The Hungarian economist György Simon, Jr., setting out from the conception of modernising development, analyses the development experiences of Asia's two largest nations-China and India. In this context, he considers the political and economic achievements of Taiwan separately as representing an alternative model of Chinese development. China has already turned into a veritable world factory and is competing today with the United States for global leadership. India, relying on an enormous population and rich natural resources, has since the achievement of independence also been developing on the road to becoming a world factory. The political and economic conditions for such a breakthrough have already been created, with a key role of manufacturing as a pulling sector, while the modernisation of agriculture is also of utmost importance. For an econometric analysis, covering the period 1955-2019, a general growth model with a built-in mechanism of technical progress is used here that considers not only physical and human capital but also time as the event space of creative economic activity.