One of the most curious aspects of the West’s approach toward the East is its transparent hypocrisy. They are hypocritical, and they are completely transparent about it—they simply do not care what others think.
The Western Coterie and Selective Solidarity
Look at the phrase "the Western civilization." Everywhere you look—in video after video, article after article, television series, news broadcasts, and political decisions—we constantly encounter the phrase "Western civilization." Their movies proclaim membership in this civilization, and their politicians speak of the West as a single, unified unit. That is fine, but they shouldn't expect others not to band into units of their own.
Look at BRICS. BRICS was envisaged as a platform where developing countries could meet each other’s needs. Yet, the West tend to see it as "anti-West." This is absurd, for BRICS is a collection of nations spanning deep Western allies like South Africa, neutral and friendly partners like India, alongside outright opponents like China and Russia. It is not designed to be about the West, but Western commentators simply cannot understand this. They, some [quite a few?] of them at any rate, remain fixated on seeing it as an anti-Western coalition.
We see this same mindset in American political discourse, where some in their government openly state they will not allow India to emerge as big a threat as China. It is difficult to understand how India’s economic growth poses a problem for the United States. Yes, we will become economically less dependent on the USA. We will be richer and more independent. But we are not stealing wealth from anyone. Global dominance may shift, but the Western view remains fixated on a single principle: we are the West, we are one, and we must dominate.
How can a country like ours depend on a civilization that is so inclusive of its own people and so exclusive towards other people? They are not willing to allow others into their coterie. We do not want to be part of that coterie, but they actively try to prevent us from forming our own friendships and relationships. That is the core hypocrisy of Western civilization.
Eastern Realism: Managing Complexity Without Conflict
Contrast this with Eastern approaches. We are used to dealing with a multiplicity of complex situations. India maintains a $150 billion trade relationship with China, even though it is lopsided against us. We are fully aware of China assisting Pakistan; our security agencies are alive to that threat and actively protecting us. But we do not make an endless hue and cry about it the way the West does. Similarly, Russia assists Pakistan in many cases, and Turkey overtly takes adversarial positions. We understand these dynamics, keep silent – or restrained, and continue managing beneficial relationships based on practical balance.
The East is able to hold a multiplicity of worldviews, reconcile them, and operate keeping a balance between them. That requires a far higher level of intelligence, cultural achievement, mental maturity, cohesiveness, and development, at least from my standpoint and POV. The West, by comparison, is remarkably young. At its oldest, it dates back roughly 3,000 years, with modern Western identity tracing back 2,000 to 2,500 years through Christianity—often viewing even older Greek and Egyptian roots as pagan origins.
Deep History: Unbroken Continuity vs. Civilizational Rupture
The West is new. Most of the West as we know it today is only about 2,000 to 2,500 years old. Its Greco-Roman ancestry is where it traces itself in civilisational terms, but that continuity was broken by major ruptures in the West: the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the Christianisation of Europe, the Theodosian edicts suppressing pagan worship in 391-392 AD. In popular belief, the West does not trace itself back to these ancient civilisations, while we in India and China still do, across every aspect of even modern life.
Even if you accept Greek origins dating back 4,000 to 4,500 years, the earliest authenticated archaeological sites in India and China reliably date back to 6750–7435 BC, with some sites spanning even further. From a scientific perspective, this makes complete sense: during the receding Ice Age of 10000BC-7000BC, the West lacked the conditions etto sustain advanced human settlements; ice doesn’t dissolve in 10 years. It took time for conditions to emerge that support civilisations. And the farming settlements of 8000-7000 BC slowly evolved into settlements, then cities of the 5000-3000BC, laying the framework of one continuous uninterrupted life in Asia.
India and China thus have cultural lineages traceable to about 7000 BC, from farming settlements evolving continuously into large settlements, and unbroken urban traditions of about 4,500 to 5,000 years. Nothing in the West compares. That was the receding ice age, and the West did not have anything in those periods. The East is therefore a far more mature civilisation. The West is behaving exactly like an arrogant kid, and we should be mature enough to allow the West to behave as it wants, like an indulgent parent with a child playing its silly games.
Strategic Patience: Avoiding the Western Trap
We have seen far more of the world than the West and we know where this is heading. And we are not going to disturb them, because they are not going to listen to us, and getting involved in their fights is like committing harakiri. That is the mistake the Chinese are making. If China had focused on its own development, its economic growth would have been faster, but it got veiled into following the Western path.
Having had 5,000 more years of civilizational development than the West, the East is far more mature. The West behaves like an arrogant child playing silly games – I am not calling the west a child, just that its lack of civilisational timelines comparable to ours make them susceptible to these weaknesses – using it as an analogy or metaphor. It is relevant since cultural norms, maturity as reflected through behaviour / driving passions on a people scale / norms / conduct etc, learnings, etc all get passed through culture, language, civilisational memory, even going to the extent of impacting at some level the genomic code, though this last is a nascent science at the absolute edge of genetics.
As a mature civilization, we should be indulgent. We have seen far more of human history than the West, and we know where this path leads. We should not disturb them or get dragged into their fights; doing so is strategic harakiri. That is precisely where China went wrong. Had China focused purely on its own development, its economic growth would have been faster, but it allowed itself to be baited into following the Western path of direct confrontation.
We must understand who we are: a far more mature, developed, and advanced civilization with thousands of years of excess experience over the West. Let the West have its childish behavior and play its games. We know from our own early civilizational history that continuing down that path carries a heavy price—a lesson the West will eventually have to learn for itself. Our responsibility is to focus entirely on our own development, navigate our own challenges, and act with the restraint that true civilizational maturity demands.
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