There are a lot of anticipations and suspicions going on among the people in India pertaining to the constant threat from China over India for the past few months. There are reports of increasing tensions between the Indian and Chinese military at Doklam (the boundary area that connects China, Bhutan and India). The tensions began after China had attempted a road construction in Bhutan’s territory earlier this year.
Things have been getting bitter and complicated since the time Lu Kang, the spokesperson of the ministry of foreign affairs in China expressed China’s dislike regarding the 81 years old exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, Dalai Lama’s visit to South Tibet earlier this year and said that India had violated its commitments on Tibet and border dispute. South Tibet is the Chinese name for Arunachal Pradesh.  Also, Lu Kang had put forth the instance of 1962 India-China war and said India ought to learn a lesson from it which was taken to be a clear warning for India. He considered Dalai Lama to be a dangerous separatist who can cause a massive damage to the Indo-China relations. China further added saying that the people of South Tibet (Arunachal Pradesh) were living hard lives under India’s unfair rule.
The recent opinions of Indian Army Vice Chief Sarath Chand have got everyone in to thinking again. The Vice chief emphasized upon the need to strengthen the Indian security even further considering China’s constant initiative to catch up with USA in militarization. Also, China being the second largest economy of the world has enough to spend on its militarization. In fact, China is the second largest spender on military in the world with $215 billion in 2016. Also, some believe the figure is even more than what is known to the world.
However, it is only a sign of the beginning of bitterness in the Indo-China relations and the chances of war is still very less. China, on one hand will not head off to a war right way out of its need to project its benevolent super power image to the rest of the world. India will not first fire a bullet against China either as war is essentially a political and not a military decision. Any wrong political move can be a huge loss for the nation considering the kind of expenditure usually spent on wars. Furthermore, any wrong move by the ruling party in this context may ruin the reputation of the party forever.
