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For the United States and the rest of the world, the effects of the sudden awakening of the Asian giants could be profound. In the years ahead, it may mean more downward pressure on wages, the outsourcing of more jobs, greater competition for investment and higher prices for scarce resources.

Indeed, Beijing's overtures toward India, though clearly made with the economic opportunities in mind, are also being contemplated with a keen awareness of China's rivalry with the United States. Washington has also courted New Delhi, lately promising to help make it a major world power.

India and China Are Poised to Share Defining Moment
By SOMINI SENGUPTA and HOWARD W. FRENCH

NEW DELHI, April 9 - Wen Jiabao, prime minister of China, began a four-day visit to India on Saturday just as the two countries - a third of humanity - are coming into their own at the same moment, with the potential for a dynamic shift in the world's politics and economy.

The impact on the global balance of power, the competition for resources and the health of the planet is causing many analysts and political leaders to sit up and take notice.

"Both countries have waited 3,000 years for this moment," said Gurcharan Das, the former chief executive of Procter & Gamble India and now an author.

Onetime rivals who went to war in 1962, India and China today find their economies growing at a remarkable clip. Both have a giant appetite for energy. Both are hungry for new markets. And both, it seems, are now gingerly testing the possibilities of doing business together.

It is not an accident that Mr. Wen began his visit not here in the capital but in Bangalore, the southern high-tech hub whose phenomenal rise China has eyed.

Trade is booming between them, especially as seen from the Indian side: after the United States, China is now its second largest trade partner, and it is growing by a giant 30 percent each year to an estimated $14 billion this year