Why would China pick a fight? India can put as many men into the field as they can. The terrian they are disputing is worthless. What is in it for China?
Its like the bully in a bar picking out someone to beat up as an example to the others in the bar.
Their trying to intimidate the Countries all around their boarder and the US.
But the US military is too much for them and they need our money so they won’t take us on directly. India is the best example for them.
When was the last time China fought a major war? Will their troops actually fight, or will they run away? You won't know the answer until you actually get them into a fight.
If you were Xi, would you rather this "test" fight be against India, or the US?
All the rivers into India start there.
If their economy continues to implode they are probably hoping that a war will prop up the continued rule by the communist party.
Rare earth metals , opium trade?
China wants to provoke a shooting war with India. China has superior aircraft, armaments, missiles, and troops. It will bloody India badly and seize more territory. Why? China wants to do the same to India that Russia did to Japan prior to the Pearl Harbor attack. Japan and Russia fought some sharp battles in Manchuria. Russian forces mauled the Japanese. The Japanese high command was duly impressed and when Hitler invaded Russia, Japan refused to open a second front. Russia was able to send divisions westward that saved Moscow in December 1941.
China hopes to bloody, humiliate and intimidate India. When China invades Taiwan, it does not even want India to think of attacking. India is no match for China.
That policy of gradualism is not because Chinese rulers are long-term thinkers. Multiple dynasties have crumbled in that interval, and no ruler hedged his bets to make things easier for the next one. The problem was economic and political constraints.
Rulers who went a war too far found themselves beset by peasant rebellions as well as elite mutinies, due to the huge financial expenditures required, which caused both taxation and inflation to go through the roof. Outsized human costs were also a factor. 2200 years ago, China's Spartacus was a peasant rebel - mounting one of many draft revolts - who founded a dynasty that lasted 400 years. Peasant rebels have founded 3 dynasties lasting 1/3 of China's 2200 year history since the First Emperor's creation of a unitary Chinese state. Elite mutinies have created the basis for most of the other dynasties.
There's a portion of the Oscar-winning (for visuals) movie "Hero" that I found startling, but may illuminate the Chinese viewpoint. (Spoiler alert) The hero desists from assassinating the First Emperor, who created the first (less than 1/4 the current) unified Chinese state because the emperor says to him that peace on earth can only be achieved when someone rules "all under heaven":
Translation of "Tianxia"
There has been some criticism of the film for its American-release translation of one of the central ideas in the film: Tiānxià (天下) which literally means "Under heaven", and is a phrase to mean "the World". For its release in Belgium, two years before the U.S. release, the subtitled translation was "all under heaven". The version shown in American cinemas was localized as the two-word phrase "our land" instead, which seems to denote just the nation of China rather than the whole world. Whether Zhang Yimou intended the film to also have meaning with regard to the world and world unity was at that time difficult to say. Zhang Yimou was asked about the change at a screening in Massachusetts and said it was a problem of translation: "If you ask me if 'Our land' is a good translation, I can't tell you. All translations are handicapped. Every word has different meanings in different cultures."[14] In Cause: The Birth of Hero – a documentary on the making of Hero – Zhang mentions that he hopes the film will have some contemporary relevance, and that, in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks (which took place just before the movie was filmed) the themes of universal brotherhood and "peace under heaven" may indeed be interpreted more globally, and taken to refer to peace in "the world."[15][16] The phrase was later changed in television-release versions of the film.
In reality, this proclaimed yearning for peace was basically the emperor's excuse for raising his personal prestige. He succeeded. However, he failed in the most fundamental sense - like Alexander and Muhammad, he had no issue - they were exterminated when his dynasty crumbled immediately after his death.
I’ve never subscribed to the theory that national leaders acquire land by force because of political or economic necessity. Publicly, they’ll justify these efforts that way, because the soldiers risking their lives and the loved ones they leave behind don’t want to hear that the war is being waged so their leaders can become famous for posterity. An Olympic athlete or a mountain climber can straightforwardly own up to his personal ambition because all that’s at risk is his personal investment in the task he has set for himself. A national leader cannot, for obvious reasons.
In fact, how do you distinguish between desperation and simple ambition? I don’t think you can. IMHO, Xi believes China has finally become strong enough to make these ventures the kind of bet a gambling man might take odds on. The shibboleth of our time is that war is hell, and no leader ever embarks on it except out of desperation. It’s, however, contrary to most of what we know about history. Leaders go to war for the same reason athletes compete in the Olympics - for personal fame and glory.
Kings go to war not because they need to, but because they want to. What they’re after is to make a name for themselves that will stand the test of time. By a country mile, the most famous Greek is Alexander, just as the most famous Roman is Caesar. That’s no accident. For better or for worse, conquerors will always have a special place in the history books. War is like a large scale hunt in which the guy who organized it and brought home a lot of trophies puts his name in neon lights for posterity.
Heck, even the losers become famous in ways nobody expected. Without his disastrous loss at Carrhae, just how well-known would the richest man in Rome, Crassus, be?
People who go on about Xi Jinping needing a distraction from domestic problems are ignoring everything we know about history. Chinese leaders are made in the mold of the leaders of powerful countries since probably the dawn of time - they did not sign up for their jobs to become glorified administrators/security people for accountants and financiers. They are building this wealth so they can construct an army to acquire fame for themselves. Alexander and Caesar accumulated wealth to fight wars. They didn’t fight wars to accumulate wealth. The end game was, first and foremost, eternal fame, or infamy, if they failed.
Saddam Hussein had all the money he needed. What he wanted was to be mentioned in the same breath as Saladin. Even in failure, he has placed his name in a more prominent position than any of his Arab contemporaries, with the exception of bin Laden.
* Until WWI and WWII, the Western powers were perennially in a horse race with respect to territorial competition. That may yet resume, despite a period of post-WWII decadence.
Technologically, China is decades ahead of India in every conceivable metric in both nuclear and conventional forces. Their Army, Navy, and most especially their Air Forces. You may not believe that, but the Indians sure do - with good reason.