A doctor and a young COVID-19 patient do yoga exercises at an Indian hospital. Photo: AFP

Chinese analysts warned that India may become the world's leading country in terms of the number of COVID-19 infections and deaths, which would cause great disaster if the country fails to take more aggressive and efficient control measures. 

With India becoming the third country in the world to have 1 million COVID-19 cases on Friday, some Indian media outlets predicted that the next million might only take less than a month to reach.

Experts warned that the Indian government may divert the public's attention from its poor coronavirus response and stir up the conflict on the China-India border and its borders with Nepal and Pakistan. 

India recorded 1,003,832 cases of COVID-19 on early Friday, only behind the US with 3.5 million and Brazil with 2 million cases, according to the Johns Hopkins University. 

Chinese analysts believe it's not surprising for India's number of COVID-19 cases to reach to 1 million, as the country has basically given up on epidemic prevention and control, and is instead pinning its hope on a vaccine that is likely to enter human trials in the country this month. 

The actual number of COVID-19 cases in India may be more than reported, as the governments' prevention and control measures, including some lockdowns, and its insufficient medical resources failed to control the country's community infections, especially those infections in slums, Zhao Gancheng, director of the Center for Asia-Pacific Studies at the Shanghai Institute for International Studies, told the Global Times. 

On Thursday, around 100 patients broke out of a COVID-19 care center in Assam's Kamrup district as they claimed that they were not provided with proper food and water, the Hindu reported. 

Hu Zhiyong, a research fellow at the Institute of International Relations of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times the rapid spread of COVID-19 has plunged India into an unprecedented public health crisis that has severely affected India's economic growth, which is currently in a deep recession, with more than 400 million Indians at risk of falling deeper into poverty. 

India is likely to record the highest number of COVID-19 cases by surpassing the US, and its inefficient medical systems have not helped its coronavirus response, which may end up resulting in famine, plague and unrest, Hu said. 

The current COVID-19 outbreak may force India to stir up more trouble on the China-India border, as the Indian government is likely to use its same old tricks to divert the public's attention to border conflicts like what they did in June, Hu said. 

Some Chinese citizens living in India told the Global Times that India's lockdowns did not contain the virus as workers still have to work at factories and population mobility has not stopped. 

One Chinese worker, surnamed Wang, who lives in New Delhi, told the Global Times that the local government did not screen for suspected COVID-19 symptoms, and local hospitals refused to run tests for people who have not showed any symptoms. 

Wang has only visited the local supermarket four times in the past four months, and said he wished the Chinese government could take Chinese citizens home.