Which is a bigger threat? Pakistan or China?

Indian Army Chief V. K. Singh

Indian Army chief V. K. Singh recently commented on how China and Pakistan are a threat to India's security.

Which of them is a bigger threat to India's security? Here are my views.

Ever since we gained independence, we have always had two big threats to our national security. They are Pakistan and China. We have already had 4 wars with Pakistan and 1 war with China. However, the wars with Pakistan have been more serious. This is evident by the fact that no Air Force or Navy was used in the Indo-China war by either side. So, the question arises which of these two countries is a bigger threat to the integrity of India. Is it China or is it Pakistan? Let's check it out.

1) PAKISTAN:-

Pakistan has always been hostile to India. The problem with Pakistan is that it's government is not strong enough and it constantly encourages terrorist activities against India. 

The ex-Pakistan President and army chief Mr. Pervez Musharraf has already acknowledged that Pakistan is running terrorist camps against India. In fact, nearly all previous rulers of Pakistan have acknowledged this fact, either directly or indirectly.

So, why does Pakistan allow all this when it knows that running terrorist camps daunts its image.

There may be two main reasons:-

The first reason may be that Pakistan does not want to kill the Hen that gives it Golden eggs. 

Pakistan has received billions of dollars to fight terrorism and it will continue to get this money till the terrorists are present inside Pakistan. So, wiping them completely may stop this flow. Hence, Pakistan does not take any major action against these militants even when these militants carry on terrorist attacks in Pakistan itself.

The second reason is a major one and is the bigger threat to India.

Even after knowing that openly acknowledging the fact that Pakistan trains terrorists may end their political career, Pakistani politicians acknowledge this fact. Why?

The reason is that the general Pakistani people think that India has forcefully taken over Kashmir and that, Indian army kills men in the valley and rapes all the innocent women in Kashmir.

The problem is that they just don't think this, they ACTUALLY BELIEVE this. Hence, they go to that extent as Ajmal Ameer Kasab.

This is the biggest threat to India from Pakistan.

2) China

The read dragon has always had issues with India, be it the Sikkim issue, the Kashmir border issue or the issue of India supporting Tibet rebels (at least as China thinks.)

Now, why is China a threat to India.

1) Military Dominance
China has continuosly improved its military capabilities and now, it is quite ahead of the military capabilities of India and hence, India needs to improve its military capabilities so that it may be well prepared in case of any hostility from any side. China has also been supporting Pakistan. It has recently improved its infrastructure in the PoK and it has also been storing weapons there. Hence, India needs to keep a vigilant watch on China.

2) A recent example
A recent example of the dominance of China can be seen from the Japan incident where :

A chinese ship crashed onto japanese ships. Japan caught the captain of the ship and started a judicial trial on him. Here came a warning from China. China asked Japan to return the chinese captain or it would take action. Japan sent the captain to China. As if this was not enough, China also demanded an apology from Japan.

This goes on to show how China is getting more and more dominant.

3) The Kashmir Issue
China used to provide normal visas to people from Kashmir and it had maintained a neutral stance towards Kashmir. However, recently China has started to give Visas to Kashmiris on a different piece of paper which Indian embassy does not recognize. This has led to many problems. However, there was no action taken from the Indian side.

Conclusion

 After taking all these points into consideration, I conclude with the following two points:

In the short term, Pakistan is a bigger threat to India as it has kept attacking India indirectly through the use of militants.

However, in the long term, China is a bigger threat to India as it has been, and is, continuously developing its military capabilities at a very fast rate.

Roshan Jha