Re: Should India match its defence spending to that of China?
Can India match it's defence spending to that of China? Yes. Can India increase the capability of it's military with the same SPEED and EFFICIENCY as that of China? No, not even if spending was the same.
The key point that I'm referring to is of course technology. The current state of the Indian military technology is roughly 17 years behind China and 29 years behind the U.S. Even if India was spending the same amount of money, it would have to purchase advanced weapons from the Industrialized nations. Since China can largely make our own weapons, every yuan spent on local military industries purchases roughly 5X as much as India can through foriegn purchases. This concept is a simple one to understand, local suppliers can usually if not always produce cheaper than western imports given that the tech is roughly equivelent due to PPP effects.
The bigger question is would India WANT to increase it's budget to match that of China without an industrial economy that can match China's?