In regard to Nepal and Bangladesh, I couldn’t imagine them helping out China. Nepal is so economically dependent on India (or so I’m told), and the place is such a backwater, they really couldn’t win. Even Prachanda (Maoist, occasional PM of Nepal) would have to realize that Kathmandu is a helluva lot closer to New Delhi than Beijing. As for Bangladesh, I know they’ve tended to be moving closer to Pakistan, and there are some border troubles with India, but considering India’s role in their independence, it would be quite a turnaround. Anyway, it’s the same problem as Nepal: India is too close, and too big. Burma, maybe —China’s been very protective of them — but again, high risk. I mean, it’s not like they’re controlling their own territory as it is…
Nepal has historically swung between its two larger neighbours. When China occupied Tibet, Nepal signed an alliance with India. But since the Communists took power in Nepal in 2006, they’ve tilted back towards China. They ended their Indian alliance and granted China permission to build a rail line linking Nepal with China.
That train has also left the station. Bangladesh signed a military alliance with China back in 2002.
Not any kind of a maven on India or China’s military, but I have to admit I was not too impressed with the Indian fighting spirit when terrorists attached the city of Mumbai in 2008 and the police force and similar authorities in charge of protecting people basically quivered in hiding places or ran away, refusing to fire their weapons at the rampaging terrorists.
I would call that more of an ‘agreement’ as the term ‘alliance’ invokes of mutual protection along the lines of NATO. China has outfitted most of the Bangladeshi military in term of equipment and training as part of their String of Pearls strategy but I couldn’t see either nation running to oneanothers aid in the event of a shooting war.
But would it work today? China today isn’t the China of the 1950’s when Chinese human waves were hitting UN lines. I would think the greater education level among Chinese citizens would work against that.
India vs. China would be like WWI-era Finland vs. Russia, only with fewer ski troops.
ROTFL!
I needed that laugh.
That was too funny.
I wouldn’t be so sure. The Communist party there doesn’t kid around and as long as there was some gain to be had from invading India, I think China wipes the floor with India. India has always been better at producing religions and philosophies than warriors, China on the other hand…
They should probably be learning one of those right now.
This is what most people don’t understand about war, since we abandoned the concept of “spoils of war” (with a few notable exceptions), actually fighting a war hasn’t been profitable in a while, it the selling bullets part that really makes you rich.
Yeah they don’t fuck around.
I’m going to have to strongly disagree with this notion. It doesn’t equate with my understanding of Indian history at all.
What makes it an even more curious comment is the cultural differences that in India produced a society that tended to laud the warrior and the warrior aesthetic, while Confuscian thought tended to downplay soldiering as a professon, regarding it with social disdain.
So how does “lauding the warrior aesthetic” deliver a cadre of police and similar social protectors that appear (in Mumbai) to have the resoluteness and bravery of Barney Fife on a bad day? IIRC there were numerous tales of police simply abandoning this duties and their posts to beat feet.
Medieval India is not modern India for one thing. I was speaking from a historical perspective against a very broad-brush.
Beyond that, I have no idea. Maybe they were poorly trained. Maybe they were poorly led and hence either reacted without effect or were so badly demoralized they froze. Maybe they were hopelessly corrupt and not willing to risk their collective ass. Maybe they were simply overwhelmed by the chaos. Maybe the accounts of their supposed cowardice/incompetence are greatly exaggerated by a scandal-hungry media. Maybe they are being scape-goated by an embarrassed government ( city, state or federal ). I haven’t a clue - I have zero insight into the workings of Mumbai in the 21rst century.
My point was just that I don’t see any indication that Indian societies have historically been notably more inept at making war than their Chinese counterparts. About the most I’ve ever seen alleged is that the geographic peculiarities of the subcontinent have at times acted to slow diffusion of military technology or otherwise imposed restraints ( poor-quality gunpowder, inferior warhorse production, etc. ). But even those arguments I’m sure have been challenged at various points. And regardless of whether various invaders won or lost at various points, no outside society has ever found Indian states pushovers in general - not the Greeks, not the Arabs, not the Mongols, not the British.
Air superiority could depend a great deal on when this war occurs. India and China currently operate roughly equivalent frontline fighter aircraft, and have broadly comparable naval air forces - India has a barely operational 1960s-vintage British carrier, is building two of its own, and will receive the former Soviet cruiser/carrier Admiral Gorshkov from the Russians in 2014; China currently has no carriers, but is building two of its own and bought the Gorshkov’s sister ship a few years ago and is trying to refit it themselves.
However, in 15 years the IAF will be operating some variant of the Sukhoi PAK FA project, which is likely to produce a fighter comparable to the F-22, and the Chinese won’t.
Those are cops, and Indian cops are widely panned even when they aren’t running away from terrorists. They’re largely corrupt, and have minimal combat training.
The Indian armed forces are a totally different kettle of fish; they get the same sort of hero worship that American soldiers do, and in large part they’ve earned it.
Something to bear in mind is that Chinese troops haven’t been bloodied since Vietnam (except possibly during UN peacekeeping missions?), while Indian air and ground forces have been fighting on and off on the Pakistani border more or less always.
ETA: In any event, the only possible outcome of this hypothetical war is a stalemate. Neither country has the resources to occupy the other, and neither has the political will to nuke the other.
Lets call this the “you fail geography forever” thread. Lets presume that the Himalaya’s don’t exist and that SE Asia is not between the Indian and Chinese Navy operating areas.
Mountain fighting between the countries means that
i) It will be limited to small unit engagments and by small unit I mean; literally section v section and occassionally platoon v platoon fights. Look at India v Pakistan in Kargil and in Siachen, battles in which a Comp Commander found it difficult to control the battle, what to talk about Field Army level battles.
ii)It will be hell for those involved and make absolutly no differnece overall.
Well, not forever - in a few million years, the Himalayas might not be there anymore. 
Also, the cool thing about navies is that you can move them around.
Yes, even cooler thing about Navies is that you usually keep them in areas where you have an interest, which is as of now far far away for each country.
IIRC, the Himalaya’s are still getting taller.
I don’t understand all that much of the Wiki page, but at least in places, the creation process is slower than the erosion process, so they’re shrinking in at least some parts.
The Himalayas would win a conventional war, defeating both China and India, rendering their individual battlefield wins and losses irrelevant.
Except that the last major take-over type war saw the Mongols conquer China and then India.
The Mongols failed to conquer India :). Genghis Khan made what amounted to a large-scale raid in 1222, crossing the Indus ( he appears to have been interested only in transiting the Himalayan foothills to speed the return to Mongolia ), but then withdrew, followed by residual forces by 1224. A more serious series of incursions started in 1241-1260, but were all ultimately frustrated by the generalissimo and later sultan Balban ( r. 1265-1287, but in effective control from the 1240’s ) as well as internal issues. After the dissolution of the centralized Mongol state in 1260, India ( or more precisely, the Delhi Sultanate ) faced frequent, at times annual, incursions from variously the Qaraunas ( a Mongol sub-grouping hostile to its neighbors that established itself in the vicinity of the Punjab ), the Ilkhanate and the Chagataid Khanate/Qaidu Confederacy, culminating in a major series of invasions 1297-1303, repelled in one fashion or another ( including field victories ) by the sultan Ala al-Din Khalji. Later raids were less significant but continued through 1320 or 1322. Later the sultan Muhammed bin Tughluq is credited with reversing the pattern and advancing offensively annually against his Mongol neighbor and is variously credited with anywhere between eighteen and twenty-nine victories against them.
It wasn’t until my namesake sacked Delhi in 1398 ( in the face of weak opposition, the Delhi Sultanate then being in a state of dissolution and chaos ) that any Mongol or Mongol-descent state ( Tamerlane based his power on the Chagatai Ulus, the old western half of the now divided Chagatai Khanate ) seriously penetrated India and Timur himself was no Mongol. Nor did he do much more than plunder and leave - northern India was not incorporated into his empire.
The Mongols were able to conquer/vassalize Kashmir, though, for a while, though, weren’t they?