Per the India trade mission: yes. Of course. These things are led by civil servants, who fondly think of themselves as fighting "the last war," even though they're fighting the war before that. Any idiot can see that you wouldn't send financial services people on a trade mission to India -- you'd send infrastructure people (and maybe even weirdos from National Rail, if you wanted to be cruel). Civil servants are, and always have been, a special sort of idiot. Not just your everyday kind.

It basically boiled down to Cameron -> Pak Bad -> Face Time -> I'm Ready For The Cameras Now, Mr De Mille! So, nothing new or thoughtful there, then.

As for China, well, I keep banging on about this. Nasty things are going to happen, and they're going to happen far more quickly than anybody assumes. The regional government imbalances are almost beyond control, and they'll certainly get far worse if the Renmimbi ever gets close to a realistic value.

However, taking your specific point about a huge investment in "safe" property which is then left empty. I think it's fair to assume that anybody in China with spare capital to invest in property will also have bought shares, bonds, property, etc in the debtor countries (which means us).

If they get a hit on their domestic investments (a hit being some sort of call from the bank), then I'd assume they'll liquidate assets abroad to cover that hit.

Which should be interesting.