Nationalists of India ‘blindly optimistic’ over nation’s military
The trilateral foreign ministers’ video meeting including China, Russia and India, expected to take place on Tuesday, is anticipated to cool down recent China-India border tensions, while Indian media has given rolling coverage of India mobilizing its armed forces towards the frontline on its border in Ladakh.
Chinese experts said Indian side boasting about their country having made dual preparations for military and diplomacy with China blindly optimistic, because they refuse to acknowledge the gap between India’s weaponry, deployment and equipment and those of China and India’s initial border provocations have squeezed its bargaining room in talks with China. Indian military also reportedly would give Indian troop deployed at border the freedom to use firearms under “extraordinary circumstances”, which seriously adds to the mistrust between the two sides.
Russian Foreign
Minister Sergei Lavrov will host the Russia-IndiaChina trilateral foreign ministers’ video meeting on Tuesday, India Express reported on Monday.
Although the Chinese side has not confirmed the information yet, Zhao Lijian, spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry told a press conference on Thursday that the three sides are communicating regarding arrangements for the video meeting.
Being close to both India and China, it is good for Russia to act as a bridge to promote talks between China and India on border issues, Liu Zongyi, secretary-general of the Research Center for China-South Asia Cooperation at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, told the Global Times on Monday.
But Russia would not involve itself too much as China and India expressed that they have various channels for military and diplomacy and the capability to solve disputes, Liu said.
Against the backdrop of possible talks between senior officials, India has been reportedly mobilizing its armed forces, including its army, navy and air force, towards the frontline on its border in Ladakh, Indian media reported in the past few days.
Chinese analysts said that nationalists and hardliners in India are stoking anti-China sentiment and instigating a war with China despite gap of military capability between the two sides.
Gap of military capability
Indian media reports said that the Indian Air Force deployed US-made C-17, Russian-made Il76 and An-32 transport aircraft to airlift troops and materials from various places into Ladakh, but observers explained this is because the roads leading up to the border are in a poor condition and land transportation isn’t efficient.
In comparison, thousands of Chinese paratroopers from Central China’s Hubei Province recently made moves to Northwest China’s highaltitude region in only several hours via road, railway and civilian airliners, with no military cargo planes involved.
The Chinese Air Force’s strategic transport capability has already been demonstrated during the fight against COVID-19, in which domestically developed Y-20 military cargo planes sent troops and supplies across China and to many places around the world.
Chinese military experts said these weapons and equipment are no match for their Chinese counterparts like the PCL-181 and PLZ-05 selfpropelled howitzers, Z-10 attack helicopters, and Type 15 and Type 99A tanks, as the capabilities of Chinese weaponry in terms of firepower, mobility, level of informationization and tactics are far superior, and more so in high-altitude regions.
Indian observers often say that today’s India is no longer the country of 1962, and that it has developed militarily. The same goes for China, and as a matter of fact, the power gap has grown larger. For instance, China’s total military expenditure is more than three times than that of India’s in 2019, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
India cannot win a war against China, but Indian nationalists do not believe so, analysts said.
Despite the strength gap militarily, China has made full preparation for any scenarios and would swiftly adjust its policies towards India, Qian Feng, director of the research department at the National Strategy Institute at Tsinghua University in Beijing, told the Global Times.