Aug. 17 – Although economic and political cooperation between India and China has been improving over the last few years, bilateral relations remain tense regarding international borders according to a congressionally mandated annual report released on Monday by the Pentagon.
Using alarmist and self-serving rhetoric at times, the Pentagon’s 83-page report, titled Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China (2010), assesses and analyzes China’s military ambitions; dedicating a portion of the document to current Sino-Indian relations.
“Beijing remains concerned with persistent disputes along China’s shared border with India and the strategic ramifications of India’s rising economic, political, and military power,” the Pentagon stated.
“Despite increased political and economic relations over the years between China and India, tensions remain along their shared 4,057 kilometer border, most notable over Arunachal Pradesh, which China asserts is part of Tibet and therefore of China, and over the Askai Chin region at the western end of the Tibetan Plateau,” read the document.
The report claims that both countries are stepping up their military efforts along the disputed border areas to help assert their claims.
“To improve regional deterrence, the PLA has replaced older liquid-fueled, nuclear-capable CSS-3 intermediate-range ballistic missiles with more advanced and survivable solid-fueled CSS-5 MRBMs (medium-range ballistic missiles) and may be developing contingency plans to move airborne troops into the region.”
Furthermore, an Indian academic is quoted in the report as saying that in 2008, the Indian military recorded 270 border violations and almost 2,300 instances of “aggressive border patrolling” by Chinese forces.
Beijing has also tried to use other nonmilitary means to undermine Indian efforts in the region to promote its own agenda. In 2009, “China tried to block a US$2.9 billion loan to Indian from the Asian Development Bank, claiming part of the loan would have been used for water projects in Arunchal Pradesh. This represented the first time China sought to influence this dispute through a multinational institution. ”
Meanwhile, the then-governor of Arunchal Pradesh announced last year that India “would deploy more troops and fighter jets to the area.”
Although China fought brief wars with India and Vietnam in 1962 and 1979, respectively, Beijing has been more willing to negotiate with its neighbors in recent years despite the tone taken in the Pentagon report. Since 1998, China has settled 11 territorial disputes with six of its neighbors, but many hotly contested regions like Arunchal Pradesh and the South China Sea are still a long way from being resolved.
All Obama has to do is to sell long range missiles. Uranium is already here, courtesy Bush. And there will be
China full of Terracotta Army stuffed with yellow cake.
All countries are focused on progress and Development hence war like situation will take ALL of us back 50 years. Hence the best way to solve any differences is dialogue. WAR is NOT a solution ITS HAS FAR DEVASTATING EFFECT ON MAN KIND. WE ALL JOINTLY MUST WORK FOR WORLD PEACE.
The war with Vietnam in 1979 has nothing to do with border dispute.
@HK – Correct, it was punishment for Vietnam invading Cambodia against China’s wishes of the time. Thanks for pointing that out. – Chris
A war will only make things worse and pull both India and China back. Yet the eventuality is likely to happen,given the amount of distrust between the two and the border disputes.
India must arm itself in such a manner as to be capable of containing China militarily. As it would take time to achieve this, India must find new ways of overtaking china, in certain critical areas where in China is not much advanced.
Nuclear powered and armed submarines are one such area.Another is laser warfare. More research/funds is required for opening and winning such war fronts. It is not necessary to excel china on every front. Even without that we will be able to inflict irreparable damage on them which will detain them from venturing out against India.
The Chinese have apparently preempted any potential harm to the security of their S. Western borders. Because of the floods in Pakistan and her government’s inability to help the large number of resultant displaced and dispossessed people, the Taliban and Al Qaida may decide to take advantage and make recruits. Besides the Chinese providing much needed aid to Pakistan, the latter has apparently accepted a Pakistani invitation to police the Gilgit-Baltistan region. See an opinion piece in the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/27/opinion/27iht-edharrison.html
I completely agree with Joseph about India needing to fortify her defences against the hegemon China.
Yeah, China under Deng wanted to “teach Vietnam a lesson” in 1979. Instead, Vietnam gave the Chinese a bloody nose and they (the Chinese)had to retreat in disgrace.
@Carlos
The Chinese attack of the Vietnamese highlands was a result of Vietnamese persecution of her own people (native Vietnamese and Chinese-Vietnamese alike) and also because of Vietnam invading Cambodia, a Chinese ally. It is also said that the attack had the quiet approval of the USA administration to punish Vietnam for promises not kept. As a result there were lessons learnt everywhere. The Chinese saw that their troop training and equipment were unsuitable for the modern age and started on the path of modernizing her military which was further accelerated by the observations made about the Yugoslavian war and the attack on Iraq by the USA. The Vietnamese increased the persecution of her Chinese minority and further added to the numbers of boat people seeking asylum overseas. Vietnam however eventually pulled out of Cambodia.
Many of those refugees and boat people ended up in countries such as Australia and the USA where the children had a better chance of getting and education and finding employment or running businesses. I see them successfully re-established here in Melbourne, Australia. China today has moved so far ahead that the Vietnamese government, communist like her bigger former ally to the north, feels the need to ally herself with the USA. That is the same USA that in the 1960′s and early 1970′s bombed Vietnam and left it with a legacy of deformed children and polluted rivers as the result of spraying the latter country’s jungles with agent orange.
The plain fact remains that the Chinese couldn’t subdue the Vietnamese despite being the aggressor. Instead, the Chinese had to retreat quickly in disgrace. Whether the US was morally supporting the Chinese or not in her aggression is not relevant, imho.
The US under that crook Nixon also tried to get China to attack India when India was involved in the liberation of Bangladesh in 1971. China, for a while, tried to put pressure on India in the East but chickened out after the Soviet Union warned them of consequences
My sole point in all this is to point out that China has always been a hegemon. As her military power increases, China will threaten ALL those she sees as weaker. Vietnam should team up with the US, Japan, Korea, India and Australia to keep the bully at bay.
If I were in Vietnam’s position I would do exactly the same.
@Carlos
You are repeating yourself. I said that the Chinese took lessons from that adventure in Vietnam. Since then her economy has grown to 4 times that of India and her military modernized.
India did interfere in Bangladesh prior to the partition of Pakistan but since then India hasn’t exactly endeared herself to either part. The Bangladeshis would prefer to deal with China today rather than India.
As for forming alliances, India can’t even govern herself with poverty, hunger, corruption running rife, internal rebellions, etc. She can’t even set up Commonwealth Games infrastructure properly and we now hear that foreign athletes are catching dengue fever because of all the stagnant pools of water in Dehli providing mosquito breeding grounds.
India’s people would be better served by the government sorting out infrastructure and providing food storage and employment rather than playing at being a super-power. After all military expenditure is expensive and if you don’t use it or you use it on the wrong things (think USA in Iraq, Afghanistan) the “return” is not even zero but negative.
To The_Observer,
India DID NOT interfere in Bangladesh. Refugees were pouring out of East Pakistan into India in huge numbers and India brought up this issue at several international fora, but to no avail. India did what it had to do. If you disagree with this, what do you think of China sending troops to Gilgit-Baltistan ???
I have never said that the Indian Govt functions optimally or even efficiently. But, yes we need nuclear weapons to deter China first, then Pakistan. Also, effective conventional weapons. Unfortunately, India cannot choose her neighbours and India has been particularly unfortunate in this regard.
I am not comparing China with India. India, to me, is by far the better place to live in. China is a ruthless dictatorship that silences dissent. Again something the whole world is aware of.
@Carlos
Spoken like one of the privileged castes. Not so good if you are a Dalit, Muslim or Tribal. Here in Australia non of the Indians who made it here want to go back to India. They are settling in and starting to run businesses and their children are graduating into the workforce. Many of the previous Indians that have settled here are also becoming Aussies. That for me says a lot.
Trouble with you The_Observer is that you don’t even know that Christians don’t have castes
Though, I am agnostic, my family is Roman Catholic. Of course, I think you meant class 
Plenty of Indians who have settled abroad are now returning. Maybe you don’t know or maybe you are pretending you don’t know
On the other hand, a top Chinese banker Zhao Xiaochuan has DEFECTED
)) That, to me, is the clincher 
)
@Carlos
Many of those returning Indians are from the USA and are generally from a more privileged background than the Punjabis found in Australia. I was merely saying that if you are from a less-privileged Indian class, your incentive to return is diminished.
As for that banker, Bloomberg reported that it wasn’t true:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-31/japan-regulator-met-zhou-in-beijing-dispelling-speculation-he-left-china.html
Obviously those Indians who will not be able to do much in India if they return will stay on wherever they are.
Others already have businesses and roots in their adopted countries and hence see no reason to return.
But, overall, overseas Indians are returing to India in droves.
The Chinese banker is just one case. Others who want to defect, do not because of the repercussions if they are caught. Even then, it is an accepted fact that the number of discreet dissidents are many. Tibetans, Uighurs, the people of Inner Mongolia, Manchurians, Christians, Muslims, the Falun Gong, etc, etc. This list does not even include many, many Han Chinese dissidents. Nopes, China is a ruthless dictatorship. With all its failings, give me India any day, any time.
Btw, my aunt (father’s brother’s wife) is Chinese. Her entire family (Mainland Chinese) defected to India as refugees in the early 50′s to avoid persecution. There are several such Chinese all over India, mainly in Calcutta. I am not gloating here. These are hard facts. And, these defectors/refugees that I am talking about are not Tibetans either. They are Mainland Chinese.