China and India are still developing?

For the life of me I cannot understand why we continue to refer to China and India as developing nations and because of the term they get to pump billions of tonnes of pollutants into the atmosphere at ever increasing rates.

China's history goes back to 1550 BC while India can date its origins to 3300 BC.  That compares to Canada which dates back to the 15th century AD.  Why is it taking China and India so long to develop?

I guess the cynical answer would be that as developing nations they are given favoured status in treaties and support from the "developed" nations.

China is currently the largest loaner nation to the US economy and they are buying up Canadian resource companies at an ever increasing rate.  But for some odd reason we see them as developing and our CIDA sends them aid.  Go figure.

Maybe it is time to separate the wheat from the chaff.