Ensconced inside the commodious environs of the Great Hall of the People, invigorated by a long winter-morning march on the Great Wall, President Richard Nixon ruminated on the problems of modern India. “I think,” he told Prime Minister Chou En-lai, “if we analyse why Germany and Japan have done so well, it is because they have qualities of drive, and are willing to work hard.” “But some people on the subcontinent, maybe because of the environment, they never had this drive.”
Prime Minister Chou pushed back, declassified documents record, despite his country’s bitter differences with India: “people throughout the world have similar qualities,” he protested. Read More…
