While going through my long (and over-due) “to-do” list, I came across a series of articles which I had kep for a later date…They are on various t opics but all worth a read, in my opinion…Here is the first one:

“Watch how China defends itself” by the respected analyst C Raja Mohan which was published in The Indian Express last March (Mar 13, ‘06). Excerpts below:

�”For a country that shares nearly 3,600 km long border with China, there is hardly any policy interest in India on the trend lines of Beijing�s military expenditure. Last week when China announced a 14.7 per cent hike in its annual defence budget, all it got was a big yawn in New Delhi. Just a week before that India had announced a rise of about 8.9 per cent in its own defence spending.
Despite the much talked about expansion in Chinese spending on rural development � �rebuilding the socialist country side� is the new slogan in Beijing � the nearly decade long two-digit growth rate in Chinese defence spending continues.
…

There was a time � from the early 1960s to the early 1990s � when the Indian defence establishment and strategic community would keep a hawk eye on the patterns of Chinese defence spending. With the improvement in Sino-Indian relations over the last decade and a declining sense of a security threat, there is little serious attention in New Delhi to Beijing�s defence policies.
While few in India today, and rightly so, are obsessed with a potential military threat from China, Delhi would be unwise to ignore the new directions in Chinese military spending, especially in relation to its modernisation of armed forces which holds many lessons for India.

…

Officially the Chinese figure for defence spending this year is $35 billion. But given the very different way China calculates its defence expenditure � Beijing does not use the standard templates of prevalent accounting systems in the world � there is a big discrepancy between Chinese figures and external assessments.
Last year, for example, the official Chinese figure for defence spending was $29.9 billion. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute put it $35.4; the US think-tank Rand Corporation calculated it to be $42-51 billion…Rand also estimates that Chinese military spending doubled between 1997 and 2003, almost catching up with the UK and Japan, which spend the most after the US on defence.

…For India it is more important to know how China spends its defence bucks rather than the mere size of the budget. China�s expenditure on equipment and acquisition appears far higher and more sustained than India�s.

…Even more important for India is the strong commitment of the PRC to a fundamental transformation of its military. China is slowly reducing the size of its armed forces, while making it more equipment oriented. Mobility, better fire power, and ability to operate at longer distances have increasingly become the focus of Chinese military spending.

…In India, there�s hardly any discussion on military reform. If the Defence Ministry has given it any thought, it is a big secret. In any case no one is asking any questions on India�s military modernisation in Parliament, which gets excited only about presumed scandals on defence purchases. You can bet there would be no more than 20 MPs in Lok Sabha when the defence budget is passed this year. ”

Truly shocking state of affairs…Is anybody listening?

Related Posts:

India, China and Arunachal Pradesh�are we missing�something?�

China – India�s new �Blind�Spot�?�and

Dancing with the�Dragon� 

“Watch how China defends itself” – Excerpts