The assassination is a koan that brings to light the paradox at the heart of civilisation: what’s real is our experience of being alive, not how we can be quantified, but we pretend the opposite is true.

Despite their challenges, China and India are winning more important roles on the global stage. However, according to management professors Nandani Lynton of CEIBS in Shanghai and Jitendra V. Singh of the Wharton School, India is outperforming China in the number of senior executives at leading multinational corporations. In this opinion piece, they identify five possible explanations for this disparity. China is already addressing some of them, such as gaps in the use of English. Others, like China’s inability to work with outsiders, are less susceptible to change. Depending on which factors prove most important, India may have the advantage for some time to come, but it may not take long for China to catch up.