Bangladesh, May 25 -- India fears that it is militarily inferior to China.

But are those fears overblown? A new study argues that if another Sino-Indian conflict erupts, India is much stronger than it appears.

"We assess that India has key under-appreciated conventional advantages that reduce its vulnerability to Chinese threats and attacks," write scholars Frank O'Donnell and Alex Bollfrass in a report for Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

That assessment comes even as China and India engage in yet another military faceoff along their disputed border, where China seized territory during a brief war in 1962. Indian planners fear that China has military superiority along the border.

"For example,...