While Russia still has pretensions of a World Power, primarily on account of her holdings of Nuclear weapons, both China and India are emerging and trying to find their place under the sun. Of course as the present readings go China has not only stolen a march over India but is miles ahead in terms of military power, economic strength and her standing in the world pecking order. Both India and China are countries with ancient civilisations which have, more or less developed the existing natural resources, not possibly to their optimum but to a very fair degree. To achieve their ambitions both have had to resort to centrifugal economic policies and develop sources of raw material, as well as markets for their produce, outside the geographical limits of their countries. Here also China has stolen a march over India.
China is the third largest country in the world.
Yet it finds itself difficult to feed her own population which is well over one billion mark. The Western region comprising nearly two thirds of the total area is either a huge mass of towering mountains or a desert, where camel caravans travel for days without meeting a soul. The rest is too dry, too steep or plain exhausted. Mineral resources have also been exploited for centuries. However, the mountains of Central China do offer a scope for availability of fresh mineral resources and China is fairly well endowed with mineral wealth.