There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Sunday, September 18, 2005

The most threatened democracy in the world

This simply hadn't struck me until my dad pointed it out - India is the most threatened democracy in the world, especially now that even Bangladesh has turned to hardcore Islam with the new government being right wing and having supposedly set up terrorist training camps.

Let's take a look at all our neighbours; to the north we have China (which has been supplying arms, cruise missile tech and nuclear tech to Pakistan and sees India as an economic competitor and possibly as a threat because we're democratic) and Nepal (now in the throes of a Maoist rebellion). To the east is Myanmar which is run by a military junta and Bangladesh which is turning to hardcore Islam. To the south we have Sri Lanka, run by the terrorist LTTE (responsible for assassinating the Indian Prime Minister in 1990). To the west we have Pakistan - hardcore Islamic, run by a military dictatorship, home to a dozen terrorist outfits, safe house for the Taliban, nuclear power with cruise missile tech, China's protégé and counter to India in the subcontinent and of course, last but not least, "America's strategic ally in the war against terrorism".

5 comments:

d nova said...

jeezuz kai!

'tis enough 2 make u wish god wd disband all religions.

thanx 4 trackin my blog. i'll do it w/ urs f i ever figure out how.

CJM said...

I read that China was looking for an alliance with India (or was that just somethign on Xinhua...?)

Kai Wren said...

China sees India as an economic competitor, not a military threat. And unlike the US and the rest of the world, India and China are not in competition for the same set of natural resources - yet.
So yes, they want to keep us off balance and distracted. Given the average Indian's obsession with Pakistan as the 'enemy' (for all the wrong reasons - if the US and China withdrew support, Pakistan would collapse) China sees fit to sustain this, forcing us to spend enormous amounts of money on defence purchases and reduce focus on economic growth.
On the other hand, China sees that without access to energy sources - specifically those in central Asia - their economic growth would take a hit. And they see that the best way to keep the US from creating a monopoly and sucking those oil wells dry as well is to form an informal alliance with Russia and India, with whom it shares these concerns.
On a different tack, China is very interested in understanding how India built up a sizeable and highly trained work force (entirely unitentionally and despite every effort by that bumbling entity we call a government to royally screw things up) and to duplicate this in China. The first steps are already taken - I've been told 300 million Chinese are currently studying english.

d nova said...

yeah
now i think i get it.

used 2 b a lot o indian students here n in uk.

now u know nuff 2 hav tech schools as gud as ours. better, maybe.

d nova said...

hey
keep writin', man.
i'm trackin' ur blog.
finally figured out how.
cdn't've done it w/o u.
thanx 4 tech assist!