Way back in 1962 China and India came to blows over a small strip of basically useless territory on the fringe of Tibet called Aksai Chin. China seized the territory and has maintained control of it for the last five decades despite India's occasional protests. To make matters more interesting India still has control of Arunachal Pradesh, an area that the Chinese government claims as well. Neither side has attempted to change the border through anything but diplomacy but, according to at least one Indian Expert, that is about to change.
According to Mr. Verma China is going to attack India no later than 2012 in order to distract its restive population away from deteriorating economic conditions. The war, which would almost certainly end in China's favor, would also serve to put India in its place and show the world that it will be China who leads Asia for the 21st century.
This is, almost obviously and completely, totally preposterous. A Chinese attack on India would confirm the world's worst fears about China: that as its strength grows it will be willing to use it at the expense of other countries. This would destroy all of the sympathy China currently has in the west, it would derail business relationships, and it would force the Indians into the arms of whatever powerful ally might be willing to help them to upgrade their military. At worst it would cement support for an alliance of Asian democracies to stand up to the authoritarian giant.
On top of all that India has a nuclear arsenal. The Chinese arsenal is probably superior to the Indian (after all the Chinese have had nukes since the early sixties while the Indians have only been freely building weapons for the last ten years) but if the Indians can launch a satellite into the moon's orbit they can fling some nukes at China. Even without nukes India could up the ante and interdict China's seaborne oil supplies from the Middle East and put a fast stop on the Chinese economy- forcing the Chinese into far more than a border war but one that would require the neutralization of India's navy.
Perhaps there are some things that Mr. Verma knows that I don't but without a more compelling argument I fear he just wrote his scholarship's epitaph.
Note: The Chinese government has built a 1:150 scale model of Aksai Chin in the northern desert region of Ningxia. Google Earth has show it to be of incredible detail. Awesome!
