Indian Lieutenant General: China's military expenditure is three times that of India. The Indian army cannot win, but it still boasts about seizing Chinese territory
2024-07-27 19:24
Published in: Shaanxi Province
Overall, China-India relations in 2024 are still far from improving. The Indian army continues to maintain a high-intensity troop deployment on the Sino-Indian border and builds new military bases and heavy equipment repair shops on the border to maintain a high-pressure military posture against China and enhance the Indian army's large-scale combat capabilities once an armed conflict breaks out.
Lieutenant General HS Panag of the Indian Army
In this context, Lieutenant General HS Panag, who served as the commander of the Northern Command and the Central Command of the Indian Army for more than 40 years, wrote an article analyzing the current situation and military strength comparison between China and India, and published it in the Indian media. It puts forward some relatively unique views and insights in the current Indian public opinion environment that are worth analyzing.
Indian Army Lieutenant General believes that India today has many problems that are inferior to China
In his article, Lieutenant General Panag first raised various criticisms of the current India. He pointed out that although the current India led by Modi has set long-term development goals and plans to make India a 21 trillion US dollar economy by 2047 and make India a real power that can stand on equal footing with China and the United States, but judging from the current situation, at least in terms of military, India is still far from fully achieving this strategic goal.
Lieutenant General Panag pointed out that China's current economic scale is more than five times that of India, and it has set a long-term development goal of achieving military transformation by 2035 and becoming a world-class military by 2049. According to data released by the Stockholm Peace Research Institute, China's military expenditure of US$296 billion in 2023 is already 3.5 times that of India's current military expenditure; while the Indian military's current annual military expenditure is only US$83.6 billion, which is far behind China.
From a macro-strategic perspective, India needs to fight on two fronts, China and Pakistan. Lieutenant General Panag believes that with India's current military spending, it is far from enough to face the two major rivals, China, which is strong, and Pakistan, which is heavily supported by China. No matter how you look at it, India's military spending is far from enough.
But even if this is the reality, there is a strange phenomenon in India today, which Lieutenant General Panag described in the article as "Indian military top brass not only failed to honestly inform the Indian government of the Indian army's current lack of preparedness, but instead made reckless promises and openly claimed that the Indian army was ready to deal with China and Pakistan at the same time."
The bad situation does not end there. The senior politicians of the Indian government, relying on the stingy defense budget, actually believed in some rhetoric and believed that the Indian army was really as it said, capable of dealing with China and Pakistan at the same time. They boasted about their dream of seizing the territories of Pakistan and China, made illusory promises to the Indian people, and deceived the Indian people that India had the ability to defeat China and Pakistan at the same time, which was seriously unrealistic.
Indian Army Lieutenant General believes that in order to solve the problem and match China, more military spending must be allocated
In response to the above negative situations, Lieutenant General Panag made suggestions, emphasizing that India's top priority is to immediately increase military spending to 3% of GDP. Even if it is not possible, it must at least be increased to 2.5% to comprehensively improve the Indian Army's combat readiness and strengthen its military readiness. He also said that time is running out for India, and the next ten years will be a critical decade for the transformation of the Indian Army. It must catch up and narrow the gap with the People's Liberation Army in these ten years, otherwise India will miss the opportunity of the times.
Looking at the speech of this lieutenant general who has served twice as the commander of the Indian Army region, compared with the general Indian media and experts' remarks of "brainless powerful India, blindly belittling China", it is indeed unique and objective.
For example, Lieutenant General Panag pointed out the current Indian Army's "exaggeration is prevalent" and seriously deviated from being down-to-earth. They only boasted that they could defeat China, but did not put pragmatic military construction in the first place. It also pointed out that the current Indian government is lying, only raising the anti-China banner, shifting conflicts abroad, and inciting Indian populism to gain support and votes. However, they turned a blind eye to the fact that China and India's military strength and development prospects are completely not on the same level, and evaded reality.
It is true that these are serious problems that exist in India and the Indian Army today. But we should also see that the ultimate purpose of Lieutenant General Panag's analysis of the above and pointing out the problems is not to persuade the Indian government to correct its mistakes and stop anti-China actions so that Sino-Indian relations can get back on track.
Instead, they use this to highlight the inadequacy of the current Indian military and the lack of military spending, and demand that the Indian government substantially increase military spending. The ultimate goal is still to enable the Indian military to be able to challenge the PLA, and they cannot escape the "anti-China circle" of "wanting to compete with China". This is just a wrong conclusion drawn from objective factual analysis.
India's current anti-China line was wrong from the beginning
From the perspective of the actual comparison between China and India, India has been engaged in a long-term border military confrontation with China, spending huge amounts of money, manpower and material resources, and mobilizing heavy troops on the border for many years. The development constraints and meaningless internal friction caused to India by doing so are bound to be much greater than the anti-China effect caused by it.
China is a world-class power that is ahead of India in all aspects of politics, military, economy, science and technology. If India really aims to "be on an equal footing with China and surpass China one day" instead of just using it as a gimmick and empty slogan, then what India needs to do most is not to waste its already limited military expenditure, which is less than one-third of China's, on meaningless things such as stationing heavy troops on the border.
Instead, the Indian army should withdraw its heavy troops from the border and reach a reconciliation with China through diplomatic channels, thereby stabilizing the border situation in the long term. The freed-up large amount of precious military funds can then be used for the modernization of the Indian army's military reforms, the upgrading of the domestic military industry, and the research and development of high-tech weapons and equipment, which are truly meaningful to the long-term development of the Indian army, so as to achieve "the best steel is used on the blade".
But whether it is the Indian government led by Modi or the Indian military represented by Lieutenant General Panag who wrote the analysis article, they did not mention anything about this aspect at all, and only talked about "blindly anti-China" and "how to better oppose China." Does that mean that the Indian government and military really don't know what to do to be the most beneficial choice for the long-term development of the Indian military?
Obviously not, the Indian government and military certainly know this. But if they follow this correct and meaningful development path, withdraw the heavy troops on the border and reach a reconciliation with China, then how should the Indian government divert the conflict to the outside world? How should senior politicians use the topic of "anti-China" to gain support and political benefits?
Without the excuse of "heavy troops on the border to fight China", how can the Indian military demand more military funds? How can it demand an increase in military spending? How can it continue to make more money in its own pockets through corruption, accepting kickbacks from foreign military purchases, etc.? Wouldn't this cut off the important source of income for Indian generals?
In terms of "anti-China", it should be said that India and the United States are similar. American senior officials and politicians are "anti-China at all costs", and Indian politicians and generals are "continuously anti-China". In the final analysis, they are all for personal and party interests, while ignoring national interests and long-term development. The reason why the United States and India have been getting closer and closer in the past two years and catering to each other on the topic of "anti-China" is also due to the essential convergence of the top leaders of both sides.
