The 60th anniversary of 'democracy', as the communists will have us to believe, was celebrated with much fervor and show of strength. China is rising as a world power and its GDP is expected to overtake that of the US in coming decades. They have ambition to be a superpower. And when your aspirations that pretty high, you don't want your neighbor to be as strong as you or even able to challenge you. That is where the India-China problem begins.
Tensions have heightened courtesy some 'incursions' and some really stupid statements in media on both sides. Add to it the statements made by chiefs of armed forces of India. These have combined to induce paranoia in minds of those who are concerned about India's hawkish neighbor. After going through a lot of articles related to this subject written by experts in defence and diplomacy I have found one thing common to all of them. They all acknowledge the superiority of armed forces of China but add that China wont attack India if sanity prevails over them. Considering that there is so much at stake (in terms of economy) and India of 2009 is much different from India in 1962 (even if fusion was fizzle fission is sufficient to be deterrent). China may have advantage as far as military might is concerned but the difference between military strengths of the two nations is not so much as to decimate India and lave China with minor scars. As one article puts it, "China of today is not the Maoist country that argued that power grew out of the barrel of a gun and that even if 300 million Chinese perished in a nuclear war 300 million would survive to build a glorious civilisation. Times have changed since the ideology of countryside surrounding the cities was advanced during the Cultural Revolution". However, India needs to increase its defence budget in order to match China's strength. This would act as deterrent and also remind China that we are not cowed down by its vacuous threats. Also, we should try to address our economic problems and combine together to achieve double digit growth in coming decade. On diplomatic fronts we should take up the border dispute issues with Chinese government. If Vietnam can stand up to them why can't India? Again quoting from the article, "There can be firmness in dealing with the LoAC or other issues where there are attempts at exploiting unequal advantages in situations. India has arrived at a stage in international politics when it has to demonstrate maturity in playing the game of nations".
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I read a very interesting comment abt China few days ago. It said that China has grown big but it still has the mindset of a small nation. It still fights over the sovereignty of Taiwan, has been pumping money in Sudan for securing its energy needs, making incursions on the border. There is no denying this fact that China is on its way to become super power and it will shadow us in time to come. And hence we should be always on our toes. IAF has started to increase its strength in Assam which is a good start. India should now pace up the construction of roads along the Indo-China border because China has already done so.
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