New Delhi: Asian giants, neighbours, competitors, and trade partners. The ties between India and China can be seen in various shades. That complex relationship from the prism of the manufacturing prowess is taken up by Global Times in a column.
In doing so, Hu Weijia’s column ‘China-India manufacturing gap points to new potential for industrial co-op’ cites a report by ThePrint—based on a NITI Aayog analysis—to explain the gap in manufacturing sectors of the two countries.
Hu says that India’s share in global manufacturing value grew from about 1.5 percent in 1995 to only 3.2 percent in 2023. On the other hand, China saw its share increase from about 5 percent to nearly 32 percent over the same period.
This, the reporter explains, is a huge gap, with China’s manufacturing share being 10 times that of India. “For India, expanding manufacturing has become an important part of its broader economic development agenda.”
Increasingly, the opinion is that India needs to move beyond assembly-led and lower-value manufacturing, and seek deeper participation in global supply chains.
Building deeper supply chains, Hu argues, marks a natural next step in the development of a manufacturing economy like India as it hopes to enter a deeper stage of industrial development.
However, despite a general expansion of manufacturing capabilities in Asia, the column says that it would be “highly unrealistic” for India to build a completely self-contained manufacturing network. Instead, Hu writes, the more practical goal for India would be to integrate into “existing global and regional production networks and gradually strengthen its position within them”.
While the NITI Aayog report makes comparisons between India and China, Weijia sees a greater possibility of cooperation. “At the industrial level, cooperation between Chinese and Indian companies is already expanding through market-driven forces,” the column notes.
It highlights that at the industrial level, cooperation between Chinese and Indian companies is already growing, driven largely by market forces. Rising bilateral trade is one indication of this trend, reflecting not just commercial exchanges but also growing demand for stronger supply chain links and deeper industrial integration.
Furthermore, such industrial demand requires a policy environment that facilitates, rather than restricts, market-driven cooperation. Fair and predictable treatment of Chinese companies could benefit not only individual businesses but also India’s manufacturing sector by strengthening supply chains and building industrial capacity, Hu notes.
As India works to expand its manufacturing capacity, the defence sector has also received a greater degree of importance with the government trying to reduce arms dependence on global contractors.
Writing for South China Morning Post, Biman Mukherji explains the significance of the Rolls-Royce and Reliance partnership in India’s long-time quest to develop a fighter jet engine. The report says that according to experts, “that money and manufacturing capabilities alone would not be enough to overcome the technical challenges of manufacturing such an engine.”
The announcement came as New Delhi considers a rival proposal from French engine maker Safran and India’s state-run Gas Turbine Research Establishment (GTRE). “The two competing plans reportedly promise technology transfer and intellectual property rights for engine development, a long-standing sticking point in India’s efforts to reduce dependence on foreign defence suppliers,” the report says.
The proposal comes against the backdrop of India working to recover from the setbacks facing its indigenous Kaveri engine programme, a point of analysis in ThePrint’s Cut The Clutter featuring Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta and Editor (Defence & Diplomacy) Snehesh Alex Philip.
Why does this independence matter? Mukherji explains that due to dependency on foreign defence suppliers, India has experienced several delays in acquiring weapon systems, pushing it to step up its game in manufacturing capabilities.
However, Mukherji sees one hurdle in the proposed partnership: Reliance’s lack of experience in engine-making. Citing Sanjay Iyer, a former army brigadier, he says that Reliance’s extensive oil refining capacity in India might not translate well to engine-making.
“One factor potentially working in Rolls-Royce’s favour is its six-decade-long partnership with state-run Hindustan Aeronautics in making aero-engine components and engines for the Indian Air Force’s Hawk advanced jet trainers,” he notes.
Another point that has piqued the interest of foreign media outlets is the Indian makeup industry’s unprecedented boom and how it is being driven by Gen Z and influencers.
Nikhil Inamdar of the BBC reports that Indian beauty brands have been drawing much attention from global brands. “Earlier this year in March, American luxury cosmetics maker Estée Lauder fully acquired the homegrown ayurvedic company Forest Essentials.”
French giant L’Oréal Group, he adds, also picked up a majority stake in digital personal care brand Innovist.
The acquisitions reflect what Inamdar calls “the explosive growth” being witnessed of India’s beauty industry, which was valued at about $23 billion in 2025 but is expected to nearly double in size to $40 billion by the end of this decade, growing at twice the rate of the country’s GDP and the broader retail market.
Inamdar credits rising purchasing power due to higher per capita incomes for the beauty market’s expansion. He cites business consultancy Redseer to say that India’s per capita income crossed the $2,000 mark in 2019, a level at which discretionary spending typically accelerates sharply. By 2030, around 155 million households are expected to earn more than $9,500 a year, further boosting consumption and economic growth.
A sharp rise in e-commerce and influencer marketing are also helping drive up beauty market share. BBC reports that e-commerce is expected to drive around 35 percent of overall beauty spending by 2030, compared with just 8 percent five years ago, according to Redseer’s estimates.
(Edited by Tony Rai)