Chapter 17 - Hissing Dragon-Squirming Tiger: Comparisons, Negotiations

and Attitudes begins.......

NEEDLESS COMPARISONS BETWEEN CHINA AND INDIA

'Chindia ’ is a concept of any use for comparison only in two areas: in

rates of growth of the respective economies, and in population size,

growth rate and demographic structure. It is patently ridiculous to

make comparisons in the sizes of the economy, military strength and

practically everything else. China and India are not usefully

comparable.

The sensation-seeking media which needs catchy headlines,

article headings, or catchy sound-bytes in order to ‘grab eyeballs’ and

thus enhance their advertisement value, is doing the Indian public a

disservice when it routinely brings up the two countries together.

China is one of the largest countries of the world, has the world’s

largest population, its fourth-largest economy, and is de facto the second

most powerful country in the eyes of the world, second only to the

USA.

It makes continuous calculations of its own ‘Comprehensive

National Power (CNP)’ taking all possible factors into consideration,

separately at two different sets of institutions, the military strategic

studies institutes and the academic strategic studies and international

relations institutes. Each of these come up with results independent of

each other.

These are honest assessments of themselves which they use

to fine-tune their existing national policies with the aim of ‘mid-course

guidance’ or ‘course corrections’ where found necessary, in their stated

aim of becoming the ‘No.1 Country in the World’ by 2030. In this

effort they expect to catch up militarily in effective strength with the

USA sometime soon after 2020, and overtake it in 2030.

To be continued........