Air force, India has purchased advanced weaponry from all over the world, and its strength is not inferior to other countries except for the U.S. military.
But India also has some disadvantages. First, its defense infrastructure industrial capacity in general. Weapons imported more, but digestion and integration capacity is not strong. Its weapons localization rate is not only lower than that of China, but also much lower than that of most major military powers such as the United States, Russia, Britain and France. This means that its wartime sustainable combat capability is not high.
Secondly, since India's weapons are imported from all over the world, they are not standardized enough and the pressure on the logistics department is also higher.
Thirdly, India is known to have poorer infrastructure and hence less ability to mobilize troops across the country.
However, within 10 years (if according to the Indian media "China and India will have a war in 10 years"), India in the above three aspects are likely to have a major breakthrough, such as investing heavily in strengthening the defense industry, improve infrastructure and so on.
In addition, India is in the early stages of industrialization. The general view is that China is founded on manufacturing, while India is founded on software and services. And in fact, in recent years, India has been emphasizing the importance of industrialization, such as nationwide repair of high-speed rail and improve industrial manufacturing. They have realized that they can dig the first bucket of gold from software, but industrialization is the way to strengthen the country.
Also, let's not forget that while India is about to have a huge demographic dividend period, China is heading towards the end of its demographic dividend period and will soon enter an aging society.
All the above said are some variables. There is also a constant, which is geographic location.
In terms of sea, India is in an excellent position among the Indian Ocean Rim countries. Currently, China has to go through the Indian Ocean whenever it imports oil from the Middle East, in other words, India can "close the door" to China - unless China overhauls its maritime strategy. To break this point, China will have to invest a lot of resources.
But in terms of land position, India is at a disadvantage. India's land is in the shape of a narrow triangle, with insecure flanks on either side. If there is a conflict between India and China, China does not need to launch missiles to attack India's densely populated areas, whereas India needs long-range missiles if it wants to hit China's densely populated areas due to being separated by a Tibet.
The most important point: India is currently a catch-up type of country, aspiring to be the hegemony of the Indian Ocean, its biggest strategic imaginary enemy is Pakistan and China, to deal with these two countries can do their best. But for China, the primary strategic focus is definitely not India, in this regard, China and India are not equal, China can only use part of their own forces to deal with the so-called Indian threat, in the strategic assessment of the need to China's overall strategic capabilities to a certain degree of "deduction", in order to make a meaningful comparison with India. A direct comparison between China's full defense potential and India's full defense potential is unfair to both China and India.