The US intelligence community believes that though India doesn’t see a military confrontation with China as imminent, it is prepared for a limited conflict along the border.
In a report to the senate DNI, James Clapper said though publicly India plays down its tensions with China, it remains concerned over Beijing’s posture along the disputed border.
India also, the report goes on, is concerned by China’s aggressive posture in the Indian Ocean and the Asia-Pacific region.
It’s with all these factor that the report say that India is “working to balance Chinese power projection in the Indian Ocean...and has expressed support for a strong US military posture in East Asia and US engagement in Asia”.
On its own too, without an Indian connection, China figures prominently as a threat in the report, as a source of industrial espionage against the US and cyber attacks.