Why China got rich and India didn't

The article has the "rough" idea correct - how could it not be- but is quite stupid in a sort of cliched Chrisitian-missionary / colonialism sort of way.

It talks about how Chinese society was completely destroyed and instantly "modernized" (read, liberal, secular-Christian etc.), and is one step removed from claiming that India too needs this "total destruction".

The article notes about "traditional evils like Dowry or Female Foeticide" like some cliched missionary in British India begging patrons for funding (also the tactic of many a NGOs) - but fails to mention that every one of these issues come from exactly this "societal smashing" created by the "Great" (TM) British civilizers, and their eugenics obsessed American counterparts [1][2]. The latter even talks about how obssesed with killing children the American elites were that they didn't even spare their allies China and South Korea (an unthinkable thing to today Yellow-Fevered zietgeist).

The article barely touches on how the colonial Indian state survived in nearly the same exact form, and pretty much implements the same old British policies to this day. Indeed, the constitution of India is a near facsimile of the 1935 Government of India Act. passed in the British Parliament to secure their vice-grip on the colony and choke it to death.

In India, education remains restricted to the 5-10% Anglophones, and everyone else is considered pretty much "not human". These policies come out from Indian-looking Anglo elites who hate the country to the very core, and don't face push back since even the counter-elites have to come from the same process of colonial education [3].

This is pretty much why India punches, in every field, as a country 1/10 the size. The Anglo-Americans don't complain, since they get slaves for cheap who willingly become part of the Anglo-American borg (like colonized Africa, Phillipines etc.), and it also satisfies their deep religio-cultural obsession with turning everything into be a mirror of themselves by "societal smashing".

This "societal-smashing" business and "lets turn everything American!" scheme of liberalism will die with the societies whom it exhausts into exhaustion and extinction. The breakdown of social-cohesion and drop of birth-rates, coupled without the necessary financial power to "marketize" society (Anglo-utilitarianism is obsessed with "marketizing" everything), this will "fix" itself in half-a-century.

The signs are quite obvious. I hope the Elephant remains a witness.

[1]. Oldenburg, Veena Talwar. Dowry murder: The imperial origins of a cultural crime. Oxford University Press, 2002.

[2]. Hvistendahl, Mara. Unnatural selection: Choosing boys over girls, and the consequences of a world full of men. Public Affairs, 2011.

[3]. Sanu, Sankrant. "The English class system." South Asian Language Review 17, no. 1 (2007): 69-85.

https://sankrant.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/The-English-...

The easiest issue to explain is the Taiwan question. In 1949, Taiwan stripped China of all its gold reserves and its entire elite class, leaving the Chinese mainland with nothing but a shambles. Furthermore, following the Korean War in 1950, the United States backed Taiwan in imposing a comprehensive blockade on China's coastline; this plunged China into a state of total hostility with the U.S.and, by extension, with the entire Western bloc. By the later stages of the Cold War, this situation had become even more dire: Khrushchev threatened to launch a "surgical" nuclear strike against China, while Eisenhower devised a strike plan involving 870 nuclear warheads. Here was an agrarian nation facing simultaneous nuclear threats from two major superpowers; under such circumstances, any discussion of economic development was nothing short of a luxury.

Whatever it is, it is sad.

Yeah, you got a very good point there. Yes, it may seem very weird, but that’s because China was not playing the game.

The game that I suggested earlier assumes that (1) those in power seek to maximize their gains, (2) and such behavior is NOT aligned with social gains. So, basically, a never-ending arms race between the authority and the people. (check Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes if you’re interested)

However, China (and also South Korea) got a weird alignment in interests between the authoritarian government and the people — both of them somehow sought after national economic growth. Since their interests are already aligned, they didn’t play the game that I suggested above.

I think such alignment cannot be reproduced through games nor social interaction b/w powers — rather, it is more of a humane part of the history.

No. 4 doesn’t really make sense as a disadvantage relative to China.