Chindia in the context of emerging cultural and media powers ■ Joe Straubhaar University of Texas in Austin, USA This essay aims to put the relationship of China and India – Chindia – in the context of other emerging cultural and media powers in a somewhat, but far from completely, transformed world or global system. It examines their globalization in terms of Appadurai’s (1990) set of landscapes and of asymmetrical interdependence (Straubhaar, 1991). It explores their relations with the existing core powers, with each other, and with other less developed nations and cultures. Emerging powers and the global system As recently as 30 years ago, China and India were seen as part of the periphery of a world system dominated by the central developed capitalist economies (Wallerstein, 1979). By some measures they might have been part of what Wallerstein called the semi-periphery, large developing countries which showed some growth and limited autonomy in some areas, but were still essentially dependent on the core countries, especially in economic matters. In a related assessment, Cardoso (1973) called the condition of countries like Brazil, or India, associated dependent development, associated with and dependent on the core countries. In some ways, China was off the global economic map, seen as a still largely socialist country deliberately disengaged from the world economic system seeking a more autonomous form of development. However, by 2001, a Goldman-Sachs economist called attention to the fact that large emerging markets were growing faster than the G-7 ‘core’ countries (O’Neill, 2001). O’Neill drew particular attention to what he called the BRIC countries – Brazil, Russia, India and China. Depending on the measurement, those countries had about 8 per cent of global GDP then, which, again depending on the measure, has risen since then, particularly since the BRIC and other emerging economies seem to have ARTICLE 253 Global Media and Communication [1742-7665(2010)6:3] Volume 6(3): 253–262 Copyright © 2010 SAGE Publications (Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore and Washington DC: http://gmc.sagepub.com)/ 10.1177/1742766510384962