We have become accustomed to the global agenda being driven by northern firms characterised by private ownership, reflecting the short-term demands of stock-markets and increasingly being held accountable by customers demanding ethical production and trading standards.
Chinese and Indian firms operate in different environments and often display different characteristics. This is partly because
Asian Driver governments also reflect different modes of behaviour to those of traditional global-driving governments. For example, in the case of SSA, both China and India governments are concerned with long-term access to raw materials. They provide increasing levels of aid, but without the conditionality associated with Western donors.
Western firms and governments tend to act relatively independently of each other. By contrast, both Chinese and India firms operate in an environment in which aid, foreign investment and trade are closely integrated in a strategic outward thrust.
This is particularly true in their involvement in SSA where they are in competition with each other and Western powers for raw materials.