Alok Mittal trades in anything 'made in China'-from printer cartridges to locks, children's toys to wrist watches. He buys them cheap in China and sells them to retailers back home for a handsome margin. The nature of his job requires this small businessman from Ludhiana, in Punjab, to travel to Beijing and Shanghai almost four times every year, but each time he makes a trip to these cities, he has to tug a companion along. "I can't speak Mandarin. So I need to take a translator with me, lest I fail to hire a reliable person in Beijing to help me crack the right deals," he says, ruing that Chinese translators are so sparse these days, thanks to the growing business between the two countries, he has to shell out a bomb on mere translation. Mittal's concerns aren't exaggerated. After all, unlike in Germany or France where business deals are scripted in English, in China, Mandarin is the language of all agreements. And you may read the fineprint after it is too late, like an Indian drug maker did in the 1990s, when it discovered to its shock, and after having made a huge investment, that the contract drafted in Mandarin empowered its Chinese PSU partner to market the final product. By then, it was too late.
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