Difference in quality of people is absolutely astounding.
China: Finds 2 drops of oil on the floor below the engine on a J-10 prototype - Calls off first flight, disassembles the entire rear half of the aircraft to find the issue; confirms it's not an issue. Reassembles the prototype for a successful first flight.
India: Finds a pool of oil and an active leak under a Tejas at an air show that is so bad it takes 3 buckets to contain- Says it's just water, then says it's a Pakistani ploy to make India look bad. Flies anyway; when it crashes, no investigation needed to conclude that it's because the US sabotaged the engine out of fear of India's power. Indian aero fans cheer that American fear means India is now confirmed as a superpower, probably greater than the US. Uncork the fermented cow piss and bring out the promotion medals; it's party time!
Jai hinds love to constantly say how China sent people to India to learn stuff while India sent people to China to teach stuff. They consider this a flex since India is the net exporter of knowledge.
Someone raised an interesting point. Could it be that China simply is more interested in proactive learning while India doesn't like learning actively and prefers to teach instead? A lot of the stuff India knows now is coz they were kinda forced to when the Brits ruled them and it was a matter of survival to them. Its basically reactive learning.
Thinking about it made me realize things make more sense knowing this. Notice how India keeps trying to call itself Vishvaguru which means world's teacher. It knows everything and therefore teaches the world. It doesn't need to learn anything coz that implies it doesn't know and thats bad. Suddenly I remember the Three Idiots Movie from India and this fits in exactly. Like the genius inventor was saying the system is stupid coz no one really wants to learn anything at uni out of interest except how to get the best score via rote learning. And the big bad boss is the Vishvaguru principal who constantly uses his platform to teach why this cutthroat system is just and why its ok to basically treat the students like trash.
Think about it. Imagine if some guys from India brought back paper or printing much earlier to India. Then they wouldn't have lost of many historical records. They would have more documentation to help with the country instead of letting the Brits write their history. Or they learnt how to have a centralized statecraft model allowing more effective management of a country rather than s decentralized feudal states which allowed invaders to come in so often. They're basically boasting they missed such opportunities coz India is Vishvaguru and learning from others is bad. That would explain why they are trying to hard to say they discovered everything 5000 years ago according to the Mahabharata like ancient Bharat nuclear missiles and 10g Wifi because saying they need to learn from others is shameful.
Even the Qing dynasty which was when this arrogance took over China, during its early stages it had no issues allowing Jesuits or whatever to teach scientific knowledge. Its only later it got worse. China is playing catchup now due to it. That can be considered reactive learning. But the difference is once it starts learning, it becomes obsessed with learning the ins and out in-depth which eventually becomes proactive learning. Thats why it can go from playing catchup to becoming the lead in stuff like automation, AI, state to private investment plans etc. Even when its reactive learning, China finds a way to eventually turn it proactive. China's aim is not to become the world's teacher. Its aim is to become a great nation to support its own people.
Looking at this made me realize why India seems to mainly always be reactive in whatever future plan it has. When US/China announces it wants to do something, India usually does the same shortly after. Whether or not this plan is even relevant to the long term interest of India doesn't matter. Notice I say the word announced coz if China doesn't talk about it since we know loads of developments aren't high key or "cool" right now, they won't care about it.
I will always fear a guy who is willing to say he doesn't know and is willing to constantly learn especially if its proactive over a guy who calls himself a great teacher and is confident he knows all there is to know.