India and China's great 20th century divergence. The intellectual beginnings stem from a schism in worldview at the dawn of the 20th century when Chinese elites chose to take the path of Darwinian materialism towards national salvation as opposed to India.

This meant radical politics and a restructuring of Chinese society towards any ends at any cost as long as it meant material prosperity and power leading to recovery of her sovereignty. This left China lurching between fascism and communism, any totalizing ideology would do.

At the same time the Chinese elites came to view simultaneous Indian political trends, another vast nation under Western power, as being embodied by Tagore and Gandhi. That is focused towards traditionalism and spiritual metaphysics as a path to national and cultural revival.

This is again may or may not be true of what was happening on the ground in British India but it became the default opinion in China. This oppositional strategy was actually shared by elements of the Chinese elites as well, though ultimately they were the losing faction.

The winners of the debate had always viewed such a policy as childish escapism verging on nihilistic passivity in the face of real threats and thus the losers were scorned. India, as the eidolon of such views became tarred by association, an association entrenched over time.