China and India are neighbors, but they are far from neighborly with each other.
Tensions over their contested border have been rising in the past years.
Today we saw a sign indicating the poor state of Sino-Indian relations as India proposed a 13% defense spending increase for 2023-2024.
India is looking to add more fighter jets to its military and more infrastructure along the contested border with China.
Interesting little side note, India has a whole executive force dedicated to road construction and maintenance around its borders. For those who want to read more on India’s Border Roads Organization, click here.
Over recent years, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been raising Indian defense spending while continuing to emphasize India’s goal to supply forces along its contested borders.
But despite allocating a larger percentage of GDP, India is still far behind China in the dollar amount spent on defense.
In 2021, China spent approximately 293 billion dollars on defense while India put up 76.6 billion.