Recently an e-mail arrived from a friend, and she provided a link to a CNBC.com piece about India testing an intercontinental ballistic missile with a range of more than 3,100 miles. The test was successful. This long range missile is capable of reaching deep into China and Europe.
My friend wrote, “This doesn’t thrill me. I think the international community should come down just as hard on India as on North Korea.” She was right, and the Hindustan Times reported, “North Korea violated international law by missile launch.”
So, why is North Korea’s failed missile launch different than India’s?
Nowhere in the CNBC piece was India criticized as North Korea was for its failed test of a long range ballistic missile.
This 10 minute video may “BLOW” your mind—pun intended!
Instead, CNBC reported, “India lost a brief Himalayan border war with its larger neighbor, China, in 1962 and has ever since strived to improve its defenses. In recent years the government has fretted over China’s enhanced military presence near the border.”
In addition, Srikanth Kondapalli, professor in Chinese studies at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University told Reuters, “India can now deter China, it can impose maximum possible punishment if China crosses the red line.”
It is obvious to me that there is a double standard in the world.
There is the Democracy Club and countries that feed the world’s democracies with oil and then there is everyone else. India is a member of the democracy club and seldom if ever is criticized in the Western media even though the maternal mortality rate is 46.07 deaths per 1,000 live births (ranked #1 globally), life expectancy is 67 years at birth, 43.5% of the children at age five are underweight (the highest in the world), about 5 million children die (50 million each decade) from malnutrition and starvation annually, the literacy rate is 61% of the population, and 25% (more than 300 million people) live below the poverty line. Source: The CIA Factbook
Comparing India’s democracy to a non-democracy, such as China, reveals the double standard I’m talking about.
Before 1949, life in China was equal to or worse than India is today (life expectancy was 35 and 87% of the people lived in severe poverty). However, according to the CIA Factbook, today, the most recently reported maternal mortality rate was 15.62 deaths for each 1,000 live births ( a third of India’s and ranked #111 globally), life expectancy was almost 75 years of age, and literacy was more than 92% while the population living below the poverty line was 13.4% (about half of India).
6,000 children starve to death in India EVERY DAY
Then there is the fact that India’s middle class is about 5% of the population (61 million), while it is estimated that China’s middle class is now more than 230 million people or 37% of the total urban population. With all of these facts for a comparison, there is no doubt that the quality of life in China’s authoritarian republic is far better than life is in India’s democracy where people are “free” to starve and be illiterate.
Moreover, nowhere in that CNBC piece does it mention that India also fought border wars with Pakistan and Nepal—India fought with Pakistan in 1947, 1965 and came close to war in 1990 all over disputed Kashmir.
In fact, soon after the conflict with China, India had a clash with Nepal over a paltry 75 square km in Kalapani. Indian forces occupied the area in 1962, and the dispute with Nepal intensified in 1997.
Nowhere in the CNBC piece does it mention that India has 90 nuclear weapons while China has about 240.
Is India really serious about punishing China for future alleged violations of a disputed border?
In addition, the American/Western media crucifies North Korea for having 10 nuclear warhead compared to America’s 8,500 and Russia’s 11,000. Source: Huffington Post
Now, don’t get me wrong, North Korea’s government has earned its infamy, and I’ll spend more time with what that means in Part 2. Oh, lest I forget, North Korea has tested two nuclear bombs—one in 2006 and one in 2009. How many nuclear bombs has America tested? Watch the first video to discover that answer.
Continued on April 24, 2012 in The Democracy Club and the rest of the world – Part 2
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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.
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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse 
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