I'd gotten tired of analysts praising China's long view of strategy that was shown by their soft-power charm offensive to gain objectives. As Chinese power has grown, China has flexed muscles and ignored signed treaties to push around competitors in the South China Sea. People are noticing. The teeth are still showing, but China isn't smiling:
[Multilateralism] is basically a farce in Chinese foreign policy. For China, the South China Sea dispute is merely a sovereignty issue in which it brooks no interference of external forces. It opts to settle the issue on its own terms rousing nationalism, constructing false historiography and displaying military muscle. Paradoxically, on the one hand it upholds ‘joint development’ of disputed areas, but on the other it criticizes the US for upholding freedom of navigation in the South China Sea and for displaying a ‘Cold War mentality’. In the ultimate analysis, on territorial and sovereignty related issues, China is likely to increasingly display unilateral tendencies. This is commensurate not only with China’s growing power but also with the relative decline of the United States.
Countries are arming up in response to China's assertiveness. Given that the so-called middle kingdom is actually surrounded by potentially strong states, this is a problem for China if they insist on alienating these neighbors.
India is the most significant foe that China might face on their land borders. Russia is a long way from having options between special forces and total nuclear war to handle Chinese threats. South Korea is busy with North Korea. Japan is across the water and officially pacifist. Vietnam is economically weak. And America is half a world away.
But India is right there on the border, large, with large armed forces, and potentially an economic powerhouse with a modern military (if corruption can be brought under control, it would speed up the process quite a bit).
I've looked at the India-China military balance before.
India has more reason to worry about this balance than ever before and India is increasingly aware of the threat:
Being the weaker power, India is far more concerned about the overall military balance tilting to its disadvantage. India sees China everywhere because of Beijing’s “hexiao gongda” policy in South Asia: “uniting with the small”—Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Burma, and Sri Lanka—“to counter the big”—India. When combined with Chinese nuclear and missile transfers to Pakistan and building of port facilities around India’s periphery, and a dramatic increase in the PLA’s incursions and transgressions across the LAC, the official Indian perception of China has undergone a dramatic shift since 2006, with China now being widely seen as posing a major security threat in the short to medium term rather than over the long term. The Indian military, long preoccupied with war-fighting scenarios against Pakistan, has consequently turned its attention to the China border, and unveiled a massive force modernization program, to cost $100 billion over the next decade, that includes the construction of several strategic roads and the expansion of rail networks, helipads, and airfields all along the LAC. Other measures range from raising a new mountain strike corps and doubling force levels in the eastern sector by one hundred thousand troops to the deployment of Sukhoi Su-30MKI aircraft, spy drones, helicopters, and ballistic and cruise missile squadrons to defend its northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, territory three times the size of Taiwan that the Chinese invaded in 1962 and now claim sovereignty over as “Southern Tibet.”
While India does face the threat of China gaining local superiority on the ground to bite off chunks of territory from India, no decisive land threat to India is really possible because of the terrain and transportation network. While India does need to make the efforts noted above to protect their border territory, India's main deficiency is in air power (including ballistic missile defense--you have noticed that DF-21s could reach the Bay of Bengal, haven't you?). India needs a navy, too, but our fleet will keep much of China's navy looking over their shoulder rather than being available to send into the Indian Ocean to threaten India.
India will arm up to face China. And India's power will reassure the weaker and more distant powers that it is not futile to oppose Chinese unilateral assertiveness. All those decisions to arm up will make the larger overall military balance tilt against China even if India does not match China in one-on-one comparisons.
