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According to this IDRW article dated July 4, 2008 China at this stage is ahead in building and deploying Submarines for its navy while India is ahead in building and deploying surface ships and has decades of experience in operating Aircraft carriers compared to the PLA Navy which is still to obtain one.

After 10 years of steady effort, both India and China have made significant qualitative changes in their navies. In terms of submarine capabilities – the construction of SSNs and SSBNs – China is now far ahead of India, however.

China has built two 094 SSBNs and two 093 SSNs, along with JL2 and JL1M submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) that are ready to go into service in the PLA Navy, if they have not already done so.

In contrast, India is only preparing to receive one Russian-made Akura SSN for testing purposes by the end of 2008. In February 2008, the Indian Navy also launched from under water a 700-kilometer-range K-15 ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.

Nonetheless, India’s pace in the construction of large-tonnage surface battleships and an aircraft carrier is faster than China’s. Thanks to the 290-kilometer-range BrahMos supersonic multirole missile jointly developed by India and Russia, the overall technological standard of the Indian Navy’s ship-to-ship missile is superior to that of China’s PLA Navy. India’s surface battleships currently being built will all be fitted with BrahMos SSMs, according to the plan of the Indian Navy.

Ships added to the PLA Navy over the past 10 years include two 051C DDGs, two 052B DDGs, two 052C DDGs, four 956E/EM DDGs and one 051B DDG, all of which have a full-load displacement of over 6,000 tons. Six additional ships, 054 and 054A FFGs, have also been built. These surface battleships are the flagships of the modern Chinese navy.

In the Indian Navy over the past 10 years three Delhi Class DDGs and three 4,000-ton class Type 1135.6 FFGs have been commissioned, with the latter armed with 300-kilomter-range Club-N surface-to-surface missiles. The Indian Navy has also received three Type 16A FFGs with full-load displacement of 4,500 tons and armed with 16 units of H-35 surface-to-surface missiles.

As a result, in terms of the construction of surface battleships above 6,000 tons, China is temporarily ahead of India, while in the building of 4,000-ton class missile frigates, India and China are about equal, with India slightly ahead in technology.

The Indian Navy is also armed with one Hermes aircraft carrier with a full-load displacement of 28,000 tons as well as 12 Sea Harrier FRS Mk 51 fighters. Obviously, the Indian Navy’s experience in the use of an aircraft carrier is surely superior to that of the PLA Navy.

Regarding the surface battleships under construction right now, India seems to be much more ambitious than China. Since 2007, the only large surface battleship China has been building is the 054A FFG. In contrast, the Indian Navy has started to build three P-15A DDGs at its Mazagon Shipyard. This is an upgraded variant of the Delhi Class DDG, with drastic changes. So far one P-15A has already been launched.

A source from the Mazagon Shipyard told the author in New Delhi that the P-15A construction program is now giving way to the Shivalik, or P-17 FFG. The first P-17 will be delivered to the Indian Navy within this year, and the second and third will be delivered in 2009 and 2010 respectively.

The two types of surface battleships mentioned above will all be fitted with a vertical-launched version of the BrahMos SSM. The P-15A will be armed with 16 such missiles. The P15A DDG has a full-load displacement of 7,000 tons, and still uses the Shtil-1 ship-to-air missile. The P-17 is India’s indigenous stealthy FFG and has a full-load displacement of 5,300 tons. It is also armed with Shtil-1 ship-to-air missiles. [link]

The good folks at Bharat-Rakshak are war gaming a war scenario with China on the Tibetan plateau. While a similar exercise is being done by some on the Chinese side too.

Andrei Chang writing in his column Military might on UPIAsiaOnline has this to say about a possible Indo-China conflict after the Beijing Olympics.

Should China-India relations deteriorate to the verge of military confrontation and the riots in Tibet spread extensively, the first combat units of the PLA to be called to action would be the No. 52 and No. 53 Mountain Brigades under the Tibet Military Region.

The No. 52 Brigade, stationed at Linzhi, is highly mechanized and armed with T-92 wheeled armored vehicles and HJ-8/9 anti-tank missiles. National highway 318 directly connects Linzhi and Lhasa; thus it is logical to conclude that the T-92 wheeled armored vehicles on the streets of Lhasa were from this brigade. The No. 52 Mountain Brigade is stationed at Milin and is also the PLA combat unit stationed closest to the city of Lhasa.

National highway 318 is in fact the southern route of the Sichuan-Tibet highway. In the event of war or future large-scale riots in Tibet, the highway will be the key passageway for combat troops from the Chengdu Military Region to enter Tibet.

However, this key highway runs across the Minjiang River and the Daduhe River in a region with an average altitude of 4,250 meters (around 14,000 feet) above sea level, and thus is very susceptible to attack by the Indian Air Force or assault by organized rioters. Most of the highways within the Tibet region will be within striking range of the Su-30MKI fighters soon to be deployed in the No. 30 Squadron of the Indian Air Force at Tezpur.

Read the rest…

The situation today has many parallels to the situation just before 1962. We have a defence minister AK Antony in the mould of VK Menon, a foreign secretary Shivashankar Menon in the mould of KM Panikker, an Army General Gen Deepak Kapoor, an ignorant and pompous chief in the mould of BM Kaul, and ofcourse the most pusillanimous PM India has ever seen in the shape of Manmohan Singh, a Nehru wannabe to square it up and all this ofcourse in the backdrop of a rapid Chinese military buildup on the Tibetan plateau and increased incursions long the Indo-Tibetan border by Chinese occupation troops just like back in the late 1950s. History repeating itself again as a farce.

The only silver lining is that we have the option of kicking this crowd out anytime within the next one year unlike back in the 1950s when there was no credible opposition party to get rid of that romantic statesman and his rotten core of sycophants.hopefully we get to the polling booth sooner than later.

NEW DELHI: India’s defensive and ultra-cautious mindset towards China has now firmly made its way even to the normally hawkish environs of the Defence Ministry (MoD).

The latest MoD annual report makes it seems that all is hunky-dory as far as the Chinese military threat is concerned, with Beijing even coming in for some glowing mention as an ”important player in global affairs”, proceeding firmly ahead on its ”well chartered out goals”.

It’s not as if the extreme wariness of the armed forces towards China has suddenly vanished into thin air, but the MoD report is yet another indicator of India’s reluctance to say anything to ruffle a prickly Beijing.

China’s hugely aggressive border posture with India is evident from the fact that around 350 cases of intrusions by its troops have been recorded all along the 4,057-km Line of Actual Control - right from east Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh to Joshimath in Uttarakhand and Pangong Tso lake in Ladakh - over the last three years.[link]

This blog had taken strong exception to the statement by General Deepak Kapoor when in an interview to Karan Thapar for CNN-IBN’s Devils Advocate he had said that

“The Chinese have a different perception of the Line Of Actual Control as do we – when they come up to their perception we call it an incursion, likewise they do.”

Now considering the very high status and respect that we in India accord the Armed Forces compared to the rest of the civilian establishment. this shocking statement went unchallenged because it was an Army General who said it. If the same statement had been made by a non-uniformed defence minister or even any bureaucrat one could imagine the furor it would have caused.

Now Karan Thapar the interviewer has broken his journalistic stance of neutrality and has gone over to bat for the General. In his column in Hindustan Times he reiterates that the General was only “setting the record straight” on the Chinese incursions into Indian territory by saying that it was only a matter of “differing perceptions” and that when the Chinese side patrol right upto their claim line we call it a incursion and when the Indian forces patrol right upto our claim line then the Chinese call it a incursion.

It is amazing that a seasoned interviewer like Karan Thapar gave a easy pass to the General on this during the interview. For one he must be well aware that even after more than two decades and 11 rounds of talks the Chinese side have yet to exchange maps clarifying their claim line in the Eastern and Western sectors of the Indo-Tibetan border. All that they have done till date is refute the McMahon Line which India along with formerly independent Tibet accepted as the International border nearly a century ago.

so in the absence of a claim line from the Chinese side how can there be a “differing perception” of where the border actually lies? And where is the flip side of Indian soldiers violating the Chinese claim line if they don’t know where the hell it is in the first place. The Chinese seem to have a habit of protesting everything and anything, including a visit by the PM to Arunachal Pradesh. Or is this General hinting that he is such a hero that he is ordering his men to quietly violate the McMahon line itself and claim more land north of it??!! unlikely he doesn’t seem to like that old Army ad have it in him to do that.

So it is a open and shut case of the General offering a placebo to the Indian public by saying all is well by clearly misrepresenting the truth. Surely if a “dhoti-khurtawallah” or a certain “ex-Army Major” whom Karan is presently miffed with had said such a thing in an interview with Karan would he have given them an easy pass too? perhaps not. But now he wants us to accept nonsense only because it comes from a serving officer. And wants us to disregard wiser counsel from Jaswant Singh atleast in this case because he is only a “dhoti-kurtawallah” now and was a mere Major in his earlier avatar? who is this little guy cum lowly “dhoti-kurtawallah” to chirp against an Army General? Is this the way a clear headed and civilised discussion on facts and figures relating to ground realities to be conducted?

Is this how Karan wants policy to be made? leave it to those who are supposed to know best? We all know how many avoidable disasters this country has faced by such personalised and adhoc policy making as opposed to institutionalised policy making keeping the nation’s interest as supreme. Nehru, himself in the very case with China is a good example. There is a long tail thereafter which reaches out to the likes of Krishna menon, K.M panickker, LB Shastri, IK Gujral, Vajpayee, Manmohan Singh and our current and former foreign secretaries.

Atleast in this case the Army General’s job is to command his Army and do as commanded by the duly elected government of the land even if he and his colleagues hold them in as much contempt as the rest of the Indian public does. His job is not to make policy but give clear, unambiguous and unbiased inputs to the policymakers to do their job and certainly not do a hatchet job for the current central government which appointed him by misleading the Indian public which pays its hard earned money in taxes to fund his military machine in the hope that they will defend the country’s frontiers come what may by saying that all is well on the Chinese front when it most certainly is not.

Update: The Complete transcript and Videos of the Army Chief’s interview .

The Army Chief Gen Deepak Kapoor in an exclusive interview to CNN-IBN to be telecast at 8:30pm IST(GMT + 5.5) tonight has gone on record saying that India can be held equally to blame of intruding into Chinese territory!

“The Chinese have a different perception of the Line Of Actual Control as do we – when they come up to their perception we call it an incursion, likewise they do.”

His shocking statement that India can be equally blamed for intruding into Chinese territory is based on a presumed logic that since the two sides have not agreed on a mutual Line of Actual Control both sides can accuse each other of intruding into their territories.

Infact the Army chief by making such a statement has exposed his ignorance of the history of the India-China border issue and also gives the impression that he is completely ignorant of the proceedings of the nearly 11 rounds of border talks that have been taking place since the last two and a half decades which coincided with much of his Army career.

He doesn’t seem to realise that technically India and China do not share a border. The entire length of the India-China border as it is today is actually the borders of occupied Tibet and Chinese Turkestan both forcibly incorporated into Chinese territory in the years immediately after the Maoists seized power from the nationalists in China in 1949. And the entire historical Chinese claim to these two territories is based on the premise that they were both part of Chinese territory during the Yuan dynasty of Kublai Khan.The so called “Middle Kingdom” hypothesis. The only fly in the ointment is that Kublai Khan was a Mongol vassal for much of his rule and thus it is more correct to say that Mongolia has more historical claim to China, Tibet and Chinese Turkestan rather than China has a claim on Inner Mongolia, Chinese Turkestan and Tibet.

The wily Chinese get around this by peddling the fiction that Kublai Khan became a “Chinese emperor” after the death of Mongke Khan and his subsequent defeating of his younger brother Arik Boke who had succeeded Mongke as Khan of the Mongol empire. That is absolute nonsense because after defeating Arik Boke, Kublai Khan had declared himself as the Khan of the Mongol empire the only problem was that the rest of the Golden family refused to recognise him as such. On the other hand Kublai Khan like a lot of other pragmatic conquerors in history also adopted some local Chinese titles and symbols to make himself more acceptable to the Chinese masses and cement his rule over the part of the empire directly under him [1] and by the time the Yuan dynasty was overthrown a century later by the indigenous Ming dynasty Tibet and Chinese turkestan did not form a part of their realm.

In short while the Chinese refuse to recognise the McMohan line terming it as a product of British imperialism their entire claim on Chinese Turkestan and Tibet which brings them to that Border line in the first place is itself a product of their past allegiance to Mongol imperialism which they cleverly disguise as the “Middle Kingdom” for consumption by gullibles!

Gen Kapoor has also conveniently sidestepped the fact that the Line of Actual Control remains undefined because the Chinese side inspite of nearly two decades of border talks have refused to exchange maps of the Western and eastern sectors with India while India’s own claim line is crystal clear for all including the Chinese side to see. It is therefore the responsibility of the Chinese side as a claimant to submit maps clarifying their own stand on where they think the Border in their opinion must run. India as a status quo power which has since the last 100 years adhered to the McMohan line cannot be held “equally responsible” in anyway for incidents on the border.

Gen Kapoor has clearly overstepped his brief in this case and this is not the first time, recently he held forth on the sixth pay commission on foreign soil disregarding all established norms that domestic politics stops at the water’s edge.The Government should either rein him in or relieve him of his responsibilities immediately if he continues to undermine the Indian position with his hollow moral grandstanding and continuous whining.That seems to be a long shot considering that the rest of the current government is no better in this regard.

It is also sad that Karan Thapar who has a reputation of being a “tough” interviewer who wouldn’t let even a bat escape on a dark moonless night gave a free pass to Gen Kapoor and did not challenge him with the fact that it was China which was being the obstacle in clearly demarcating the Line of Actual Control and India’s position in that regard is clear that it adheres to the McMohan line. Thapar would surely have pounced on any bureaucrat or politician if he had said such a thing. That he didn’t in the case of Gen Kapoor proves Pragmatic’s position that the Indian media and the public are in awe of the institution of the Armed forces and do not want to question them too closely for fear of offending them. This has to change. The Armed Forces like the rest of the state establishment should be held as much accountable to the Nation’s interest like anyone else.

Source: 1. Genghis Khan and the making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford.

The History of the Indian subcontinent is long, brimming with lessons for the diligent. Sifting through myth and legend, a military mind may note:

• The unending demonstration of a dynasty’s rise in the ability to govern, followed by degeneracy and decline.

• The inability (or reluctance) to convert excellent theoretical knowledge into usable military technology.

• Insularity from new means and methods of defence from abroad, while achieving great things in other spheres.

The Indus Valley civilization, it transpires from the main archaeological findings, boasted of civic amenities and social norms of a high order, and an enviable agricultural system. Yet that civilization huddled into isolated fortress communities, and that spelt its doom at the hands of Trans-Caucasian Aryan invaders.

Read the rest…

The UPA government seems to be finally taking atleast some matters of National Security with the seriousness it deserves.

Antony Spells out terms for Siachen Solution

Pakistan will have to authenticate the Actual Ground Position Line in the Siachen Glacier before any forward movement could be made to resolve the issue, Defence Minister A K Antony said on Monday.

“The question of any forward movement comes only after Pakistan authenticates the AGPL. Discussions are continuing and there is no solution so far,” Antony told reporters after addressing the Unified Commanders’-in-Chief Conference.

But then the same seriousness seems to be lacking when dealing with China. Is it because there is a direct political penalty to pay if the UPA or any other government is seen to be unassertive while dealing with Pakistan, whereas it is not so in the case of China since it occupies a very small mindspace and recall value in the mind of the Average Indian?

This needs to change. The Indian establishment and especially the MEA should be held to account for their weak and ineffective dealings vis-a-vis China. There should be direct electoral and other penalties for any government not seen to be assertive in their dealings with the PRC.

And for that to happen the issue of China should be brought into and discussed threadbare in the mainstream rather than relegate it to the sidelines with politically correct newspeak.

Brahma Chellaney in his latest article has summed up about how India is being fully and continually encircled by Chinese imperialist interests. With the opening of the Gwadar port on the Balochistani coast in Pakistan this week, and plans to open similar ports in Hambantota in Sri lanka, Sittwe in Myanmar, Chittagong in Bangladesh and in the long term in Maldives and Seychelles.

The clarity of thought he espouses in strategic matters and his razor sharp focus on India’s national interest is something that is unfortunately missing in many leading lights in the Indian MEA and in the Indian media establishment.

M.K. Bhadrakumar, a retired Indian diplomat in a chat with Rediff’s readers during Hu Jintao’s controversial visit to India late last year had said that it is a mistake to consider every Chinese move in the region as an hostile military move against India. But that is telling only half the story. He neglects to mention or refuses to see that China blurs the line between its strategic and commercial interests. This has been the case whether with the Karakoram highway project or its investments in ports in Burma, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan which have been driven both by strategic and commercial considerations. Also its $475-million investment in Hambantota is bereft of even the fig-leaf of commercial interest and so is the Cocos Is where China maintains a listening post to monitor Indian naval activity in the Bay of Bengal and also to monitor its missile testing facility on the Orissa coast.

At the same time another worthy in the Indian media Mr C RajaMohan has written about why India in his opinion must mollycoddle Pakistan. He was the one of those who were the shrillest proponents of the Indo-US nuclear deal and was enthusiastically shouting down anyone who dared oppose the UPA government’s strategic blunder. This time he lists out three options that is supposedly on the table for India to deal with Pakistan, first, to let Pakistan stew in its own juice, second, to make things uncomfortable for Pakistan and the third and supposedly the “correct” option in his opinion to help extricate Pakistan, so that it doesn’t collapse.

There are a lot of Indians who might agree with him somewhat and there are a lot more who might say that perhaps the first option or second option might be just fine. Some even think that a strong Pakistan which is economically and politically stable is in India’s interest even if it is “somewhat agressive”. But they are wrong. I think they make this serious mistake because they do not see the big picture of where Pakistan really fits in the global scheme of things and how Pakistan positions itself on the global chessboard.

Read the rest…

India is planning to test fire the Agni-III missile next week after correcting the problems that led to its failure in the previous round of testing back in July, 2006.

BALASORE (ORISSA): India may test its homegrown nuclear capable ballistic missile Agni-III from a military base in Orissa next week, official sources said on Saturday.

Hectic preparations are on for the test launch of the missile at the Integrated Test Range of Chandipur in Balasore district, about 230 km from Bhubaneswar, the sources said.

The missile, having a range of over 3,000 km, is expected to be test-fired from launching complex No. 4 of Inner Wheeler Island, a new launch site of the integrated test range (ITR) at the Chandipur defence base.

Agni-III, one of the Agni series of missiles, is capable of carrying warheads weighing up to 1.5 tonnes, it is 16 metres tall and weighs 48 tonnes and has a range of 3,500 Km which is crucial for India’s nuclear deterrent capability against China. The other missiles in the Agni family are Agni-I, which is a short-range missile of 750-800 km, and Agni-II, which has a range of more than 1,500 km.

Update:Â Agni-III testfired successfully.

China has in the last week officially hiked its defence spending by 17.5% to about $45 billion this year. Many security analysts across the world estimate that the actual spending is atleast 2 to 3 times more than that totalling nearly $100 billion plus.That makes China the third largest defence spender in the world this year after the US and Russia/(or Japan)* with a budget equal to nearly one-fifth of the US defence budget and nearly six times that of India’s total defence spending.

So, what is China’s long term and short term plan with this increase? The short term plan is to hike the salaries of the PLA personnel by upto 20% and check the signs of discontent that are said to be brewing within the PLA ranks about the low wages that have not kept pace with China’s rapidly expanding economy and the resultant increase in the cost of living.

The long term plan is to make sure that there is a firm foundation by 2010 for the planned second level of modernization to begin from 2010 onwards and lasting upto 2020 by when China plans to transform its forces from largely manpower based armies designed for the battlefields of the 20th century to smaller but highly technological forces capable of engaging hi-tech adversaries in short duration, high intensity conflicts.

To that end China is investing in big ticket programs to build advanced nuclear attack and ballistic submarines, Designing and Building its first Aircraft Carrier and working on improving the range and accuracy of its missile arsenal which includes ICBMs, MRBMs and Submarine based ballistic missiles.It also recently unveiled its new indigenously built J-10 Multi role fighter aircraft and in January it conducted an ASAT test by blowing up an old weather satellite of its own in low earth orbit sparking widespread international condemnation.

Many western analysts are under the impression that the rapid buildup of the Chinese forces is aimed at making sure that Taiwan does not declare independence.While this is largely true it will be a fallacy on our part to assume that the dragon is doing nothing much at its tail end.

India-Defence had an article about a year and half ago about unprecedented Chinese military buildup in the Tibetan plateau against India. This threat speculation has by now materialised. The Qinghai-Tibet railway is complete upto Lhasa and is now being expanded to the Nepal Border coming very close to and pointing like a dagger to India’s vulnerable Chicken neck area near the Sikkim-Nepal-Bangladesh-Bhutan junction.This will enable China to attempt to slice off India’s North-east from its mainland in case of conflict leaving the Indian forces in that region stranded and in peace time flood Indian markets with Cheap Chinese goods made by forced prison labour.

On to the West China has built a fully metallic highway capable of carrying Battle tanks, Armoured personnel carriers and other heavy equipment linking Lhasa to Urumqi and Kashgar at its frontier with Central Asia. It has also setup a listening post in Aksai Chin. India-defence says that the Indian response of upgrading the Daulat Beg Oldi outpost in Ladakh with advanced communication equipment is not adequate because the PLA is capable of deploying upto two divisions on the Ladakh front at short notice taking advantage of the Lhasa-Kashgar highway.

Also China has built two new helipads that can support four helicopter squadrons and also has by now completed building two new airstrips to bolster the PLAAF. And also it has completed deploying twenty MRBMs and 60 short range missiles aimed at Indian cities in the North like Srinagar, Delhi, Chandigarh, Shimla and also many other vital military installations in the area.

And if all this was not enough China is already expanding its presence around the Indian peninsula. According to Navy Chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta.

“China we believe is shaping the maritime battle field in the region. It is making friends at the right places.If you don’t have the capability to operate in those waters, for a length of time, then you need friends who will support your cause, when the time comes, so definitely China is doing that, as there are Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and down below Africa. So it is a known fact that we are ringed by states, which may have a favourable disposition towards China. They are looking 20 years ahead.”

And in such a disquieting scenario the current Indian government in its infinite “wisdom” has decided to keep the Indian defence spending largely flat in this year’s budget leading to concerns among many analysts that it is too little for a country like India with two hostile neighbours straddling almost its entire length of Western and northern frontiers and at the same time facing serious problems with so many failed or failing states around it.

* The Final figures for Military spending in 2007 will be available only in 2008 at the end of the financial year.

p.s- Crossposted on Desicritics and Blogcritics