Ladakh Flash Point

India cannot have pulled a China on China either way. India didn't miss the bus. In fact , there was no bus for India in the first place. The bus in this case was reserved only for East Asians.
The bus was called " Make-Stuff-for-the- Global Market-and-get-rich-yourself" bus. China caught the bus barely after seeing Japan and South Korea hop in.

India does not have Japan or South Korea as neighbors. India has Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Pakistan. India does not have abundant resources like China (in rare earths). The only silver lining is the potential of Indians. India is quite a united country ( Religion and Culture are very uniting forces) but it is very deluded. India lives in the past and would like to tell itself great many tales of great deeds. Its like the Greeks or Turkish or Persians. They are locked in an alternate reality/ time bubble. They believe that they deserve something just because they used to do some big stuff back in the old days.

Many chinese too might have thought like this in the past but i'm pretty sure that they've realized / realizing that you don't get stuff handed down to you. You have to work hard and sacrifice for achieving the stuff you want - whether it be National pride or Olympic medals.

abc123 said:

Isn't S-400 a little bit blocked by the Himalaya's and other mountains in the area? Radar waves need line of sight...

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Fighter jets have same problem in high mountains,they have to clear the crest for operations and that's where they are vulnerable

Xsizor said:

India is quite a united country ( Religion and Culture are very uniting forces)

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I take you have never gone to India before?

Nobonita Barua said:

I take you have never gone to India before?

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What is your point. I mean tumi ki kobo bisarisa

solarz said:

To be fair, India does not have the national unity, political stability, and economic fundamentals to "pull a China".

India today has a literacy rate of 74% and a life expectancy of 69 years. That's equal to China's values 30 years ago!

How do you build a strong economy without a strong public education and health care system?

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China started off far worse. You improve your situation through hard work, not daydreaming and making trouble.

The problem with India isn’t that it’s 30 years behind China today, it’s that they were only 10 years behind 20 years ago and 30 years ahead of China 70 years ago.

The greatest strength of modern China is that they don’t care about how hard or expensive something is, or how long it would take to achieve. So long as it is worth doing, then China will do it, and do it to the highest reasonable standards.

Xsizor said:

India cannot have pulled a China on China either way. India didn't miss the bus. In fact , there was no bus for India in the first place. The bus in this case was reserved only for East Asians.
The bus was called " Make-Stuff-for-the- Global Market-and-get-rich-yourself" bus. China caught the bus barely after seeing Japan and South Korea hop in.

India does not have Japan or South Korea as neighbors. India has Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Pakistan. India does not have abundant resources like China (in rare earths). The only silver lining is the potential of Indians. India is quite a united country ( Religion and Culture are very uniting forces) but it is very deluded. India lives in the past and would like to tell itself great many tales of great deeds. Its like the Greeks or Turkish or Persians. They are locked in an alternate reality/ time bubble. They believe that they deserve something just because they used to do some big stuff back in the old days.

Many chinese too might have thought like this in the past but i'm pretty sure that they've realized / realizing that you don't get stuff handed down to you. You have to work hard and sacrifice for achieving the stuff you want - whether it be National pride or Olympic medals.

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It’s this waiting for the bus mentality that is the problem with India to start with.

There is no bus. If China is on a bus now, it’s only because China built the bus, and the roads and bridges the bus is driving on, by itself.

China did not become the world’s factory through some accident of geography or some kind of non-existent East Asian mafia. China got to where it is today through strong, competent leadership and sheer bloody minded hard work and the sacrifice of generations.

There might have been some goodwill and war guilt on the initial investment decisions of some early Japanese investors, but they were very much in the minority, and to be honest, that would have only been a secondary consideration for their investment. Had China not enacted the right policies and made the painful political and economic reforms needed to make itself an attractive investment destination, Japanese investment would not have poured in after 1978. Had Japanese investment not been about profit, it would not have waited until after the reforms to actually happen.

Initial Japanese investment helped, but was only a tiny fraction of the whole, and the vast majority of early Chinese investment was made by Chinese diaspora living abroad. Even without the Japanese, the Chinese economic revolution would still have started and been just as successful. It might have taken a few years longer, but not many.

Figaro said:

An independent Tibet is all but impossible. Even if the CCP collapses, Tibet will certainly remain part of China under a new government. Hopefully, India realizes this and does not do anything stupid such as encouraging Tibetan separatism.

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India always blames CCP for its insecurity. On the contrary, CCP is the sole force that suppress populism in China. If CCP ever collapsed, India's good days would come to an end.

Xsizor said:

India cannot have pulled a China on China either way. India didn't miss the bus. In fact , there was no bus for India in the first place. The bus in this case was reserved only for East Asians.
The bus was called " Make-Stuff-for-the- Global Market-and-get-rich-yourself" bus. China caught the bus barely after seeing Japan and South Korea hop in.

India does not have Japan or South Korea as neighbors. India has Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Pakistan. India does not have abundant resources like China (in rare earths). The only silver lining is the potential of Indians. India is quite a united country ( Religion and Culture are very uniting forces) but it is very deluded. India lives in the past and would like to tell itself great many tales of great deeds. Its like the Greeks or Turkish or Persians. They are locked in an alternate reality/ time bubble. They believe that they deserve something just because they used to do some big stuff back in the old days.

Many chinese too might have thought like this in the past but i'm pretty sure that they've realized / realizing that you don't get stuff handed down to you. You have to work hard and sacrifice for achieving the stuff you want - whether it be National pride or Olympic medals.

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India is actually not very unified. For example.

1. Religion is one of the fault lines running though Indian society

In 1950, Muslims accounted for 1 in 10 of the population
Today, Muslims account for 1 in 7 of the population, around 200million people.
And that proportion continues to grow.
Muslims account for 1 in 7 of the population, and that proportion continues to grow.

And the current BJP government encouraging anti-Muslim pogroms and policies.



2. Culture is another faultline.

Hinduism is based on a a caste-based society, where your destiny is determined by your birth, rather than by ability.
That contrasts with the Western celebration of individual ability or the Confucian ideal of educational meritocracy.


3. Linguistically, India has no single national language, and is fragmented with numerous strong regional languages.

AndrewS said:

India is actually not very unified. For example.

1. Religion is one of the fault lines running though Indian society

In 1950, Muslims accounted for 1 in 10 of the population
Today, Muslims account for 1 in 7 of the population, around 200million people.
And that proportion continues to grow.
Muslims account for 1 in 7 of the population, and that proportion continues to grow.

And the current BJP government encouraging anti-Muslim pogroms and policies.

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2. Culture is another faultline.

Hinduism is based on a a caste-based society, where your destiny is determined by your birth, rather than by ability.
That contrasts with the Western celebration of individual ability or the Confucian ideal of educational meritocracy.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

3. Linguistically, India has no national languages, and is fragmented with numerous strong regional languages.

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Some very fundamental points. But it doesn't paint the entire picture.

Religion is a very powerful force if channeled properly. I would show the example of Taliban. They routed USSR, they are now routing US.
US after getting atom bomb & missile tech from Germans and after getting the reserve currency status, thought they could do a British Empire, taking on the most fundamentalist religion to ever walk on earth & tried to make "Modern Islam" out of it. Well, that didn't go down well for them. They never realized why Hitler said there is only 1 religion he ever respected.
9/11 is the most fearsome terrorist attack in all of our recent memory. We all feel for the innocent people who lost their lives that day.
However US had it coming for long time. They were first to drop atom bomb, since then every single conflict, they were getting involved at will,they were inflicting damage on others while sitting at their home safe. That 9/11 was the first message that was needed to be given to them, they were no longer safe in their home.
In fact, i would go to the extent to say, China owes a portion of it's rising to those fundamentalists to keep those American busy somewhere else. I don't like religions or other gods crap, but those guys have my respect.


When you come to India, the situation is ...not complicated, but messy.
Let me tell you.
They call themselves "Hindu nationalists". However they never mention, which nation's nationalists they are. They want to be Indians as well as they want to be utopian Hindustanis or Bharat varsh, a country that never came together since forever. So they need to figure out where their true allegiance lie, is it to India ?or is it to Hindustan/Bharat varsh?
They take pride in history, they keep reminding their own minorities& their western neighbors of their "true roots", when it comes to eastern neighbors, they proudly show their identity as "Democracy", something never existed in their "true roots" while they keep insulting their neighbours on some non-existent values. You see the self contradictory problem?

India as a country is consisting of several kingdoms & cultures that never came along. So basically it became a toxic cocktail.
They try to show that they are "united" Hindus against Muslims who invaded them. They are deluding themselves. They have problem with every single minorities, including among their own castes. To distract themselves from that, "Muslims" becomes a bogeyman word, more like justifying their own existence.

India was a setup for failure from the word get go. It's a fundamentally broken & culturally c*cked society.
That's why their biggest problem is, they want to be Harley Quinn to whoever the joker in the town.

Chinese initial economic growth originates from developments made during the cold war which could be converted into civilian uses after economic liberalization, for example industrial advances and massive steel industry. They also set the foundations for what would be modern tech and Internet companies. It's similar to what Japan, Germany and USA experienced after WW2 and to a lesser extent also after the cold war.

India isn't in anywhere similar situation, their growth path would have to be something new invented by themselves for their own situation.

But in terms of competition, economically its very unfeasible that they can catch China, or even America tbh. India's main threat to China is the handful of nukes they posses, and also secondary threat towards friends in the region.

India however should really consider if they want to build their whole nation around threatening their neighbors or whether its better for them to improve life quality for their 1.2 billion citizens

plawolf said:

The problem with India isn’t that it’s 30 years behind China today, it’s that they were only 10 years behind 20 years ago and 30 years ahead of China 70 years ago.

The greatest strength of modern China is that they don’t care about how hard or expensive something is, or how long it would take to achieve. So long as it is worth doing, then China will do it, and do it to the highest reasonable standards.

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That's because China has two things India never had: national unity and political will.

Even today, you can see the fault lines segmenting India along religion and caste, and political will is virtually nonexistent.

People who didn't grow up in the PRC can't understand why Chairman Mao is so worshipped. The reason is because he gave us national unity and political will.