The story of modern China is at once frightening and encouraging. It’s hard to comprehend something that involved hundreds of millions of people. It’s impossible to imagine what is is like to lift hundreds of millions of people out of extreme poverty. China did it. I don’t excuse the human rights abuses that China routinely indulges in but I celebrate the reduction in human suffering that it achieved. I have special contempt for the Chinese Communist Party leadership. They are evil but at least they did one thing right: they relieved the suffering of their people.
I would fall to my knees in deep gratitude to those who were responsible for sparing me the torture of a life of grinding poverty. Conversely, if I had been condemned to a life to unrelenting poverty — as is the fate of hundreds of millions of Indians even today — I would curse those responsible to be tortured in hell for eternity. That includes those of every political party that has ruled India since 1947.
Unfortunately, that hell does not exist and those who created the hell on earth for the hundreds of millions of Indians who have lived in dire poverty, have lived lives of luxury and comfort. We have to admit that there is no justice on earth. Evil criminals don’t pay for their sins. And the innocent do suffer.
What’s even worse, the most evil criminals instead of being condemend are celebrated as saints. Gandhi unleased horror on India that will continue to harm India for a century at least — and he is the most revered of all the sacred cows of India. If not for Gandhi, and those whom he appointed to carry on his insane scheme, extreme poverty would have been eliminated within a couple of decades of India’s independence. Anyway, c’est la vie.
Alright, end of rant. Here’s the graphic at Visual Capitalist that I found interesting. (Click on image to embiggen.)
Mao Zedong died in 1976. That freed China from the old regime. Then in short order Deng Xioping took over. Deng will be remembered long after Mao is forgotten. Gandhi died in 1948. But his ghost still animates all the leaders of India. India’s old regime continues. Only after the demise of Gandhi’s ghost will there be a chance for a Deng to bring on a new India.
Atanu Dey : Life is a Random Draw 
Your thoughts on current Indo-China fight?
LikeLike
Dear Mr Dey Thank you the excellent Summary in one image.Would it be possible to provide a comparative for India please, to back up your perceptive observations? Fantastic stuff! Yours sincerely Wayne GonsalvesLondon
LikeLike
Under President Clinton, the US agreed to allow China into WTO. It was believed at the time that international trade would help depose one of the most authoritarian regimes in the world like perestroika did with the Soviets. American corporations were salivating with glee over the (at the time) 1.2 billion potential customers they might sell goods to, as well as the cheap labor pool China would bring to the global market.
It was an educated, if optimistic, geopolitical gambit by the U.S., and it did not play out as hoped. Today the Chinese Communist Party oversees the world’s largest army and second-largest economy, and in numerous ways has become the most powerful nation-state on the world stage. It has also used its economic prowess to become even more authoritarian and illiberal than in the past.
LikeLike
Obviously I am on India’s side vis-a-vis China. Be that as may, apart from the lifting of millions out of poverty, I like the high ambitions which Chinese leaders have set for China; not just ambitions they have achieved great heights in science and technology
LikeLike
I don’t know what it means to be on “India’s side.” I side with anyone who does not harm others. Both Indians and Chinese have much to answer for in terms of the harm they cause to others. The Indians do it through their government, just as the Chinese do. I am not on either country’s side because I detest both country’s state. And for the record, I detest the American government as much as any government.
LikeLike