[China Now] ‘India looms as military rival’

India will be the next military power targetting China

*This article was written based on the story by a famous online writer using ‘BEYONDYOUNG’ as his ID. He wrote it last Friday (March 30, 2012) on the Military Forum of “www.sina.com.cn”, a site representing the negative view of  grass roots Chinese about recent military development of India.

In the Modern history, many countries in the world have had an experience of  going to war,  being invaded or having conflict with China.  

Indian soldiers are seen stationed at the Sino-Indian border. (Photo: China Daily Website)

China even has an experience of fighting with as many as 15 countries at a time. It was during the Korean War which fought from June 25 1950 to  July 27 1953. However, now people’s attention is being focused on who will be the next to go into war with China. Superpower America? Militaristic Japan? Giant Russia? Or some others?

Nowadays many Chinese people believe that India is the most likely to be the next military rival of China. The followings are the reasons why they believe so.

1. India, a historically ambitious country

India and Pakistan have fought at least three wars over Kashmir. They were the Indo-Pakistani Wars of 1947, 1965 and 1999. After the World War II, Lord Louis Mountbatten, supreme allied commander, put forward India-Pakistan sub-continent rule program in 1947.

According to that, India and Pakistan separately attained their independence. But, Kashmir was left to choose whether to join India or Pakistan or to remain independent. 

Kashmir, one of the largest states in the sub-continent, has a predominantly large Muslim population. Due to the principles of division between India and Pakistan, many Chinese people view that Kashmir should be a legal part of Pakistan. They also believe that because of the religious reasons, Kashmiri people will never wish to remain under Indian rule. They either want to stay with Pakistan or being independent.

What is more, Chinese people are dissatisfied with the way India is handling Kashmir. Chinese think that India should extend helping hand to the people of Kashmir instead of having confrontation with them.

However, India has long competed for this piece of land with Pakistan, reling on its great strength of military power. Chinese think that it shows no other than the India’s ambitions covering the whole Asia.

2. India’s dream of becoming the great power

Shown above is the Indian aircraft carrier (Photo: www. image. baidu.com)

India, officially called the Republic of India, is a country of South Asia, just besides China. It is the seventh-largest country all over the world, also the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people. It is geographically bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the south-west, and the Bay of Bengal on the south-east, it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west.
 
Following the economic reforms carried out in 1991, India has become one of the fastest-growing economic powers, has world’s tenth-largest nominal GDP and third-largest  PPP (purchasing power parity).

India has already been considered a newly industrialized country. Along with this economic growth, its ambition is also being exposed to the world through its military build-up.

After Sino-Indian War in the year of 1962, and the war with Pakistan in 1965, India pursued close military and economic ties with the Soviet Union; by the late 1960s, the Soviet Union was its largest arms supplier. India has already developed nuclear weapon and become a regional power having the third-largest standing army in the world.

3. Sequela of Sino-Indian border war: Competition and conflicts

Some international commentators argued that “China’s nuclear test of 1964, as well as its repeated threats to intervene in support of Pakistan in the 1965 war, drove India to develop nuclear weapons.” 

India conducted its first nuclear weapons test in 1974. Since then, Sino-Indian relations have deteriorated and they have gone into hectic competition in building up their military powers. They also waged war of diplomacy and went into war, though small in scale, in the years of 1959, 1981 and 1986.

Some Chinese internet users vent their indignations out, saying that “we must teach them a lesson in one way or another.”

Refugees try to escape on a train during the Sino-Indian war in 1962. (Photo: www. Picturechina .com.cn)

4. Tibet

Dalai Lama, center, walks with Chairman Mao, during their meeting in 1954. (Photo: cppcc.people.com.cn)

Within the People’s Republic of China, Tibet is designated as the Autonomous Region, an integral part of Chinese territory. However, many western governments have supported the independence of Tibet from China which has been occupying it since the mid-1950s.

Dalai Lama, left, talks with Jawaharlal Nehru, first Prime Minister of independent India. (Photo: www.baidu.com)

Chinese people also believe that India has always taken side with Tibet whenever some problem arose.

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