The economies of emerging countries require a fresh examination that will make it possible to question approaches to comparative economic development as well as comparative industrial policies. The central aim of this paper relates to industrial policies and their regulatory systems. These issues throw light on capitalism and in particular on the political economy of the Indian capitalist system, and in the case of China, on what is called–“somewhat loosely–“"state capitalism." The goal of the paper is to suggest that we take a fresh look at these political economies. Three arguments in particular are employed and provide the thematic structure of the paper. For both countries, industrial policies have grown–“and continue to grow–“out of an embedding of the economic within the political and the social. A corollary of this claim is that economic choices relating to the entry of these two countries into the globalized economy were not the consequences of internal mobilization by actors benefiting from globalization. Rather, they were the outcome of public choices. Without overlooking the role of Indian entrepreneurs, we need to remember their involvement in a trajectory of capitalism that is close to State networks. In China meanwhile, it is a question of nudging the interesting theory of "capitalism with Chinese characteristics" (huang yasheng) toward a theory of non-capitalism. In both cases, economic cohesion at both the local and national level is the structuring element. Finally, the industries and businesses of both countries are doing more than becoming multinationals but are in fact becoming globalized. As the direct outcome of these three theories, which all state that economic relations in these countries have not stabilized but are in fact in a dynamic state, the paper suggests that an economics of emergence has no systemic closure. An economic theory of emergence, understood as an autonomous way of thinking about production and exchange and their organization, continues to meet in both China and in India a political and social situation in a state of flux. A narrow economics of emergence is impossible as conceptualizing emergence is necessarily a political economy.