Cactus

You mean a decisive advantage in breadth of the domestic defense industry? In terms of fundamental technology that both have they are not too far apart, each with some advantages and disadvantages. The real gap starts showing in the areas where India hasn't made much effort at establishing a presence: SSN, SSBNs, BMs, ASAT, AWACS...

xunil

In China, there are aerospace companies making missiles, space launch vehicles, satellites, etc. Aviation companies making fighters, transport plane, etc. Shipbuilding companies making combat vessels, subs, etc.

Officer of Engineers

I say things stay the same as they are.

Both countries just bought their new equipment and in the beginning of the current procurement cycle. It will be 20 years at least before they new new stuff. So, ten years mean nothing new on the horizon.

About the only thing that would change is that the PLA Officer Corps would finally catch up with their Indian counterparts. The current crop of Captains and Majors should be making Colonel and Senior Colonel by then and have direct influence on policy via more technical considerations rather than political.

I don't know how much further along they would be at tasking Captains and Majors instead of instructing them (ie, "take this hill. how you do it is your problem" versus "I want you to take 1st and 2nd platoons up against that bunker while keeping 3rd platoon in reserves") but LCols would have stronger say wheras in the past, the SrCol was the tasking rank.

I still expect the Political Officer to be the stepping stone in career advancement but I could see having a Masters Degree to have more weight. Preferably you want both wheras the Political Officer is the current preferred posting.

On the Indian side, maybe, just maybe I will finally see the TOE of the IBG ... but I'm not holding my breath.

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Chimo

Skywatcher

I suspect we'll still be seeing India import a lot of stuff, but probably not so much from Russia in 2018.

As for China, I don't think there's very much left from Russia that they want to buy now, compared to 1994.

citanon

Brigadier,

Which container terminal are you referring to?

Ray

I can't remember the name, I saw it on National Geography or was it Discovery.

It showed how the land was reclaimed with ships pouring silt 24x365 and how the largest gantries and cranes in the world were shipped etc and the computerisation that was monitoring every single movement and all that.

It was said to be bigger and would handle ships of greater tonnage than that of Singapore.

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Yusuf

Mega structures on National Geographic it was it think. 35 kms into the sea off Shaghai as the present terminal wasnt enough to cater to the huge super container ships like the latest Maersk.
Awesome engineering marvel.
Also saw on Discover the latest airport in Beijing. Another marvel.
China is marching along to become a superpower. It has the will and determination to do so.
That makes me feel the need to start a new thread. Is the the political system that is responsible for this.

Sameer

India was developping and AEW which achieved half decent performance but the project was sort of put aside for the Phalcons. There is no doubt that China is ahead simply because China has more capacity to produce more things domestically in greater numbers than in India. Whatever few things India does produce tends to be put through tests that even imports are not put through eg Arjun vs. T 90 debacle and in general bar lack of proper project management ability by public sector enterprises in defence industry, the equipment, while much delayed ends up with good performance but still has a fair bit of import content.

But China wants to become a super power to challenge the US. India does not have such a aim, at best economic powerhouse in 50-75 years time is good enough for us. If we can make 50-70% of our own equipment by then, that would be good enough. We do not plan to be fighting any western country in a globalizing economy but just hold out own in our region.

kuku

Military equipment, as long as it does its job, its fine, lots of technology available for joint production, tech. transfer and what not, that wont be much of a problem.

From where will the will to become a superpower come from, and in case of India, how do you get out of the biggest mess of a negibourhood to even become a regional power?

India will have to keep on investing in military as China grows its military, not to match but to have something to respond, lets face it, for whatever reason, china is preety much arming every neighbour we have and starting up the biggest military buildup in its history with a whole lot of ships and subs and airplanes.

Other than that both nations will prosper economically, be in a better situation than before, China has the headstart and the funds to invest in different fields and they have already done that.

Economically, it has to be China, they have the money and they are spending it to develop.

However, its a really complex thing, this economics.

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chankya

That should really be in bold with flashing colours if possible. 15 years ago no one could have predicted India's economic resurgence and 25 years ago you couldn't possibly have predicted that China would be where it is today. Both changes, AFAIK, came about not so much as results of a grand plan as much as they were gradual responses to failures in the existing systems. As such I doubt even their architects really expected these wide-ranging effects.

IMO predicting the future is a mug's game. The world is a unreasonably unpredictable place.

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Zeng

There was an economic seminar in China several months ago reviewing China’s economic reform in the last 30 years (started from 1978).

They made a summary on China’s economic reform.

1. Unexpected (just as you pointed out)
None of Chinese economists expected that China can be in today’s position (for good or for bad) 30 years ago when the economic reform was just started.

2. Not unusual
But the type of China’s economic growth is not unusual if we look at the economic growths of Japan, S. Korea and Taiwan. They all achieved long period of high economic growth rate. China’s economic development is just involving a larger population and area.

3. Problems
After long period of strong economic growth, Japan, S. Korea and Taiwan all reached certain stages of developed status with great ability to innovate. China is still far from reaching that stage.

4. Sustainable development issues
A big challenge now is to avoid repeating the path some South America countries went through during their fast development periods. Comparing to the fast development paths of the Asian countries and the South American countries, the big difference is that South American countries (probably except for Brazil) made their fast development mostly relay on the FDI. They did not develop matured indigenous R&D ability. Their infrastructures are also not well developed, so that the FDI only benefit limited areas and population. Once, the economy grew, the wage skyrocketed and they could not produce high value added products. So, they lost cost advantage and FDI left those countries. They were left in trouble. China needs to learn their lesson.

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Sumku

I guess all 1,2,3 and 4 would aptly fit for India as well.
Having said that, as of date there are huge disparities between India and China and whichever you might want to look at it, China as of today is ahead of India in practically every field.

Sameer

That is because China reformed well before India did. The same argument could be made if one compares China to the other East Asian Tigers.

The advantage that China has though is that it can implement decisions much more quickly than India can.

China's growth is however export led.

In India you have consumption taking a far higher % of GDP and is services led although you can argue that there is some exports in that too.

Regardless, China's growth has been nothing short of impressive. It certainly will be a worthy competitor.

Sumku

Sameer,
Your points taken but as of today China is miles ahead of India as of today and unless things are not speeded up, India will continue to lag behind China for next 20 years also

Jay

Thats a common misnomer. China's domestic consumption has picked up in the last 5 years.

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