Keeping An Eye On India, Ctd

A reader responds to a recent post:

As someone who has spent a long time living in, watching, and studying China and it’s rise, I certainly see Oliver Turner’s point on China. But I think he is perhaps overstating the case a bit. The reason that the US is more concerned with China’s rise than India’s – and I would argue that it is actually most concerned with the rise of all military competition in Asia (or at least it should be) – is that the US has major security guarantees with many of China’s neighbors: South Korea, Japan, Taiwan. Any conflict started between China and any of those countries would necessarily be met with some kind of US response. If India were to become entangled with any of it’s neighbors (another conflict with Pakistan for example), it would certainly be a cause for concern, but the US would not be immediately required to join the conflict.

From a reader born in India:

Oliver Turner has really no idea what he is talking about.  He is comparing India and China based on percentage of GDP spent on military expenditures.  He must be wetting his bed worrying about South Sudan which spends over 10% (the highest, according to the source he quotes). In absolute numbers there is no comparison:

India $43 billion USD vs China $164.5 USD!  And if you closely follow Indian military matters, you know that about 25% of their allocated capital budget is returned to the treasury every year due chronic procurement delays. (2012 GDP: $1,825 billion USD, 2.4% of that is $43 billion USD) vs China (2012 GDP: $8,227 billion USD, 2% of that is $164.5 billion USD.  My source for the 2012 GDP figures is here.)

This sort of the deliberate hocus-pocus by an apparently smart person like Turner leads me to believe that he wants to make a point that is not supported by the numbers.  So he massages it till it looks like something else. But the crux of the reason that China’s spending is scary and India’s is not, is alluded to in Turner piece.  China throws it money and military capability around, and it makes its neighbors nervous.  And its military has a very prominent role in its government, economy and policy affairs.  None of which are true for India’s military where the democratic government keeps a very tight control over it.