Military Comparison
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| India Vs China |
In mid-June 2020, World War III began to be trending on Twitter. Again. This time, it was because a border dispute in the Himalayas between Chinese and Indian forces turned deadly, killing more than twenty people. This is the first time since 1975 that the two countries have had a fatal conflict and the most serious skirmish since 1967. Naturally, as the two nations are populous, militarily powerful and have nuclear capabilities, the world is biting its nails to see what happens later. But assuming the whole thing doesn't end in diplomacy or a world-consuming mushroom cloud, what country has what it takes to take home a final victory? Using a combination of historical precedents from past conflicts between the two countries and our knowledge of their current military capabilities, we aim to find out exactly whether China or India would win if the two nations went to war today. After all, we're not just talking about dusty hypotheticals here. Relations between India and China have been extremely tense since the Sino-Indian War of 1962, which occurred on the same stretch of the Himalayan border that is causing conflict today. India had granted the Dalai Lama asylum within its borders after the aftermath of the 1959 Tibetan Uprising, which has already put him on China's bad books, and with China's military invading the Royal Line of Control, the line of demarcation separating Indian and Chinese territory in the Himalayas: a military skirmish was practically inevitable. The resulting conflict was short-lived, lasting only a month and a day between October and November 1962.
The Chinese People's Liberation Army had a great numerical superiority over the Indian military forces, and India suffered significantly greater losses, with almost double the deaths of China. many wounded and more than 3,000 captured. This loss is partly attributed to the fact that it is believed, according to some leaked CIA documents, that India underestimated both China's military capabilities and its willingness to escalate the conflict. While India requested military assistance from the US in the form of 12 squadrons of fighter jets, their pleas were rejected and India instead turned to Moscow for help. Ultimately, none of that did much good, as China reclaimed the Eastern Theater up to the Royal Line of Control before declaring a unilateral ceasefire. India was allowed to lick its wounds, and tensions between the two counties have been high ever since, and conflicts still raged well into the 1970s. Both nations have stepped up militarization around the Line of Control Royal as a show of force, and this has left both with very little room to maneuver. In a sense, the Himalayan border is a military tinderbox and we've been seeing the sparks lately.
While an earlier record of military supremacy definitely works in China's favor, the Sino-Indian war was also 58 years ago, and failure is an excellent teacher. India has been embroiled in frequent conflict since the Sino-Indian War, giving its fighters invaluable experience on the battlefield. India is believed to have won all the conflicts in which they participated after the Sino-Indian War, with the exception of the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, which ended with a ceasefire. Comparatively, China fought its last considerable conflict against Vietnamese forces in 1979. Once again, experience gained here, as it is considered that the Vietnamese, who had recently honed their skills in battle against the United States forces, Asses from China for them. That is why the value of actual war experience can never be overstated. But let's take a step back and see what these two armies have to offer in terms of manpower, technology, training, and resources. First: the soldiers, the bread and butter of any military man. As in the Sino-Indian War, China has numerical superiority, although in the defense of India, since China is ranked as the one with the highest number of active military personnel in the world with 2,035,000.
China's military has a numerical superiority over literally everyone. With more than 500,000 reserve personnel who could easily be called to action in a war scenario, China is a force to be reckoned with. India, however, is not far behind, with 1,237,117 active personnel and an impressive reserve of 960,000, putting the differences between its totals at just 100,000. But here's the big twist: the numbers here only pertain to the Indian Army, which is the land force branch of the Indian Armed Forces, whose total number of active personnel is 1,444,500, second only to the total active personnel of the EPL. However, the total number of reserve personnel in the Indian Armed Forces now dwarfs that of China, at a staggering 2,100,000. The Indian Navy has 67,252 active personnel and 55,000 reserves. The Indian Air Force has 139,576 active personnel and 140,000 reserves. In contrast to India's three-part system, the PLA consists of five branches: the Land Force, the Navy, the Air Force, the Rocket Force, and the Strategic Assault Force. The Land Force is the Chinese infantry and land operations, with 975,000 active personnel. The EPL Navy has 240,000 active personnel. The Air Force has an even larger active staff of 398,000. The Rocket Force of the People's Liberation Army, also known by the funny acronym PLARF, is the branch of the army in charge of ground ballistic and nuclear weapons. They have only 100,000 active employees. And finally, the Strategic Assault Force - this is the newest branch of the PLA, officially established in 2015, dealing with extremely modern forms of warfare such as space and cyber operations. This division is so new that we don't even have an exact number of active staff, but due to the specialization of the job and the fact that the group is only five years old, it is safe to assume that it is probably the smallest branch of the pla. However, we also have a much broader trend to consider here: the fact that China and India are two of the most populous nations in the world, with populations of 1.393 billion and 1.353 billion, respectively, as of 2018.
In an all-out situation - outside of the war over their shared border, if both nations were to introduce compulsory military service, the numerical differences between their armies would ultimately be nebulous. So if neither armies had an extreme numerical advantage in the event of another conflict, let's zoom in and take a look at the average service member in each infantry. Specifically, their training, equipment, and weaponry. Fortunately for India, they have grown to invest in more intensive military training over the years, including joint operations training with the British, American, Japanese, French and Australian armies as their involvement in the UN deepened. The Indian Army has also consistently invested in modernized primary assault rifle systems for its troops, and is currently working with a combination of American SiG Sauer 716 and Indo-Russian AK-47 203 assault rifles, a modernization of the famous AK-47, reliable and resistant. As of 2018, Indian infantry troops are equipped with SMPP ballistic armor, even capable of withstanding blasts from steel core rounds fired with an AK-47. All of these factors add up to a formidable individual soldier. China's infantry troops don't have exactly the same thing going for them. Modern Chinese military training has been criticized for years for its lack of useful applications in real-life combat scenarios, which means that the average military skills of a Chinese infantryman can leave something to be desired compared to their Indian counterparts. . They are formidable in the rifle department with the QBZ-95-1, a reliable Bullpup rifle that performs best at long range. Yet even though China is one of the world's most prolific exporters of bulletproof vests, it has historically failed to equip its troops with the same standard of protection.
The PLA is known for its light load, often leaving soldiers ill-prepared for fire, and giving Indian infantry troops a huge comparative advantage. According to a Global Times report, China is investing heavily in updating and modernizing its training system, as well as planning to purchase 1.4 million units of high-quality bulletproof vests for the PLA. While this is not a certainty currently, if these plans are carried out, any advantage the Indian Army may have had at the individual soldier level would essentially evaporate, leaving them dead even once more. But these days war is much more complex than a large group of armed men running against each other and fighting to the last standing. In modern warfare, technology can give the military the crucial advantage they need to ensure victory over the enemy. Since 2008, China and India rank second and third, respectively, in global military spending, but the gap between them is still quite huge.
Last year, China spent a staggering $ 261 billion on military development, compared to India's much smaller $ 71.1 billion. This disparity becomes a little more natural when you realize that China's economy is five times that of India. Let's see how these numbers actually translate into vehicles for your armies, navies, and air forces. While China is generally packing more hardware than India, an exception is in the world of tanks, where India's 4,200+ tanks are more than 1,000 more than China's 3,200+ tanks. However, this does not describe the full picture of China's ground capabilities. If you look at the number of armored ground vehicles overall, China's 33,000 dwarfs India's 8,600, giving them considerable ground superiority, bolstered by the fact that they have ten times as many rocket projectors than their counterparts. Indians. China also dominates the skies, with 3,210 aircraft compared to 2,123 for India. It also has roughly twice the number of fighter jets and interceptors and 507 operational airports compared to 346 in India. Once again, sadly for India, this trend continues in the country's navies. In terms of total naval assets, China surpasses India by 777 to 285. More specifically, it has 74 submarines compared to 16 in India and 36 destroyers compared to 11 in India. If wars were decided only by the team, it is unquestionable that China would win here. . Of course, while no one on earth wants the conflict to escalate to this point for the sake of human life, we would be remiss not to go back to the fact that China and India are nuclear nations.
If war ever turned into a nuclear force exchange, who would be victorious? Well, for various reasons, China has a distinct advantage here. Not only did they develop their nuclear capabilities just over a decade before India in 1964 (New Delhi would not have its first nuclear bomb until 1975), but its nuclear arsenal is also more than double that of India, with a growth rate much faster. China has an arsenal of 320 nuclear warheads, having grown by 40 last year. Compare this to India with just 150 nuclear warheads, which grew by just 10 in the last year. Both nations can deploy these warheads via the nuclear triad of missiles, submarines and bombers, and fortunately for the human race, both have a "no first strike" policy. This means that the warheads can only be used in retaliation for another nuclear strike, making it less likely that either country will want to strike first. Of course, if either of us did, we would all ultimately lose from the resulting radioactive shooting. But, in numbers, China has the clear victory over nuclear capabilities. One final factor worth considering is one that is rarely mentioned in a lot of abstract military planning: the allies.
While it's easy to think of war solely in terms of enemies, your diplomatic and military friends can also be a deciding factor in determining the outcome of a conflict. While China would largely work alone in a war against India, with the exception of perhaps Pakistan, a country with strained relations with India, to say the least, India itself has been building diplomatic relations with several extremely valuable allies. These include the United States, a country with the highest military spending in the world, which, under President Trump, has cooled off on relations with China, while also referring to India as an "important defense partner." India has also developed strong diplomatic ties with Japan, France and Australia by conducting a series of joint military exercises with all of them. Having these various world powers behind them gives India a serious combat advantage over China, provided these allies came to India's side in their time of need. While the United States could be India's biggest ally in this speculative war, President Trump's foreign policy is known to be fickle and unreliable to other allies, such as the Kurdish forces in Syria in 2019, so there really is no way to know for sure.
So, back to our big question: Who would win in conflict between India and China? It turns out that it is much more complex than you thought. While a layman might assume that China's apparent numerical and monetary advantages allow it to easily win, these advantages can be neutralized by India's strongest troops, who are better equipped, better trained and more experienced, and its larger network of powerful allies. Then there is the strategic picture, as while the Indian Navy is smaller than the Chinese Navy, India is situated in the jugular of Chinese trade, so to speak. Chinese commercial ships must traverse the Indian Ocean to reach their destinations, and while China may have a larger fleet, it is not very well equipped to conduct operations far from its own shores.
With only two aircraft carriers with a capacity of approximately 24 aircraft between them, and one that is not even operational yet, any Chinese foray into the Indian Ocean to protect its commercial fleets would be disastrous, as the Chinese task force would be brutally hit by the India. air and naval power. With China receiving most of its oil from maritime trade routes, a protracted war between the two nations would inevitably cripple both the Chinese military and industry. India would simply have to fight defensively, as the terrain separating India from China is extremely difficult and well suited for defensive warfare. While the Chinese could crush any Indian forays into China itself, and there would be few strategic objectives to take near the Indian border anyway, a war between the two nations would inevitably see India as the winner as it slowly strangles the Chinese trade to death.
