significant minority populations in Malaysia (24.5%) and Thailand (14%). Even in countries where their absolute numbers are small -- Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam -- the Chinese account for a disproportionate level of economic influence. As a rule of thumb, if you do business in East and Southeast Asia outside of Japan and Korea, you actually are doing business with the Chinese.
The World Economic Forum ranks the Chinese-dominated economies of Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan among the most competitive economies globally, ranking them 5th, 11th, and 17th, respectively. Mainland China ranks a mere 30th, while the United States ranks 1st. The relative achievements of these Chinese-dominated economies are even more impressive. Consider that the combined foreign reserves of Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore stand at $647 billion. That's equal to 33% of the reserves of mainland China, while these three countries boast only about 1/40th of mainland China's population. With this kind of efficiency, it's not hard to see why these three "other Chinas" may be a better investment bet than mainland China itself.