The developing countries use the argument that the west is trying to hold them back from industrialising, what they fail to mention is that if they were not such backwards places they would have industrialised long ago - the same time as the rest of us were.
Many of them are ancient cultures that have at one time or another lead research, however for most of them this was longer than 200-300 years ago.
They were good back then, but were stuck in the same type of governance and life that they failed to adjust to the modern world.
The argument that they are all ex-colonies and as such it is our fault simply does not hold true. Europe (and eventually America) have led the technological development for many, many years now - when the Brits first went to India most of Europe was already on the SAME level as each other development and technology wise, yet what we found in India was a far less industrialised society.
Why is it that they were so many years behind Europe? Why were they even behind Russia (who were not an industrial power at that time)?
The colonial influence was a positive, we brought them engineering expertise, ability to build roads and railways, knowledge on how to govern in a modern fashion (yes it was not implemented by us, but the "knowledge" was none the less there).
They have no-one to blame but themselves for their slow industrialisation, Russia managed to do it many years ago ... even though they were behind the rest of Europe they were still ahead of all these backwards Asian and African countries.
Why are S. Korea and Japan, so far ahead of the rest of Asian countries?
Look at Africa, it is still a backwards thinking mess.
