Samfarrell,
The most popular ETF for chinese shares is iShares FTSE Xinhua 25 (Ticker FXI.US), this tracks the largest 25 chinese shares by market cap. The recent volatility in chinese shares was mainly limited to domestic chinese A shares and B shares listed in Shanghai. These shares and, in particular, small cap A and B shares have been hit hard as their values had been pushed well above their fair value by speculators. The FXI ETF however are traded in the Hong Kong market and are heavily weighted in petro-chemical which have performed strongly and are less speculative than the chinese main market. If you look at a graph of the performance of FXI over the last few weeks you will see that it has remained pretty steady while many chinese stocks tanked.
The Indian market is even less open to foreign investment and even ETFs such as the iShares MSCI India are only listed on the Singapore Exchange and can be awkward to access. As there is a growing demand for access to the growth of India, you can expect new products to enter the marketplace pretty soon.
For the moment, some of your investment options for China - India are as follows:
1. iShares FTSE Xinhua 25 Index (FXI.US) which can be bought through most stockbrokers.
2. Quinn Life China Freeway, which basically buys units in FXI but allows you to invest at regular intervals and charges you 1.5% per annum for the service (Buying through a broker as in 1. only charges you when you buy and sell shares in the ETF but will not suit regular investment).
3. Irish Life have a China India fund in partnership with fidelity investments. Fees for this fund vary depending on intermediary etc. and if you examine the Chinese components you will see that it is mainly composed of the companies which make up FXI.
4. Eagle star have a new India Equity fund which is basically a repackaged version of the Lyxor MSCI India ETF.
I am not in any way recommending investment in any of these products but these are the easiest methods of exposure to these markets for Irish investors.