China cautions India on troop build-up near border

[Rage]

well, finally ,you got something that is not baseless completely!

congladuations!

Congratulations! You've finally realized that the people here won't be done in by your jaundiced chinese propaganda.

but one case should be clitified there :

measured by any criterion, Tibet was not sovereignty with full independence during 1644-1911(chinese Qing dynasty),

"Clitified"? What on Gaia's great arse is that?

What 'criterion'? Ludicrous chinese government standards of 'sovereignty'? Save me the rhetoric please.

Of course, during Qing daynasty, CHina also did hardly set up direct rule in Tibet,except the shord period (1904-1911.).

Thank you for further corroborating my claims, (and eroding your illegal ones) to the accession of Tibet.

However ,Tibet at that time didn't coincide with the defination of "protectorate" either.

Korea and Vietnam at that time should be labeled as " protecorates of Chinese empire", because China only was responsible for their security and the succession of crown .

"Korea and Vietnam". Indeed! That's why you received your skinny behinds handed on a silver platter courtesy of the "Vietnamese" (who invaded and occupied another of your "protectorate" states Cambodia and toppled the PRC-backed Khmer Rouge regime no less!) and are currently imposing sanctions on your other "protectorate state" (North) Korea. If you are so true to form irredentist and expansionist, why don't you (attempt) to impose your 'suzerainty' on them again? Another Sino-Vietnam war is something we would definitely cheer.

but as for Tibet, CHina stationed troops and appointed a speical high-rank offical ,who had authority equal to Dalai and Panchan legally in Tibet. China also often interfere with the succession of Dalai and Panchan.

We know all about your illegal escapades in Tibet. "High-ranking official with authority equal to the Dalai Lama" indeed, but only under your (expedient and illegitimate) Chinese law. The Tibetan people could care less about your "high ranking" officials.

As for the second part of your statement,

YouTube - After The Dalai Lama - India

 

[tharikiran]

Hari there is hardly any difference between the population of China and India. It's widely acknowledged that India is woefully short of power and the nuke deal is one of the ways India is going to increase it's energy levels. The other is use of renewable energy.

I agree India is woefully short of power. We should/could have done a better job at power generation.

The good news as you say is the 123 deal. We have way to go and their lies our potential and growth too. Any way, when are we going to separate the civilian from the military reactors ?

Because only then can the rest of the world join us to satisfy this power hungry nation
and sustain the economic growth.

 

[Pintu]

Link as well as an archive analysis dated back 28-3-1963 by Radio Free Europe / Munich is being posted here with , it was written just aftermath of the war., as it is too long to cover in a single post I have been compelled to post it by part.




Increased Tension in Sino-Indian Relations

BOX-FOLDER-REPORT: 10-4-66
TITLE: Increased Tension in Sino-Indian Relations
BY: j.c.k
DATE: 1963-3-28
COUNTRY: China
ORIGINAL SUBJECT: China

--- Begin ---

Radio Free Europe/Munich
Non-Target Communist Area Analysis Department
Background Information China

28 March 1963

INCREASED T MNS I ON IN SINO- INDIAN RELATIONS

Appendix:

PASSES AND IMPASSES
Far Eastern Economic Review No. 9
28 February 1963
by P, H. H. Janes

Recent Chinese protests about alleged Indian
provocations along the Sino-Indian frontier represent an unpleasant
reminder of the border war that ended late last year with
the sudden and mysterious withdrawal of the Chinese troops
from Indian soil. The latest such protests were delivered
by the Chinese on the 10th and 24th of March to the Indian
embassy in Peking. In the farmer note the Chinese communists
charged the Indian side with four different "intrusions"
into (Tibetan territory during last February. The
encroachments allegedly took place in the Spanggur Lake area in the
Western sector of the border. On 24 March Peking in another
"serious protest" accused India of "violating Chinese
territory and air-space" along the Sikkim-Tibet frontier. The
protest note accused Indian troops of reinforcing defence
works "set up in Chinese territory", and demanded the removal
of the various defence structures.

Meanwhile the Chinese Communists continued to charge
Indian authorities with "wanton persectuion" of Chinese
nationals in India, and promised to send Chinese ships to
repatriate those nationals from Indian soil. Earlier this
week Hsinhua. reported two such ships leaving Canton on such
a mission.

The above protests and accusations form only a part
of the increasing attention in the pages of the Chinese press
to Indian efforts to maintain the fighting spirit and
vigilance of both the army and the population in caee of renewed
Chinese attacks on Indian territory.

The course of Sino-Indian relations since last November
provide little basis for prophesying a quick and lasting
solution of the border dispute, As was expected, neither the
one sided Chinese ceasefire of 21 November, nor the completion of
the Chinese troop-withdrawal in late February, added much to
the improvement of the relations between the two powers. Nor
did the proposals of the Colombo Conference of the six
non-alligned nations bring the two sides closer to the prospect

[page ii]

of bilateral negotiations. Indeed, when saying that "the
whole purpose of the Colombo Conference was to promote direct
negotiations between China and India", as Chen Yi put it in
a recent television interview, the Chinese only try to
diminish the value of these efforts. The Colombo proposals,
the statement continues, "are merely for the consideration
of China and India; they are neither a command nor an
arbitration decision. The Chinese government is not obliged to
accept them in toto."

Many of the other developments that have taken place
since last November contributed to the tension that continued
to prevail in the wake of the ceasefire. The last move in
Peking's hasty efforts to conclude border agreements with as
many of its neighbors as possible led to the signing on 2
March of the Sino-Pakistani agreement. The Chinese effort
to reach such agreements with Nepal, Outer Mongolia, and
Pakistan within the shortest possible time was obviously
designed to put India in a disadvantageous position and
show her as an aggressive and incompatible neighbor. The
boundary agreement with Pakistan has, of course, also helped
to mount the distrust between that country and India at a
time when mutual trust would be essential far the
settlement of their own outstanding problems.

The article appended below was written by Mr. P. H. M.
Jones, research director of the Par Eastern Economic Review
of Hong Kong. It summarizes excellently the background and
the developments of the Sino-Indian border troubles, giving
a detailed and rather technical but perceptive account of
the events that led up to the Chinese invasion of Indian
territory last October. Mr. Jones believes that the whole
Sino-Indian conflict "springs from the Chinese occupation
by force of Tibet". This occupation, he maintains, "changed
the strategic and political situation not only in the Himalayas
but throughout Central Asia." He also concludes that China
is determined to hold the Aksai Chin triangle, and the
strategic Sinking-Tibet highway crossing that region, partly
because "it is only Aksai Chin that makes her. in a small
way, a Central Asian power,"

j.c.k.

----------to continue -----

 

[Pintu]

----------Continuing from previous post---------------

[page 1]

PASSES AND IMPASSES
A Study of the Sino-Indian Border Dispute

by P. H. M Jones

Eastward roughly of the longitude of Simla the Indian
sub-continent has a clearly defined frontier zone. The broken
country between the crest of the Himalayas and the 500 metre contour
takes in a series of peoples who belong by culture and race partly
to Tibet, partly to India and above all the themselves. They
inhabit Tehri-Garhwal and Kumaon, Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan and the
region that India calls MEFA -- the North-East Frontier Agency,
In the far north and north-west the ethnic and geographic
situation is more confused, Ladakh belongs by geography, language and
religion to Tibet, but has long been attached politically to the
Vale of Kashmir; so have the hill tribes south of the Karakoram.
Kashmir, although well above 500 metres, is indisputably Indian.
The north-west frontier, now the boundary between Pakistan and
Afghanistan is ethnically indefinite and provides, far less than
a harrier, a corridor into Western Asia.

The peoples of the Southern Himalayas have often
harassed both Tibet and India, but seldom more, and the Tibetans
themselves, even at their most powerful, were never attracted to the
Ganges plain. Merchants and pilgrims have crossed the Karakoram
both ways between Kashmir and what is now Sinkiang, but no real
threat to India has ever developed from that direction, Until.
the European period the successive invaders of India -- Macedonian
and Turkish, Mughal and Persian -- came from the north-west
through the Khyber and the neighboring passes. It was in this
quarter also that the British power in India feared encroachment
by Tsarist Russia, and this frontier consequently that absorbed
most of its attention. The remainder of India's border districts,
unrewarding from any point of view, were relatively neglected.

China in Tibet

From August 15, 1947 the north-west frontier became
the responsibility of Pakistan. Independent India thus had
historical reasons for imagining itself without strategic
problems other than those presented by the quarrel with Pakistan
over Kashmir. India had no doubt where its frontiers ran, for
these had been drawn with more or less precision by British
cartographers and never seriously challenged. Consequently few felt
concern that where the border reached farthest into the Himalayas --
to impinge directly on Sinkiang and Tibet without the protection
of some buffer state -- it was in large part neither administered
nor patrolled.

The occupation of Tibet by Communist Chinese troops in
1950-51 came indeed as a shock, and India protested vainly. But
the objections were largely directed against the Chinese decision
to "seek a solution of the problems of their relations with Tibet
by force instead of by the slower and more enduring methods of
peaceful approach". Few people saw in the Chinese action a
threat to India, and among the general public any lingering fears
at this point were dispelled by an agreement concerning trade
between India and the Tibet Eegion of China" signed on April 28,
1954 in which Panch Shila, the Five Principles of Peaceful
Coexistence, was first formulated.

[page 2 ]

In the winter of 1956-57 Mr Chou En-lai, the Chinese
Prime Minister, repeatedly visited India, where he was warmly
welcomed, and India championed the Peking Government's claim to
represent China at the UN. It was the time of "Indians and Chinese
are brothers" -- Hindi China bhai bhai. Nonetheless some
uneasiness was aroused by Chinese "cartographic aggression" -- the
continued use in China of maps that India considered to show large
tracts of India as Chinese territory. The Indian Government
stated on March 10, 1955 that "the attention of the Chinese
Government was previously drawn to this matter. In reply the
Government of India were told that the Chinese Government had had no
time to revise their maps and were, therefore, using old maps.
There is no doubt about the Indian frontier, and this has been
made perfectly clear to everyone".

For four years after the Chinese entered Tibet no incident
was recorded on the frontiers, wherever they might be, dividing
Indian and Chinese held territory. Then, in late 1955, the London
"Times' published a report from. their New Delhi correspondent that
Chinese forces had occupied some "disputed" territory at a place
called Bara Hoti (which the Chinese have always called Wuje) west
of Nepal. Apparently there had been some discussion between the
Indian and Chinese Foreign Offices about this place, for the
Indian Government issued a statement almost immediately. Bara
Hoti, this declared, covered about two square miles lying at over
16,000 feet and had no strategic or other importance for either
country.

"The Indc-Tibetan border is well defined. The question
is merely one of fact, namely whether this small area...
lies north or south of the border pass. It is admitted
by both sides that if the area is north of the border
pass it would he in Tibet, and if it is south it would
be in India."

In the following August the Indian Government announced
that a few Chinese soldiers had entered the area, but left when
requested, India was agreeable to a suggestion of the Chinese
Government that representatives of both sides should meet and
decide with the help of maps to whom Eara Hoti belonged.

Thenceforward both countries kept silence about incidents
on their common border. According to subsequent Indian accounts.
in the summer of 1956 a Chinese survey party entered the area
of Spiti and an armed Chinese party "intruded" into Nilang-Jadhang
and crossed the Shipki pass, all these places being roughly south
of the Junction of the borders between Kashmir, the Punjab end
Tibet. Another Chinese patrol was noticed in the Spiti area in
the following year. In July 1958 New Delhi protested against the
Chinese occupation of Khurnak fort in Ladakh. This place was,
it said, 1 1/2 miles within the Indian frontier. Peking made no
reply.

 

[Pintu]

-------------------------------Continuing---------------------------------------------------


[page 3]

The Aksai Chin Road

About the same time a Chinese newspaper published a
small scale map showing a road, the Sinkiang-Tibet highway, that
the Chinese had built across the far corner of a high, desolate
plateau to the north-east of Ladakh called Aksai Chin, which
Indian maps show as Indian. The road follows an old caravan
route linking Yarkand in Sinkiang with Gartok in Tibet. Two
Indian patrols were sent out to investigate. One was captured
by the Chinese at Haji Langar, near the point where the road
entered from the north territory shown as Indian on Indian maps,
but the other returned having verified the existence and rough
alignment of the new highway. An Indian police party was arrested
near Khurnak fort in July 1959 and an armed Chinese detachment
occupied Spanggur, south of the Fangong lake. Chinese troops
were reported moving towards Chusul in the same region and, further
south, towards Demchok (alias Parigas) on the upper Indus, The
Chinese also occupied Minsar, a village 10G miles within Tibet,
which is said previously to have paid land revenue to the
Jammu and Kashmir state treasury at Leh.

The Tibetan revolt of March 1959 brought the Dalai
Lama and his party into India via places near to the eastern
frontier of Bhutan-Khinaemane, Tawpang and Bomdi La. Incidents
between Indian and Chinese forces thereupon spread to the NEFA.
In early August a Chinese detachment, some 200 strong, drove
"back the Indian border pickets at Khinzemane. Then, on August 26,
a Chinese force expelled the Indian post at Longju, further east.
Meanwhile the Indian public. though still ignorant of these
events, continued to be vexed by cases of "cartographic
aggression", especially after publication in the magazine "China
Pictorial" in July 1958 of maps showing as Chinese four of the five
Divisions of the -NEFA, certain areas in the central sector of
he frontier and large tracts in Ladakh which India considered
as her territory.

Maps in Dispute

Chinese replies to Indian protests continued to
maintain that the maps in question dated from the Kuomintang period,
but Peking now began to show its hand. In a letter to the
Indian Premier, Pandit Nehru, dated January 23, 1959, Chou En-lai
enunciated the basic principle governing the Chinese attitude
towards the Sino-Indian frontier -- that it had never been formally
delimited. The Chinese Central Government and the Indian
Government had never concluded any treaty or agreement defining it.
To Indian complaints that China had raised no border issues
during the negotiations preceding the 1954 treaty, he replied
that this was because conditions were not yet "ripe" for
settlement of the "border question, and the Chinese Government had had
no time to study it.

Referring to what is called the McMahon Line -- after

[page 4]

Sir Henry McMahon, the British delegate to a conference on Tibet
held at Sir la in 1913-14 -- which provides the NEFA with its
northern frontier, Mr Chou asserted this line to be juridically
invalid. But India and Burma "which are concerned in this Line"
were now independent and friendly states. Therefore the "Chinese
Government, on the one hand, finds it necessary to take a more or
less realistic attitude towards the McFahon Line, and, on the
other hand, cannot but act with prudence and needs time to deal
with the matter" Mr Chou repeated the explanation previously
given concerning the maps used in China, adding however that

"we do not hold that every portion of this boundary
line (on the Chinese maps) is drawn on sufficient
grounds. But is would be inappropriate for us to make
changes without having made surveys and without having
consulted the countries concerned..... As a matter of
fact, our people have also expressed surprise at the
way the Eino-Indian boundary, particularly its western
section, is drawn on maps published in India."

He suggested, so as to avoid incidents, that each side
should for the moment maintain the status quo on the border and
keep to the areas at present under its own jurisdiction.

Mr Nehru' s reply (March 22} put the Indian viewpoint
with vigour: it is true that the Indo-Tihetan border has not
been demarcated on the ground in some sectors, but I am somewhat
surprised to know that this frontier was not accepted at any time
by the Government of China. The traditional frontier, as you may
be aware, follows the geographical principle of the watershed
on the crest of the high Himalayan range, hut apart from this,
in most parts, it has the sanction of specific international
agreements between the then Government of India and the Central
Government of China".

The McMahon Line "was drawn after full discussion and
was confirmed subsequently by a formal exchange of letters; and
there is nothing to show that the Tibetan authorities were in
any way dissatisfied with the agreed boundary". The Chinese
delegate to the Simla Conference did indeed object to the
boundaries between Inner and Outer Tibet and between Tibet and China
as then delineated, but "there is no mention of any Chinese
reservation in respect of the Indo-Tibetan frontier" either
during the discussions or at the time of the initialling of the
Convention that issued from the Conference.

"This Line has the incidental advantage of running
along the crest of the high Himalayan range which forms the
natural dividing line between the Tibetan plateau in the north
and the submontane region in the south. In our previous
discussions and particularly during your visit to India in January
1957, we were gratified to note" said Mr Nehru, "that you were
prepared to accept this Line as representing the frontier
between China and India in this region and I hope that we shall
reach an understanding on this basis". For Indian ownership of
Bara Hoti there was documentary and cartographic evidence, and

[page 5]

for the boundary claimed by India in the central sector generally.
He agreed that neither side should take unilateral action to
assert what it believed to be its right, and "certain minor
border problems can be settled by negotiations on the basis.
of established practice and cuestom as well as watersheds"

Nehru, appears moreover to have recorded the substance
of a conversation he had with Chou En-lai about the end of 1956
as follows:

"Premier Chou referred to the Mc Mahon Line and
again said that he had never beard of this before
though of course the then Chinese Government had, dealt
with this matter and not accepted that Line. He had
gone into this matter in connection with the border
dispute with Burma. Although ha thought that this
line, established by British Imprialism, was not fair,
nevertheless, because it was an accomplished fact and
because of the friendly relations which existed between
China and the countries concerned, namely India and
Burma, the Chinese Government were of the opinion
that they should give recognition to this McMahon
Line. They had, however, not consulted the Tibetan
authorities about it yet. They proposed to do so."

The Quarrel Breaks Oat

Sino-Indian relations deteriorated sharply after the
Tibetan revolt, The Chinese communiqu� of March 23, 1959 called
the Indian border town of Kalimpong a centre of rebel activities.
This was an old charge, having been previously rejected by New
Delhi in August 1958, and seemed therefore to accuse India of a
degree of complicity in the revolt. Then, on April 22, the Panchen
Lama told the National People's Congress at Peking that" it is
worth noting that the reactionaries in India, walking in the
footsteps of the British imperialists, have always harboured
expansionist ambitions towards Tibet and have carried out
various forms of sabotage activities which are undoubtedly
favourable to imperialism and unfavourable to Sino-Indian
friendship.

 

[Pintu]

------------------------------------------Continuing-----------------


Indian resentment of these remarks was all. the keener
that the rebels enjoyed the sympathy of almost every section of
Indian opinion. Thus, on the cartographic question, Mr Nehru came
to remark (August 7) that nit seems to be a habit with the Chinese,
even from pre-Communist days, to show good chunks of others'
territory as their own and to paint them with the same brush on
the map". India, be said, has made known its views to the
Chinese and Russian Governments, but "we have not heard from
them for a long time. There is a strange silence from the other
side".

Mr Nehru now judged concealment to be no longer possible.
On August 28 he informed the Lok Sabha (the Indian Lower House)
of the course of events along the Sino-Indian frontier in the

[page 6]

previous few years Thee necessary measures of defence were, he
said, being taken and the Assam Rifles, a semi-military force
that maintains order in the north-eastern frontier region, would
shortly pass tinder army command. Ten days later he tabled a
White Paper - the first of a aeries which is not yet terminated -
embodying the correspondence exchanged between India and China
on Tibetan and border questions since the treaty of April 1954.

The quarrel was now out in the open, and China in its
tarn began to complain of aggression. In a long statement dated
September 8 on the Chinese position -- answering Nehru's letter
of March 22 -- Chon En-lai alleged that Indian troops and
administrative personnel had "invaded" Wuje (Bara Hoti), the
south-western part of Sinfeiang -- that is, Aksai Chin -- and
the area of Lake Pangong. Indian troops had also "invaded and
occupied" on the south-western border of Tibet the area of
Shipki Pass and several other places, Moreover

"since the outbreak of the rebellion in Tibet... the
border situation has become increasingly tense owing
to reasons for which the Chinese side cannot be held
responsible. Immediately after the flight of a large
number of Tibetan rebels into India, Indian troops
began to press forward across the eastern sector of
the Sino-Indian boundary... They not only overstepped
the so-called McMahon Line... bat also crossed the
boundary drawn on current Indian maps which -- in many
cases actually cuts even deeper into Chinese territory
than the McMahon Line. Indian troops invaded and
occupied Longju, intruded into Yasher and are still
in possession of Shatse, Khinsemane and Tamadem -- all
of which are Chinese territory -- shielding armed Tibetan
rebel bandits in this area ... Not long ago, the Indian
troops unlawfully occupying Longju launched armed
attacks on the Chinese frontier guards stationed at
Migyitun, leaving no room for the Chinese frontier
guards but to fire back in self-defence This was the
first instance of armed clash along the Sine-Indian
border... The tense situation recently arising on the
Sino-Indian border was all paused by trespassing and
provocation by Indian troops"...

The same letter revealed a significant shift in China's
stand on the cartographic question and the McMahon Line, which
the Chinese Government "absolutely does not recognise"
According to Mr Chou "this illegal Lins aroused the great indignation
of the Chinese people". Moreover

"the Tibet local authorities themselves later also
expressed their dissatisfaction with this Line and,
following the independence of India in 1947 cabled
Your Excellency asking India to return all the
territory of the Tibet region of China south of this
illegal Line. This piece of territory corresponds in

[page 7]

size to Chekiang province of China... Mr Prime Minister,
how could China agree to accept under coercion such an
illegal Line which would have it relinquish its rights
and disgrace itself by selling out its territory --
and such a large piece of territory at that? The
delineation of the Sino-Indian boundary east of Bhutan
in all traditional Chinese maps is a true reflection
of the actual situation of the traditional boundary
before the appearance of the so-oalled McMahon Line."

The extent of Chinese ambition in the Himalayas was
also indicated by a statement of Mr Cbou that China's boundaries
with Sikkim and Bhutan do not "fall within the scope of the
present discussion". But China had always respected the proper
relations of those states with India.

40.000 Square Miles

Now for the first time Mr Nehru understood, or anyway
acknowledged, that he had a territorial, not a border, dispute
on his hands. He was, he wrote back on September 26, "greatly
surprised and distressed" "by Mr Chou's letter of the 8th:

"You and I discussed the India-China harder, and
particularly the eastern sector in 1954 in Peking and
in 1956-57 in India... I thought that we were con-
fronted with the problem of reaching an agreement on
where exactly the so-called Me Fahon Line... lay.
Even when I received your letter of January 73, 1959,
I had no idea that... China would lay claim to about
40,000 square miles of what in our view has been
indisputably Indian territory for decades and in some
sectors for aver a century."

India deeply resented Chinsse suggestions that she was
seeking to profit from British aggression. So far was this from
the truth that she had voluntarily renounced the extraterritorial
rights enjoyed by Britain in Tibet before 1947 and "recognised
by treaty that Tibet is a region of China". Nor had India, as
was alleged, used or other or other pressure to compel China to
accept her demands:

"We did not release to the public the information
which we had about the various border intrusions into
our territory by Chinese personnel since 1954 the
construction of a road across Indian territory in Ladakh
and the arrest of our personnel in the Aksai Chin area
in 1958 and their detention ... in the hope that
peaceful solutions of the disputes could be found by
agreement by the two countries without public excitement
on both aides. In fact our failure to do so has now
resulted in sharp but legitimate criticism of the
Government both in Parliament and in the press in our
country."

[page 8]

Mr Nehru then proceeded to set out the Indian view
of the whole border question.

A more serious clash occurred shortly afterwards. On
October 19 a party from a permanent Indian post at Tsogstsalu,
60 or 65 miles west of the border claimed by India north of
Lake Pangong, set up a temporary camp at Hot Spring, some fifteen
miles farther east. Three men of this party, who had made a
reconnaissance eastward towards a pass called Kongka La, failed
to return, A patrol of about twenty therefore departed on the
morning of the 21st in search of them dividing into two groups.
According to the Indian account these groups were suddenly attacked
with automatic and mortar fire, one from a Chinese force entrenched
on a nearby hill and the other from a force on the south "bank of
the Chang Chenmo river. The Chinese subsequently advanced and
overwhelmed one of the groups. Nine Indians were killed and ten
captured, Peking, on the other hand, claimed that an Indian
detachment of over seventy men had intruded into Chinese territory south
of the Kongka La They provoked a Chinese patrol and encircled
and fired on it three times within twenty minutes"; the Chinese
then fired baok in self-defence. The proponderance of Indian
casualties -- only one Chinese was killed apparently -- was
attributed to the fact that "generally speaking the offensive
side suffers greater casualties than the defensive side".

The 20 Kilometre Plan

On November 7 Mr Chou En-lai wrote that "in order to
maintain affectively the status quo of the border between the
two countries", which both sides admitted to be desirable,

"to ensure the tranquillity of the border regions and
to create a favourable atmosphere for a friendly
settlement of the boundary question, the Chinese Government
proposes"-- as it was to propose many times subsequently --
"that the armed forces of China and India each withdraw
20 kilometres at once from the so-called McMahon Line
in the east, and from the line up to which each side
exercises actual control in the west."

But unarmed police and civilian administrators should
remain in the evacuated a zones.

In reply (November 16} Mr Nehru denied "categorically"
that India had posted any army personnel near the frontier until
the incidents started. In the eastern and central sectors
where "there is no ambiguity about our frontier", there was
no risk of armed clashes if both sides refrained from sending
out patrols; at Longju, the Chinese forces should withdraw and
India would not reoccupy the place. But in Ladakh "there is
complete disagreement between the two Governments even about
the facts of possession". The only course therefore was for
each side to withdraw to the border claimed by the other as
evinced by the latter's official maps.

[page 9]

To this Mr Chou replied on December 17 that he would
accept the procedure advocated Toy Mr Nehru in Longju provided,
he implied, it were extended to the Shipki La and ofher places
said to have been seized by India in that region. But in Ladakh,
he went on, India's concession would be only theoretical, since
she had no personnel in the disputed area, whereas China would
be compelled to abandon a territory of 33,000 square kilometres
or more. However, if the Indian Government persisted in this
demand, would it be prepared to apply the same principle in the
eastern sector? This would require India to evacuate most of
the NRFA.

At the same time Mr Chou invited Mr Nehru to hold
talks with him about the boundary question in an effort to
reach "some agreements of principle as a guidance to concrete
discussions"; anywhere in China would do for the meeting or, if
the Burmese Government agreed, Rangoon. Peking then handed to
the Indian Government a long recapitulation, dated December 26,
of the Chinese point of view on the border question. In reply
(February 5,1960) Mr Nehru regretted his inability to leave
India, since the budget session of Parliament would open in a
few days, but invited Mr Chou to Delhi in the second half of
March. A rebuttal of the Chinese case followed (February 12) ,

The. Arguments of the Chou-Nehru Letters

According to the Indian maps", wrote the Chinese on
December 26, "the boundary line in the western sector cuts deep
into Chinese territory, including an area of 33,000 square
kilometres in India; the boundary line in the middle sector is
relatively close to the delineation on the Chinese maps, but
still a number of areas which have always belonged to China are
included in India; and in the eastern sector the whole boundary
line is pushed northward, including in India an area of 90,000
square kilometres which originally belonged to China."

Renewed Chinese assertions that none of the boundary
had been delimited seemed to India "wholly incorrect... On that
basis" said Mr Nehra, "there can be no negotiations". The
arguments supporting the Chinese claims and the Indian replies,
as set out in the letters and notes exchanged over this period,
may be summarised as follows:

 

[Pintu]

-----------------------------------------------------------------Continuing----------------------------------------------------------


I. The Western Sector

This is the country traversed by the eastern boundary
of Kashmir. According to an Indian note of November 4, 1959,

"The maps published by the Suarvey of India since
1867-68 have been showing the boundary between Ladalch, on the
one hand, and Sinkiang and the Tibet region, on the.
other, as in the present day official maps published

[page 10]

by the Survey of India, Prom the Karakoram pass, this
boundary proceeds north-east via the Qara Tagh pass
and then follows the Kuen Lun range from a point 15
miles north of Haji Langar to Peak: 21,250 (Survey of
India) which lies east of longitude 80 east. This
line constitutes the watershed between the Indus system
in India and the Khotan system In China. From Peak
21,250 the boundary runs south down to Lanak La along
the western watershed of streams flowing Into lakes In
the Chinese territory."

Here the Indian case rests largely on a peace treaty
concluded in September 1842 between Tibet and the Raja of Jammu
(and later of Kashmir) who had invaded Western Tibet after
annexing Ladakh. The contracting parties are said to have
agreed that

"we shall neither at present nor in future have
anything to do or interfere at all with the boundaries
of Ladakh and its surroundings as fixed from ancient
times and will allow the annual export of wool, shawls
and tea by way of Ladakh according to the old
established custom."

Peking objected that the Chinese Central Government
of the day neither participated in the conclusion of the treaty
nor ratified it; moreover some SO per cent of the disputed area --
that is, Aksai Chin -- was "part of China's Sinkiang, which was
no party to the treaty", In any case the treaty says only that
Ladakh and Tibet will each abide by its borders, and does nothing
to indicate where these run, As for a Chinese government official's
statement in 1347 -- adduced by India -- that this section of
the boundary was clear, It could only show that the then Chinese
Government had its own clear view regarding this section, and
could not be taken as proof that it had already been formally
delimited. The British authorities in India several times,
notably in 1899 and between 1921 and 1927, proposed to delimit
this section of the boundary, but the Chinese did not agree.

Until lately Indian maps had shown either the vaguest
possible boundary in the western sector, or non at all. Only
since 1954 had the boundary suddenly become "delimited". Mr Nehru
himself had stated in the Lok Sabha on August 28, 1959, that "this
was the boundary of the old Kashmir state with Tibet and Chinese
Turkestan, Nobody had marked it". However "between China and
Ladakh ... there does exist a customary line derived from historical
traditions, and Chinese maps have always drawn the boundary
between China and Ladakh in accordance with this line". A
British map published in 1854 showed the border more or less
as shown on the Chinese maps; later British and Indian maps
"included large tracts of Chinese territory Into Ladakh. This
was without any legal grounds, nor in conformity with the actual
state of administration by each side at the time". But only
around Parigas had India In fact occupied any territory east of
the traditional boundary.
[page 11]

Furthers ore Aksai Ghin was of great importance to
China. It had always been a traffic artery linking Western Tibet
with Sinkiang, and the Ching dynasty had established check posts
there from the middle of the 18th century. The Chinese army had
entered Tibet by that route in 1950 and Chinese military and
civilian workers had built the new highway along it between March
1956 and October 1957, which the Chinese army had since
continually patrolled. Not till September 1958 did India, having sent
parties to intrude into the area, learn of these activities. How
then could India maintain that it had always been under Indian
jurisdiction?

Mr Nehru replied that 1842 treaty had been signed by
representatives of both the Dalai Lama and the Emperor of China
for "Kalon Sokon, one of the signatories, though by birth a Tibetan
had Chinese rank". Moreover the "Khagan of China" was named in
the Tibetan version of the treaty as a party to it. "It is true
that the 1342 treaty referred merely to the 'old established
frontiers'. This was because these frontiers were well known and did
not require any formal delimination". Moreover subsequent Chinese
actions indicated that China recognised the treaty. The British
proposal of 1899 "referred not to the eastern frontier of Ladakh
with Tibet, but to the northern frontier of Ladakh and Kashmir
with Sinkiang... China did not object to this proposal". Those
of 1921 and 1927 concerned only a few pasture grounds.

Accurate maps of the Ladakh area became possible only
after 1865, thanks to the work of exploration and survey parties
sent out by the Government of India. These "ascertained the
customary frontier on the basis of natural features and such
local evidence as was available". Most of the maps published
since then showed the Indian rather than the Chinese version of
she boundary. "Even official Chinese maps of the late 19th
century showed a boundary approximating to our line. It is only
in official Chinese maps of the 20th century that the Chinese
Government included large parts of our territory". That China
had pursued various activities in Akssi Chin proved nothing,

"This area is extremely difficult of access from
inhabited areas in western and southern Ladakh, and.
the Government of India had no reason to suspect that
the Government of China, with whom they had friendly
relations, would trespass into the area and construct
a road."

II, The Central Sector

Chou En-lai alleged that "for example, the area of
Sang and Tsungsha, south-west of Tsaparang Dzong in Tibet,
which had always belonged to China, was thirty to forty years
back gradually invaded and occupied by the British. The local
authorities of China's Tibet took up the matter several times
with Britain, without any results", India was now occupying

[page 12]

"Shipki Pass, Parigas, Sang, Tsungsha, Paling-Sumdo,
Chuva, Chuje, Sangcha and Lapthal. Most of these
places, which definitely belong to China, were occupied
successively by armed Indian personnel after the signing
of the 1954 Agreement... among them Puling-Sumdo is
one of the ten places which the Chinese Government
agreed to open as markets for trade in the Ari area"
- i.e. the south-west --" of the Tibet region of China
as specified in....the 1954 Agreement. Now... the
Chinese Government proposes that no armed personnel of
either side be stationed at any of them."

India had maintained that the specification in the 1954
Agreement of six passes in this area as "passages for traders and
pilgrims of both countries indicates that the Chinese Government
has already concurred in the Indian Government's opinion about
this sector of the boundary". But the boundary question was
never raised at that time.

New Delhi, on the other hand, adduced evidence of various
types to prove that these places were Indian territory. For
instance in the area of Chuva and Chuje, i.e. of the Spiti lley,
the "frontier is the major watershed between the Pare Chu all the
Spiti systems"; a map published in China in 1953 showed the
area within India.; Shipki Pass, the first of the six mentioned
in the 1954 Agreement, had always been Indian territory. Nilang
and Jadhang (corresponding to Tsungsha and Sang) had been
established or re-established by the Terhi Durbar in 1850 and
administered by Terhi until that state was merged in Uttar Pradesh in
1948. The inhabitants were of Garhwali stock, not Tibetan. india
was not occupying the trade mart called Puling-Sumdo. The Chinese
were confusing it with an Indian locality in the Nilang-Jadhang
area called Pulam-Sumda, whereas it was in fact the same place
as Poling in Tibet. Sangcha (or Sangcha Malla) and Lapthal with
Bara Hoti (Wuje) were established as Indian on the watershed
principle and by the facts of jurisdiction. Until 1958 no Chinese
had ever entered this area and no Chinese maps showed any part
of it as Chinese territory.

III. The Eastern Sector

"The Indian Government", wrote Chou En-lai on September
8, "insists that this section of the boundary has long been clearly
delimited, citing as its grounds that the so-called McMahon Line
was jointly delineated by representatives of the Chinese
Government, the Tibet local authorities and the British Government at
the 1913-1914 Simla Conference"... But this view was untenable
for several reasons. In any case "the so-called McMahon Line
was a product of the British policy of aggression against the
Tibet region of China and has never been recognised by any Chinese
Central Government and is therefore illegal. As to the Simla
treaty it was not formally signed by the representative of the
then Chinese Central Government, and this is explicitly noted in

[page 13]

the treaty..." Chou later argues that the Simla Convention
was farther invalidated in that Britain had bound itself to
negotiate with Tibet only through the intermediary of the
Chinese Government by an agreement concluded with Russia in
1907. The Chinese representative at the Conference declared
on July 3, 1914, that the "Chinese Government would not recognise
any treaty or similar document that might then or thereafter be
signed between Britain and Tibet".

The Sino-Indian boundary, according to Chou, was
correctly delineated in all. "traditional Chinese maps" and in the
map of Tibet and Adjacent Countries published by the Indian
Survey in 1917 and the map attached to the 1929 edition of the
Encyclopaedia Britannica. Then, in his letter of December 26,
writes that the McMahon Line

"was not adopted on the official map Tibet and Adjacent
Countries' published by the Survey of India in 1-938,
nor on the map India in the 6th edition of the
Oxfort Advanced Atlas, 1940... Neither was the
so-called McMahon Line followed in drawing the eastern
sector of the Sino-Indian boundary of the map India
1945 attached to the 1951 third edition in English
of the Discovery of India, written by Prime Minister
Nehru himself and first published in 1946."

Although the so-called McMahon Line was drawn on the
official maps of India published by the Survey of India in 1950,
1951 and 1952 it was still marked as undemarcated. Only in 1954
did the Survey mark the boundary as demarcated and up to 1958
on the map "China West and Tibet" in the Times Atlas of the World
the "traditional Sino-Indian boundary line" and the McMahon Line
were drawn with the words Disputed Area marked between them.
will these authoritative facts squarely refute the Indian
Government's arguments that this sector of the boundary has been
delimited"...

Chou further maintained that the MoMahon Line was
never intended to mark the Sino-Indian border. Consequently China's
failure in 1914 and lator to object to it proves only that "the
Chinese Government was completely unaware of the existence of the
so-called McMahon Line". However China did object to subsequent
developments.

"It was during the most difficult period of China'a
War of Resistance to Japanese aggression that the
so-called McMahon Line gradually and unofficially
appeared on Indian maps... Nevertheless, on
learning that Britain had gradually encroached on Chinese
territory south of the so-called McMahon Line, the
Kuomintang Government four times protested by
addressing notes to the British embassy in China, after the
conclusion of the Anti-Japanese war, in July, September
and November of 1946 and January of 1947. Since

[page 14]

Britain shifted its responsibility onto India, the
Kuomintang Government protested by note with the
Indian embassy in China in February 1947. Even up to
November 18, 1949, Lo Chia-lun, Ambassador to India
of the Chiang Kai-shek clique... delivered a note to
the Indian Ministry of External Affairs repudiating the
Simla Convention which the Indian Government held to
be valid."

Nor, said Mr Chou, did the facts of possession and
Jurisdiction advance the Indian case. The NEFA area "comprising
Monyul, Loyal and Lower Tsayul" had been under Tibetan
administration since the middle of the 17th century. Tibetan administrative
institutions in Monyul (the region adjacent to Bhutan) were
almost kept intact until 1951. In Loyul and Lower Tsayul, up
to 1946, the administrative organs of tso and din were
maintained quite extensively and the people continued to pay taxes
and render corv�e to the Lhasa authorities". In an agreement
concluded in 1353 by the British authorities with the Monbas,
the inhabitants of Monyul, these represent themselves as under
orders from the Regent of the "local government of the Tibet
Region". Agreements mentioned by India as concluded by the
British with the Abor and Aka tribes of the region showed that
their lands were not British territory.

In the view of Mr Nehru, on the. other hand. "the Chinese
representative at the Simla Conference was fully aware of the
McMahon Line boundary between India and Tibet"/ Indeed he
initialled both the Convention and the map attached to it which
showed this boundary and the boundaries between Outer and Inner
Tibet and between Tibet and China. The British Government
withheld publication of the Simla Convention for several years

"in thee hope that there would be an agreement about
the status and boundary of Inner Tibet. The Simla Con-
vention was published in the 1929 edition of 'Aitchison's
Treaties" and the McMahon Line was shown in the official
maps from 1937 onwards, These maps were circulated
widely but neither then nor subsequently was any
objection raised by the Chinese authorities."

It was the McMahon Line that correctly represented the
customary boundary in the area.

 

[Pintu]

-------------------------------------------------------------Continuing--------------------------------------------------------

"The water-parting formed by the crest of the Himalayas
is the natural frontier which was accepted for centuries
as the boundary by the peoples on both sides. The tribes
inhabiting the area south of the McMahon Line - the Monbas,
Akas, Daflas, Miris, Abors and Mishmis - are of the
same ethnic stock as the other hill tribes of Assam
and have no kinship with the Tibetans... (These tribes)
have not been affected in the slightest degree by any
Tibetan influence, cultural, political or other, and
this can only be due to the fact that the Tibetan
authorities have not exercised jurisdiction at any time
in this area."

[page 15]

Discrepancies between the earlier and later maps
(in this and other sectors) wars explained "in part" Toy the
fact that British cartographers usually "showed in their maps
the administrative boundaries irrespective of the actual
alignment of the frontier". Thus as administration moved forward,
the boundaries appeared as moving with it.

The Officials Report

Eventually Mr Chou, accompanied by the Chinese Foreign
Minister, Marsha1 Chen Yd, and others reached Delhi on April 19.
1960 and stayed a week. According to the subsequent communiqu�
the talks "led to a greater understanding of the views of the
two Governments, but ... did not result in resolving the
differences that had arisen". However, it was agreed that officials
from both sides should meet to examine the maps and other historical
material bearing on the boundary question, and draw up a report,
Before his departure Mr Chou confirmed earlier hints with the
remark that "as China was prepared to accommodate the Indian
point of view in the eastern sector, India should accommodate
China in the western sector."

Nineteen-sixty was happily free of serious border incidents.
Between Jane and December the two teams of officials met three
times at Peking, Delhi and Rangoon and, having adduced and
discussed evidence dating back to 400 B.C., delivered their report
on December 12. This ran in the Indian edition to 550 pages,
of which the Indian team's section covered almost 350. Each
side advanced. sector Toy sector of the frontier, arguments
derived from tradition and custom, treaties and agreements and
the state of administration and jurisdiction.

Concerning Ladakh

The article "Ladakh" of the 1956 edition of the
"Encyclopaedia Britannica "records that Ladakh, a Buddhist country
and until then subject to Lhasa -- see the article "Kashmir"
was "conquered" and annexed in 1834-1841 by Gulab Singh of Jammu
- the unwarlike Ladakhis being no match for the Dogra troops".
These were shortly "tempted to revive the claims of Ladakh to
the Chinese provinces of Rudok and Ngari. This, however, brought
down an army from Lhasa, and... the Indian force was almost
annihilated. ... The Chinese then marched on Leh but were soon
driven out again and peace was finally made on the basis of the
old frontier .

While the Indian team produced plenty of evidence based
on the 1642 treaty and later negotiations to show that there was
a traditional frontier and that it was well known at least to
the inhabitants of the region, none of it tended to show where
the frontier ran or that it was the one India now claimed. It
is indeed clear that north of Lanak La there is no traditional
frontier because neither Aksai Chin nor the adjacent part of Tibet
had until recently any population, except a very few nomads, or

[page 16]

any administration at all For instance Captain Wellby and
Lt. Malcolm, who entered Tibet at the latitude of Lansk La in
1896, travelled eastward for weeks without meeting a soul.

In the region of Lake Pangong however the evidence
seems largely conclusive in favour of the frontier claimed by
India or one very close to it. Captain Wellby, Captain Bower
who crossed Tibet from west to east in 1391, and other writers
of this period cited by the Indians, all put the frontier at
Lanak La. Further south Captain Wellby indicates that some kind
of Tibetan administration began east of Lake Treb (Dyap)
Niagzu was a no-man's-land. An Indian traveller mentioned by
the Indian team, who passed that way in 1373, makes the stream
at Niagau mark the border, but India now pats the border just
east of this place. South of Lake Pangong the frontier,
according to Captain Wellby, lay some distance east of Shushal (Chusul),
which is where India now puts it.

For Demchok the Indian case seems to receive little
support from the records. The Indians cite Alexander Cunningham,
who visited Ladakh in 1846, as writing that the frontier had
been fixed at a place called Dechhog which, the Indians say, is
Demchok. But according to the Chinese "Tibet, a book written
under the direction of the historical section of the British
Foreign Office in 1920 states.. that The frontier crosses the
Indus about 25 miles below Demchok (330 north) '" This certainly
helps the Chinese case.

The Indian side asserted that people from the
neighbouring villages of Ladakh had regularly collected salt from
salt lakes and grazed their beasts in "the Lingzi Tang and Aksai
Chin areas", and showed that sportsmen from India had been
accustomed to enter the valley of the Chang Chenmo. Moreover
these three areas were traversed by two well known caravan routes
by which the Ladakbis traded with Sinkiang. "The Kashmir State
authorities", said the Indians, "looked after the maintenance of
these routes right up to the traditional boundary and even built
rest houses and store houses for the benefit of the traders using
these routes."

To this the Chinese replied that "the area east of the
traditional customary line between Sinkiang and Ladakh pointed
out by the Chinese aide" had always been used for pasture and
salt mining by Vighurs and Kirghiz from Sinkiang The names used
in the area belonged to "the Turkie language" of these people,
"Aksai Chin" for instance meaning "Chin's Desert of White Stones".
Further south, the local Tibetans had been accustomed to pasture
in the areas of Niagzu and Damchok.

Indian patrols, according to the Indian side, had
"constantly" visited Lanak La and the area further north - about one
a year going to one part or other of the region between 1954 and
1958. Moreover up to 1914 tha Indian government sent a number
of surveying parties into the Aksai Chin area. These in the

[page 17]

1860s and 1970s found the southern boundary of the slate of
Yarkand in Sinkiang to be at Shahiaulla (well to the north of
the frontier claimed lay India) while the state of Khotan considered
its southern- boundary to be where India claimed it to be, on
the Kuen Lun. However the Chinese attempted to impugn the reports
of these parties as deriving from British efforts to detach
Sinkiang from Chins in collusion with the Khokandi adventurer
Yakub Beg who rules southern Sinkiang from 1365 to 1877. They
also cited a work by a certain Colonel Schomberg, published in
1936, who wrote that "the Karakoram mountains form the northern
frontier of the present state of Kashmir".

For Demchok, the Indians demonstrated a continuous
Indian administration by producing a tour report of the governor
of Ladakh in 1904-05, a revenue settlement report for 1906,
revenue records from 1901 to 1948 and a census report of 1921.
This seems to have given Demchok a population of four - which
shows, said the Chinese, that India knew nothing about the place
The Indians similarly proved Indian administration of Minsar.
The Chinese, on the other hand, averred that "authoritative Chinese
official annals have recorded that jurisdiction in the southern
part of Hotien (Khotan) extended up to the mountains, i.e. the
Karakoram mountains (also termed Tsung Ling), around the sources
of the Karakash river..." In Chinese eyes the traditional
customary line" in Akeai Chin runs from the Karakoram pass to
the Kongka pass.

 

[Pintu]

---------------------------------------------------------Continuing---------------------------------------------------------

Precision vs Vagueness

The Indian claims concerning the alignment of the
frontier have at least the merit of precision. In the western
sector the Indian version of the border is roughly the same as
that drawn on most maps published in the West, for instance the
Bartholomew naps appearing in the Times Atlas of 1958, except
that the latter show Demchok and the area of Niagzu within Tibet.
Peking's claims, on the other hand, are distinguished by a vagueness
no doubt in keeping with its assertion that the frontier has
never been demarcated, but equally calculated to serve its
purposes at the conference table and on the ground. In his letter
of December 17, 1959 Chou En-lai stated that a Chinese map of
1956 correctly shows the traditional boundary in the western
sector. The reference apparently is to a Wall Map of the People's
Republic of China published in the January of that year, which
seems to show at all points the alignment the most favourable
for China of all those that have figured on Chinese maps in the
past thirty years or so.

All the maps, sketchy as they are, attached to recent
official Chinese publications concerning the border dispute seem
to be based on this map. The Indian team complained, however, that
the map now provided by the Chinese claimed a few thousand square
miles more than even the extravagant claim to Indian territory
in the 1956 map". Whereas their 1956 line followed the watershed
between the Shyok and Karakash rivers the new line cut the upper

[page 18]

Shyok (or Chip Chap) river south-east of the Karakoram pass and
continued due south and then south-east incorporating a
considerable portion of the Deepsang plains. Further south the
1960 line cut across the western arm of Lake Pangong and took
in the whole of Lake Spanggur. Which line was the more authentic?
The Chinese denied any discrepancy, but here as elsewhere they
concentrated rather on attacking the boundaries claimed by India,

Cartographic Evidence

On the cartographic side the Indian team produced a
number of maps of both Indian and Chinese origin showing the
northern boundary running along the Kuen Lun and approximately
as far east as India now claims- For the Chinese case the only
serious support appears to come from maps published by British
India in the first half of the 19th century, when the parts north
of Ladakh were little known, and in particular a map of the
Northern Frontier of British Hindoos tan "extracted in the Surveyor
General's Office Calcutta from Keith Johnston's Atlas, 1860",
According to the Indian side, this map was "only lithographed by
the Survey of India for purposes of record and could not be said
to represent the views of the Government of India. C1early
Johnston had not yet become cognizant of the latest surveys". In
fact the Indians mention no surveys as having penetrated into the
far north by this date.

While the late 19th century maps certainly seem to help
the Indian case in this distant region, it is not clear that they
do so further south. For instance's detailed map published at
Leipzig in 1880 which helps Indians in Aksai Chin clearly shows
Niagzu and Demchok in Tibet; so does the map attached to the
Gazetteer of Kashmir and Ladakh (Simla 1891) though it does not
mark Demchok by name. "The Chinese side", in the words of the
Indian report, "brought forward official maps of 1865, 1903 1917,
1929 and 1918 and said that the boundary had not been shown
But this, replied the Indians, was because the maps were meant
for internal circulation; for this purpose they had only to show
internal divisions. The Chinese also adduced Indian maps of
1945 and 1950 showing the whole of the frontier west of Nepal
indicated, very approximately, by a colour wash and the words
Frontier Undefined. According to the Indians "this only indicated
that the boundary bad not been demarcated on the ground or defined
in detail from point to point. That there was no doubt about the
limits of Indian territory was clear from the fact that both these
maps carried a colour wash right up to the traditional boundary'1.
Of course this did not explain why the boundary was subsequently
shown as defined.

There is no reason to doubt that the frontier drawn
along the Kuen Lun by moat British cartographers of the last
century corresponded, to the political situation as they found
it. Strategic motives also may have influenced them for Aksal
Chin does in fact provide a road into India from the north,
however difficult. But this desolate tract, all of it over 13,000
feet, clearly has no other value to India -- provided her
relations with her neighbours are normal -- and is cut off from Kashmir

[page 19]

by the Karakoram range, which runs south-east and northwest.
As Chou En-lai remarked. on one occasion. Nehru himself had
admitted that it was very difficult to reach from the Indian
side.

On the other hand, while neither side can plausibly
claim a record of administration in the area, Aksai Chin plays
an important part in the communications of Tibet with Sinkiang.
An impartial judge might perhaps allow the Chinese a fair claim
to Aksai Chin or some part of it, and to Niagzu (with Khurnak
Fort close by) and Demchok, trifling places that would present
no problem if Sino-Indian relations were normal. But elsewhere
in eastern Kashmir the Indian line is clearly correct. China
seems never to have produced any avidence in favour of a frontier
at Kongka La.

The 1954 Treaty

In the central sector the Indians produced a good
deal of documentary and cartographic evidence in support of the
boundary claimed by them in the Spiti valley, at Shipki La, in
the Nilang-Jadhang area and at Bara Hoti. They also maintained
that the 1954 treaty had been so drafted, at Indian instance.
as to make it clear that the. six passes by which people might
enter Tibet were border passes, while the Chinese held that the
wording finally adopted was designed to avoid raising the question
of ownership. Since, as both aides admitted, the treaty had no
relation to the border question, the Chinese seem to have had
slightly the better of this argument. However it is possible to
sympathise with Indian complaints that at that time the Chinese
never gave any sign that they had a major claim against India in
the Tibet region. The Indians also complained that the Chinese
had consolidated their previous claim to the three localities of
Wuje, Sangcha Malla and Lapthal into, a claim to the whole area
lying between them.

On their side the Chinese produced little in the way .
of documentary evidence concerning this part of the frontier,
relying mainly on alleged facts of custom and administration,
"It was in 1958", they said, "that Chuva and Chuje were occupied
by India, and the administrative jurisdiction which had long
been exercised by China's Tibet there could not but be broken
off"; China had similarly administered the area west of the
Shipki pass, until Indian soldiers entered the region in 1957.
At Sang and Tsungsha the British had begun to encroach around
1919.

The Chinese further quote It,-Col. F.M. Bailey, then
political officer in Sikkim, as writing in 1928, that "in 1926
and 1927... the Tibetan officers at the border collected taxes
from the people of Tsung (i.e. Tsungsha) and Sang"; as stating
moreover that "the view of the Indian Government is; The "village
north of Tsung called "Sang and the pastures and places above
it... belong to Tibet". But the Tibetan authorities, said the

[page 20]

Chinese, could not accept this because Taungsha was not recognised
as Tibetan also. Indian troops, they went on, first occupied these
two places in 1952 and Puling Bunido, north of them, in 1955. Wuje
was occupied by India in 1954, and Samgcha and Lapthal "even later".

 

[Pintu]

----------------------------------------------------------------Continuing------------------------------------------------------------


The McMahon Line

Chinese political contacts with Tibet go "back well over
1,000 years. For present purposes they may be said to date from
the 15th century when Kublai Khan appointed as sovereign of
Tibet the head of the monastery of Sakya south-west of Shigatse.
This lama had long resided at his court and had, in particular,
done him the service of providing the Mongols with an alphabet.
The relationship of the ruler of Tibet with the ruler of China
at this period and later has been described as that of chaplain
and patron, the Tibetan ruler owing a personal allegiance to the
Chinese Emperor. This connexion with China disappeared with the
end of the Mongol dynasty. It was not renewed until 1720 when
the Chinese Emper or K'ang Hsi of the Manchu dynasty sent an army
to Lhasa which expelled an invading Mongol a my and restored
a youthful Dalai Lama whom factional quarrels had driven from
the country. Henceforward one or two Chinese officials known
as Ambans were stationed at Lhasa to represent the Emperor and
assure him a voice in Tibetan affairs.

From about 1855, when a Gurkha army invaded Tibet
and secured for Nepal important privileges, the authority of
China in Tibet dwindled almost to nothing. Thus in 1904 Tibet
signed with Britain in consequence of an" expedition sent to Lhasa
by the Indian government a treaty which, in the words of Mr H.E.
Richardson's recent history of Tibet, "was a clear
acknowledgment of Tibet's direct power to make treaties and... contained
nothing whatever to suggest the sovereignty of, or even any
special connection, with China". However the Amban refused to.
sign and subsequent Anglo-Chinese and Anglo-Russian conventions
of 1906 and 1307, concluded without reference to the Tibetans,
recognised Chinese suzerainty -- whatever that might mean--over
the country.

China followed up this advantage by sending a Manchu
general, Chao Erh-feng, to bring under Chinese control the
Sino-Tibetan border area, a task he performed with much savagery.
In 1910 a detachment of his army marched to Lhasa and installed
a Chinese administration, but the Chinese revolution of the
following year enabled the Tibetans to eject the invaders and declare
independence. However the young Chinese Republic announced an
intention of bringing Tibet firmly under Chinese sovereignty,
the fact of which was then and later treated as axiomatic.

The Simla Conference

For some months before the Simla Conference the Chinese
endeavoured to obtain prior acceptance of their claims over Tibet,

[page 21]

but finally consented to attend the Conference on equal terms
with Tibet and Britain, since Britain would otherwise have
negotiated with Tibet alone. In the event, the Simla
Convention recognised Chinese suzerainty over Tibet but provided that
Tibet should manage its own affairs, Foreign affairs and defence
were not specifically mentioned.
The Conference also had the task of determining the

Tibetan frontisrs These, as finally fixed under the inspiration
of Sir Henry McMehon, distinguished an Outer Tibet under the full
control of the Lhasa Government from a more easterly Inner Tibet
where China was allowed to station troops and officials. Sir
Henry's famous Line defined the entire external boundary of Tooth
Tibets to the north, east and south-east. The section of it
hat fixed Tiber's boundary with India was agreed upon by direct
negotiations between the British, and Tibetan plenipotentiaries
without Chinese intervention, while the remainder of it was
discussed by all three parties, Although expressing
dissatisfaction with the boundaries allotted to Tibet the Chinese representative,
Ivan Chen, initialled the draft Convention, but the Chinese
government thereafter refused to sign it. Finally it was signed by
Britain and Tibet alone.

Since the inception of the dispute Over the frontier
east of Bhutan the Chinese have always maintained this
Covention to be invalid as, among other things, an "unequal treaty
imposed by force majeure. The Chinese side "pointed out"
therefore that the Conference and Convention were "an important step
taken by Britain in its plot to invade Tibet and carve out Tibet
from Chinese territory". Profiting from the upheaval of 1911
"Britain flagrantly instigated the Tibet local government to
launch a rebellion and openly declare independence'"... And it
was only British pressure obliged China to attend the Conference.

Besides China never signed the Convention: "Now the
Indian side... openly stated that the non-adherence of the
Chinese Government was irrelevant as far as the Governments of
India and Tibet were concerned. " But this stand implied a denial
of Chinese sovereignty over Tibet and was therefore inadmissible.
Although the Indian side maintained that Tibet as a sovereign or
virtually sovereign country had the right to conclude treaties
separately with foreign countries, the Tibetan signature of the
Simla Convention was in fact quite illegal. Moreover the various
Chinese protests from 1946 proved that China did not recognise
the frontier constituted by the McMahon Line.

Nor in fact did the Conference ever discuss the
Indo-Tibetan border; letters on this subject were exchanged by the
British and Tibetan representatives behind the back of the
Chinese representative. "The Indian side asserted that... the
British representative McMahon proposed that he should first go
into the question of the limits of Tibet with the representative
of the Tibet region. The Indians said that the Chinese
representative agreed to this proposal, and that implied agreement to the
British representative and the Tibet local representative to

[page 22]

discuss the Sino-Indian boundary", But "the several statements
made by the Tibet local representative... were all clearly
restricted to the specific limits of Tibet adjoining the other
parts of China, and had nothing to do at all with the
Sino-Indian boundary".

On the map drawn to illustrate the boundaries of Tibet
proposed by Sir Henry McMahon, which was initialled or signed
by all three plenipotentiaries, the external boundary was marked
in red, and the boundary dividing Outer from Inner Tibet in blue.
"Why was it", asked the Chinese,

"that the British representative, in the map submitted
to the plenary session of the Conference drawn with the
red and blue lines made the so-called McMahon Line as
only a section of the red line dividing the Tibet regi
from the rest of China... How can the Sino-Indian
boundary be regarded as delimited without any
explanations or discussions but only on the basis of a proposed
line... purporting to represent an internal administrative
division in China?"

The Chinese further adduced certain facts which they
alleged to prove a Tibetan administration south of the northern
boundary of NEFA, where they divide the area claimed by them
into three districts called, from west to east, Monyul, Loyal
and Lower Tsayul. For instance "Around 1945 the British came
northwards along the Tsangpo rivet and intruded to the vicinity
of Karko north of the traditional customary boundary as maintained
by the Chinese side... In the directive issued by the local
authorities of the Tibet region to the Dzongpen (administrator)
of Pemakoe in 1947", it was reiterated: It is learnt that last
year and this year British officers and men came to the area
between Karko... and the lower Shichu Elver.... and occupied the
above mentioned land and held the inhabitants as their own'".

For Monyul, the Chinese quote the geographer Kingdon
Ward as writing in 1938 or thereabouts that "Monyul is in fact
an outlying district of Tibet like the Chumbi Valley. And Tawang
is controlled by Tsona Dzong, an important but small district".
headquarter, east of Gyantse on the southern plateau of Tibet",
The Chinese further asserted that a number of official Indian
maps supported their case. For many years after 1914, they said,
Britain dared not put the McMahon line frontier on its maps;
the Line first appeared on Indian maps around 1937.

The Indians held that the Tibetan power to sign treaties
had been recognised by other countries, and notably by China, on
several occasions. In fact the 1956 treaty between China and
Nepal atated: "all treaties and documents which existed in the
past between China and Nepal including those between the Tibet
Region of China and Nepal are hereby abrogated". That Tibet had
had until recently full control of her affairs appeared, in
particular, from the fact that "as late as 1942-43, when Britain
and China were allies in war", British, Chinese and American

 

[Pintu]

----------------------------------------------------------Continuing-----------------------------------------------------------------

[page 23]

pressure could not induce the Tibetan Government to abandon its
neutrality and allow warlike supplies for Chins to cross its
territory. Moreover "During and after the Conference China never
disputed the equal status of the Tibetan plenipotentiary... At
no time did China mention the equal status of Tibet as one of her
reasons for refusing to accept the... Convention", The Indians
might have added that in late 1947 New Delhi offered to deal with
the Tibetan Government exactly as with "all other countries with
which India has inherited treaty relations from His Majesty's
Government".

The NEFA Tribes.

A good deal of evidence was produced on the Indian side
to show that British officials had exercised authority over the
tribes of the NEFA area. For instance in 1896-97 "the Monbas
assured the Deputy Commissioner that they would not force their
hill salt upon the people of the neighbouring plains for rice
at any rate other than the fair and recognised one. An
expedition was sent to the Apa Tanang (Dafla) area to punish them for
a murder they had committed". The Annual Report on the Frontier
Tribes for 1914-15 stated "that certain Padam Abor villages) and
certain Mishmi villages were assessed for poll tax. The Wishmis
were behaving satisfactorily"... In April 1959 the Governor of
Assam proposed the sending of an expedition to punish the Miji
and Miri Akaa, who "were in the habit of raiding and plundering-
the Monba villages and exacting illegal tributes from them";
and so on. Moreover the NEFA area had been constantly traversed
by British survey parties. As for the maps mentioned by the ...
Chinese, they showed the administrative Inner line dividing the
tribal areas from the plains districts of Assam. Many maps published
by the Survey of India showed the tribal areas beyond the Inner
the by a distinct colour wash.

One at least of the NEFA tribes had close connexions
with Tibet (Nehru seems to have been misinformed on this point) .
The Monbas of the north-western areas and of the northern border
generally are lamaistic Buddhists, have been strongly influenced
by Tibelt in their culture and customs, speak a Tibetan dialect
and use the Tibetan script Their metropolis is the monastery
of Tawang. Two or three more tribes of the northern border are
Buddhist. None of the other NEFA languages and dialects -- there
are forty or fifty in all -- appears to have any significant
connexion with Tibetan and the great majority of the people have
affinities rather with the Nagas, the Shans of Burma and the Assam
tribes south of the Brahmaputra.

The history of administration in NEFA appears to start
with the enactment in 1873 of a set of Inner Line Regulations
designed to isolate the poor but warlike tribesmen from the
people of the plains and save the Indian Government the trouble
and expense of giving them a regular administration. Successive
Indian Governments have continued this policy, partly for
reasons of security and partly to protect the tribes from the
inroads of land-hungry peasants from Bengal and Assam and
predatory tradesmen and money-lenders.

[page 24]

Dirang Dzong and Tawang

British attention was attracted to India's north-east
frontier by the proceedings of General Chao Erh-feng, who sent a
party into the upper Lohit valley, and the Chinese expedition to
Lhasa. Outposts of the Assam Rifles were established on tracks
leading into Tibet via Dirang Dzong and the Siang (Dihang) and
Lohit (Tsayul) rivers In 1911 the area was divided into
administrative districts which were several times remodelled and
renamed, and from about 1942 the British Government in India
began to bring the whole area under direct control, presumably
to forestall any designs on it harboured by the Japanese, then
in Burma, or by Kuomintang China. Dirang Dzong was apparently
occupied in 1944.

This process was continued with a minimum of publicity
by independent India which, as Mr Nehru put it (letter of
September 26, 1959), "decided as a matter of policy to bring these
frontier areas under more direct administrative control to enable
them to share in the benefits of a welfare state subject to the
protection of their distinct social and cultural patterns".
Regular administration came to what is now the Subansiri
Division from about 1949 and to Tawang in February 1931. The present
"Divisions of the area - Kameng, Subanairi, Siang, Lohit and
Tirap date from 1954. A sixth Division, Tueosang, was
transferred to the Naga Hills-Tuensang area in 1956.

The work No Passport to Tibet of Lt-Col.Bailey, published
in 1957, describes the exploration that preceded the fixing of
the Indo-Tibetan frontier in 1914. With companion , a surveyor,
Colonel (then Captain) Bailey investigated the ethnic, geographic
and customary borders of Tibet in this region and makes if clear
that the frontier adopted at Simla was. in general, the correct
one . But, he remarks, "in drawing this frontier the Tibetans
made certain concessions... in return for the Indian Government
guaranteeing the Simla Convention. Tawang for example and Dirang
Dsong were ceded to the Indian Government".

Britain's and now India's motives for interest in this
district appear clearly from a note addressed to Sir Henry
McMahon by the British Chief of General Staff in India at the
time of the Simla Conference:

The present boundary is south of Tawang running
westward along the foothills from near Udalgiri to the southern
Bhutan border and thus a dangerous wedge of territory
is thrust in between the Miri country and Bhutan. A
comparatively easy and much used trade route traverses
this wedge, from north to south of which the Chinese
would be able to exert influence or pressure on Bhutan...
Rectification of the boundary here is therefore
imperative"...

It was by this route that came the main Chinese
onslaught in 1962.

 

[Pintu]

----------------------------------------------------------------Continuing--------------------------------------------------------------

[page 25]

The Status of Tibet

Peking's condemnation of the Sim-la Conference and all
its works rests on an essentially propagandist account of
Sino-Tibetan relations over the centuries. Certainly Tibet has never
been, as China claims it to be, an "integral part" of China, and
since the late 19th century Tibet had, for all purposes, de facto
independence. The formal declaration of Tibetan independence
in 1911 was clearly a natural consequence of this development,
of General Chao's incursion and of the Chinese revolution which
absolved the Dalai Lama from his allegiance to the Emperor. Nor
is it true that Britain designed to annex Tibet or detach it
completely from China; Britain wanted a stable Tibet with a
status that would salve both Chinese and Tibetan susceptibilities
and provide a firm barrier to Chinese and Russian encroachments.

By far the best argument for this part of the Chinese
case is that the Indian Government itself appears to share the
Chinese view of Britain's Tibetan policy. There is in fact a
deep contradiction between official Indian thinking on Tibet
and the Indian stand on the border question. Bid not Pandit Nehru
himself, remark the Chinese, say in the Lok Sabha on March 17,
1959 that "So far as I know there is not one country in the world
which recognised the independence of Tibet, We definitely have
not"? But as the Dalai Lama pointed out in a speech on September
7, 1959 -- apparently in pursuit of his efforts to win
international recognition of Tibetan sovereignty -- if you deny the
validity of the sovereign status of Tibet you deny the validity
of the Simla Convention and of the McMahon Line". Indian replies
were confused and unconvincing.

The Chinese objections ot the McMahon Line as a
Sino-Indian border have no firmer basis. The maps on whicli it was drawn
show clearly that the line was intended to trace not the Indo-Tibetan
or Sino-Tibetan boundary but the Tibetan boundary without
qualification, While there may be a case for including the NEFA in
Tibet (as opposed to India) there is none whatever for including
it in China (as opposed to Tibet). Indeed all the Chinese
arguments from the alleged facts of custom and administration in the
area are designed to give it a Tibetan rather than a Chinese
character, which it has never possessed.

However the Chinese case does receive some slight
cartographic corroboration. Since the early years of this
century Chinese maps have generally shown a purely imaginary eastern
boundary of Tibet running north and south no more than sixty
miles from Lhasa. This line terminates at the southern boundary
of the NEFA, which is thus theoretically divided between Tibet
and China. But one map published in China in 1951, besides
giving Tibet an eccentric meandering border in the east, places
the NEFA area wholly within China This map does at least show
that the Chinese arguments about the nature of the McMahon Line
have a real basis in Chinese thinking and were not simply
invented for the occasion. Possibly this delineation is connected

[page 26]

with the various protests against British and Indian activities
in the NEFA lodged by the Kuomintang Government in the immediately
preceding years, which suggest that China had conceived more or
less recently hopes of occupying the NFA area that were dashed
when Britain and India began methodically to extend their
administration over it.

Tibet's 1947 Protest

The Tibetan protest of October 16, 1947 evidences a
similar feeling in Tibet. As quoted in Mr Nehru's letter of
September 26, 1959, the Tibetans

"asked for the return of alleged Trbetsn territories.
on boundaries of India and Tibet such as Sayul and Wa
long and in direction of Femakoe, Lonag, Lopa, Mon,
Bhutan, Sikkim, Darjeeling and others on this side of
river Ganges and Lowo , Ladakh etc up to boundary of
Yarkhim."

However exaggerated, this protest was not entirely
with-out foundation, Col. Bailey ascertained, for instance, that south
and south-west of Tsela Dsong there was a certain Tibetan ethnic
and sovereign "spill-over" into the NEFA region. Obviously the
Tibetans would be irritated if, in the 1940s, long standing
arrangements were upset by the advance of British and Indian
administration

Chinese maps have usually shown India's north-eastern
boundary with Tibet along the line roughly of the Himalayan
foothills, a few miles north of the Brahmaputra, which is the line
China now claims. However the Chinese have never adduced any
positive evidence in its support or described it with any
precision. Nor could the Indian team, on the other hand, really say why
India's border in this area should suddenly become "demarcated".
The Indian note of February 12, 1960 explains that "from 1938
to 1952 the Survey of India showed this boundary by an undemarocated
symbol, because in fact the boundary had not been demarcated on
the ground. As. however, the traditional boundary lay along a
major watershed the Government of India decided in 1954 that no
demarcation on the. ground was necessary. The undemarcated symbol
was therefore omitted in subsequent maps"...

This is a little thin perhaps, though better than any
Indian explanation of the sudden demarcation of the boundary in
Ladskh. Nonetheless the McMahon Line is undoubtedly the natural
geographic boundary. If rejected this will be the only point
east of Kashmir (except for the Chumbi salient between Sitkkim and
Bhutan) where the boundary either of India or of a border state
more or less closely enfeoffed to India fails to follow the crest
of the Himalayas. Indeed the Sino Burmese Agreement of January
1960 adopted, after long discussion, the watershed principle and
with it some 120 miles of the McMahon Line -- as adumbrated by
Chou En-lai -- for the boundary between the two countries.

 

[Pintu]

----------------------------------------------------Continuing--------------------------------------------------------------------

[page 27]

Manoearring in Ladakh

In Ladakh, as Mr Nehru observed, there was complete
disagreement about the facts of possession, Chou En-lai's letter
of December 17, 1959 equates, rather ambiguously, the "line of
actual control with the "traditional boundary", namely the one
shown on China's 1956 map. This position was clearly assumed
for reasons chiefly tactical. The true line of control -- in
reality, say the Indians, no more than a series of isolated
strongpoints -- seems to have been generally farther east.
Indian sources, and notably an Indian letter of November 14,1962,
show the Chinese as holding in November 1959 Hagi Langar, Kongka
La and a place called Shamal Lungpa a little to the north-west,
Dambu Guru further south, Khurnak fort, Suriah and Mandal in the
region north of lake Pangong and Spanggur at the western end of
the lake of that name, India held Demchok. From about mid-1959
the Chinese appear to have started a second programme of
road-building in Aksai Chin, west of the first road. The new Western
Ladakh Highway is stated to run "from Lanak La to Kanaka La and
along the bed of the Qara Qash "River". It materially aided a
further Chinese push to the west.

An Indian note of October 31, 1961 asserts that in autumn
1960 a Chinese patrol approached Daulat Beg Oldi, a little
south of the Karakuram pass. In May 1961 the Chinese were again
pushing forward towards Chusul, where India had long had an
airstrip. Some time before June the Chinese occupied Dehra
Compass and by September they were found to have planted a post
on the Chip Chap river 17 miles south- east of D.B. O1di where
an "important new post", apparently one of half a dozen in Ladakh,
had been built by India. The Chinese post, which was connected
by road with Qizil Jilga, brought the Chinese to their 1360
claim. line in this quarter. Other Chinese posts were established
at Niagzu and Dambu Guru and the Chinese occupied Hot Spring. A
further Chinese push, about the end of 1961, led to the
establishment of what the Indian protest called a "patrol camp" , twelve
miles west of the former camp on the Chip Chap, In early 19621
new Chinese posts appeared some few miles south-east of Spanggur
and six miles west of Sumbo while India renewed (May 14) her
former suggesion that the forces of each side should withdraw
to the boundary claimed by the other. India also announced her
willingness, in-the interests of a peaceful settlement, to
allow the Aksai Chin road to be used by Chinese civilian traffic.

Notes on the situation in Ladakh flew back and forth
ever more frequently as each side accused the other with rising
vehemence of intrusion and prorogation. In a note dated April
27, replying to an Indian protest against the establishment of
the post near Sum do, the Chinese affirmed that the place was
deep within Chinese territory, but denied that any post had
been set up there. To an Indian protest of July 10 alleging
encirclement by Chinese troops of an Indian post in the lower
Galwan valley (730 38 east) Peking replied that, on the contrary,
Indian troops had cut off from its rear a Chinese post on the
Gklwan at 780 26 east. On July 21 shots were exchanged between

[page 28]

patrols in both the Chip Chap valley and the region of Lake
Pangong.

Pandit Nehru had in fact mentioned in Parliament on
June 2 0 that "Indian movements" sometimes went behind Chinese
positions. It was doubtless thanks to these tactics that he was
able to tell the Bajya Sabhs on August 22 that of a. total of
some 12,000 square miles of Indian-claimed territory occupied
by China in Ladakh, about 2,500 square .miles had been "recovered".

At the other end of the frontier incidents had so far
remained of a minor nature. India complained for instance that
on June 3. 1960, a Chines a patrol of 25 men "moved into Iaktsang
Gompa which is about 4 1/2 miles inside Indian territory".
Another Chinese intrusion occurred in the first week of July
1961 near Chemokarpola in the Kameng division. India also allege
triflingi incursions in the region of Jelep La in India's
protectorate of Sikkim. China on the other Viand, complained of the
activities of Tibetan refugees. Thus "on November 10, 1960 a
band of armed Tibet rebel bandits numbering a hundred or so "
who had taken refuge in the NEFA, surrounded Pangtse village in
Tibet and "forcibly kidnapped 42 able-bodied youths and men
from that village and fled south of the so-called McMahon Line
by the Lo pass". New Delhi rejected Chinese suggestions of
Indian complicity in this raid or in the detention of the
persons mentioned: no Tibetan or Chinese nationals in India are
prevented from returning to their homeland if they so wish, On
the other hand, India, having granted asylum to these refugees,
cannot force them to return to China". This correspondence went
on for some time, with Peking unable to see the joke. Each
side meanwhile accused the other of violating its "air space" in
this sector and elsewhere.

 

[Pintu]

-------------------------------------------------------------------Continuing-------------------------------------------------------

Clash of Arms

From early September fighting flared up near the
eastern border of Bhutan. A Chinese communiqu� of September 16, 1962
alleged that "Indian troops recently again crossed the so-called
McMahon Line, intruded into Chedong of the Le village (approximately
27[o] 40' N., 91[o] 4S B.) in China and constructed barracks and
defence works".... India's reply of September 17 asserted that
the boundary began at approximately 91[o] 40'E. and 27[o] 48'N. and
ran east along the crest of the Thagla ridge. No Indian forces
bad ever crossed this boundary. China asserted that, on the
contrary, Indian troops had harassed a Chinese sentry post about
1 1/2 kilometers east of Chedong at Chejao bridge; this appears
to span a tiny stream called the Kechilang, which is shown on
Chinese maps as running just north of the frontier- Pour days
later New Delhi protested that Chinese forces had, that very
day and the day before, fired on an Indian patrol post near the
Indian post of Dhola (corresponding to Chedong).

On October 10 the New China News Agency reported that

[page 29]

"aggressive Indian troops" had intruded north of Chedong
"recklessly crossed the Kechilang river" and "launched successive
armed attacks against Chinese frontier guards". Pandit Nehru
however proclaimed that the Indian troops had been instructed"
to throw the Chinese out of NEFA, and some attempt was made
to push the Chinese back to the Thagla ridge. The Chinese
meanwhile re occupied Longju and, on October 20, launched a general
offensive in both the NEFA and Ladakh.

Tawang fell on October 24 and ear the same date
Chou En-lai put a three-point proposal to Pandit Nehru:

"(l) Both parties affirm that the Sino-Indian boundary
question must be settled peacefully though
negotiations. Pending a peaceful settlement the Chinese
Government hopes that the Indian Government will agree
that both parties respect the line of actual control
along the entire Sino-Indian border, and the armed
forces of each side withdraw 20 kilometres from this
line and disengage.

"(2) Provided that the Indian Government agrees to
the above proposal, the Chinese Government is willing...
to withdraw its frontier guarda in the eastern sector..
to the north of the line of actual control; at the
same time, both China and India undertake not to cross
the line of actual control, i.e. the traditional
customary line, in the middle and western sectors...

"(3)... Talks should be held once again by the Prime
Ministers of China and India"...

But the Indian Government replied, still on October 24,
"What is this line of actual control'? Is this the line (the
Chinese) have created by aggression since the beginning of
September? Advancing 40 or 60 kilometres by blatant military
aggression and offering to withdraw 20 kilometres provided both
sides do this is a deceptive device which can fool nobody".
And India repeated a previous demand that the Chinese justify
their professions of peace by reverting "at least" to their
position of September B, before the recent fighting started.
"My colleagues and I", wrote Mr Nehru three days later, "are
not able to understand the niceties of the Chinese three-point
proposals which talk about lines of actual control 'etc"...
For this they cannot perhaps be blamed (subsequent Chinese
statements interpret the first half of Point 2 as meaning only that
China would withdraw 20 miles behind the McMahon Line).

 

[Pintu]

----------------------------------------------------------Continuing-----------------------------------------------------------

Bomdi La Falls

Further correspondence having proved equally fruitless,
the Chinese resumed their advance, Walong, in the Lohit valley,
fell on November 16. The Chinese were now at the head of tracks
running down towards the Assamese towns of Tezpur and Sadiya,
and able to threaten India's main oilfield. Se La, nearly 14,000

[page 30]

feet high, the main Indian position south of Tawang was stormed
and outflanked and Bomdi La, the headquarters of the Kameng
Division, fell on November 19. From there the Chinese pushed
on to the edge of the Assam plain; Tezpur was evacuated in
something like panic.

The Indian forces appeared to be heavily outnumbered
and bewildered by the unorthodox tactics of the Chinese. In
Ladakh, of sixteen Indian posts -- according to an official
statement -- four fell in the first days of the Chinese offensive
and the forces in seven more, having "successfully repulsed the
attacks on them", retreated in good order. Peking however claimed
the capture of ten Indian strongpoints in the Chip Chap and Galwan
valleys in the first days of the fighting; indeed Chou En-lai's
Point 2 indicates that the Chinase had already gained or regainel
all the ground they wanted in this region. Daulat Beg Oldi was
abandoned at the beginning of November.

China's Cease-Fire

Through oat these proceedings Peking termed the Chinese
forces involved frontier guards", and presented their progress
as a natural sequel to the ill-success of Indian onslaughts. On
November 21 Peking announced that its frontier guards" had been
ordered to cease fire all along the line from the following day.
They would from December 1 withdraw in NEFA to a line 20
kilometres north of the McMaho Line, and elsewhere to a line 20
kilometres behind the "line of actual control" on November 7, 1959.

Very slowly the Chinese began to move back, abandoning
Bomdi La on December 13, Walong and Dirang Dzong about December
20 and.Tawang juat after the New Year; the Chinese claim to have
completed their withdrawal behind the McMahon Line by January 15
1965. In Ladakh, according to a Peking statement of January 13
they were due by that time to have reached "areas on the Chinese
side 20 kilometres behind the line of actual control on November
7, 1959, that is the traditional customary line, except at some
sentry posts established before November 7, 1959 which will be
reserved and handed over for civil police check posts" Indian
civil administration, but not the military, returned to the
regions avacuated.

Thus the Chinese attempted to impose as victors an
arrangement repeatedly rejected by India as suffering from
"the serious defect that it leaves the aggressor who altered the
status quo by unilateral action over the last few years in
possession of the fruits of his aggression". China had never,
remarked a Chinese note of October 3, 1962 made restoration of
the "original state of the boundary" -- before India had altered
it over the past 10 years or so -- a precondition of
negotiations on the border question, India, on the other hand, had always
made restoration of the states quo -- that is of the frontier
claimed by India -- a precondition of such negotiations,
[page 31]

The Colombo Conference

India found the Chinese initiative far from conciliatory.
A letter to Chou En-lai from Mr Nehru of December 1, 1962 insisted
that return to the "line of control" demanded by China would
simply assure China in Ladakh of the fruits of her aggression.
Moreover, Bara Hoti was not, as the Chinese claimed, under Chinese
control in November 1959 or at any other time, arid Longju was not
at that time controlled by either side. Subsequent Chinese notes
firmly rejected India's simple and straightforward. proposal
of restoration of the status quo prior to September S. But India
refused to negotiate on any other basis and talked of
preparing for a "long war".

Meanwhile at the invitation of the Government of Ceylon,
Conference of six non-aligned nations -- Ceylon, Burma,
Cambodia, Indonesia, Ghana and the UAR -- had met at Colombo on
December 10 with the purpose of seeking ways and means of
bringing the two angry giants together. The positions taken up by
each participant appear to have differed widely. Thus Mrs Sirimavo
Bandaranaike, the Prime Minister of Ceylon, referred in her
opening speech to the danger that the dispute represented for
India's policy of non-alignment and the UAR, whose strong support
for the Indian cause Pandit Nehru has gratefully acknowledged,
considered that there should be no territorial gains from military
operations. General Ne Win of Burma and Prince Sihanouk of
Cambodia, on the other hand, were chiefly resolved not to tread on
anyone's toes.

However the Conference reached agreement on certain
proposals and requested Mrs Bandaranaike to convey them in
person to New Delhi and Peking. the proposals and subsequent
clarifications made to India provided that in Ladakh China should,
as she had offered, withdraw her forces 20 kilometres behind what
he alleged to be the line of November 1959, while Indian forces
might move right up to this line; the demilitarised zone should
be administered by civilian posts of both sides. In the eastern
sector both sides might move troops right up to the McMahon line
except in the Chedong and Longju areas, where there was a
difference of opinion about the former line of control; China and
India should decide jointly what to do about these. As for the
central sector, the Conference suggested that its problems would
"be solved by peaceful means without resorting to force". These
strictly temporary arrangements were designed merely to reduce
tension and make it possible for the two sides to negotiate.

Chou En-lai informed Mrs. Bandaranaike on January 19
that China accepted the proposals "in principle", but he seemed
inclined to make important reservations. In particular he wanted
India to accept a suggestion he had previously made to Mr Nehru
on December 31, that Indian troops keep out of the NEFA, while
the Peking "People's Daily" of January 26 remarked pointedly that
there were disputes over all sectors of the boundary." It seemed
possible that China might lay serious claim not merely to parts

[page 32]

 

[Pintu]

------------------------------------------------------------------Continuing-------------------------------------------------------------


of Ladakh as previously, but to all or part of the NEFA, where
she had made intensive propaganda during her period of
occupation. In India the Lok Sabha accepted the proposals in toto on
January 25; but Mr Nehru said that there could be no
negotiations until China did the same.

In Conclusion

Possibly because India's energies have been absorbed
in the struggle for unity, which is not yet ended, the spirit
of the country is markedly defensive. No ruler of India has
ever sent a major invasion beyond India's natural ethnic and
geographic frontiers. Ventures such as the disastrous Afghan
expedition of 1839 and the Tibetan expedition of 1904 were
essentially defensive in character. Now and again India or part
of it has been united politically with other lands, with Burma
for instance, but these were temporary arrangements imposed by
foreign power.

The requirements of strategy have brought China on the
other hand far beyond its natural boundaries. China has penetrated
deep into Central Asia because "if Sinkiang goes Mongolia goes,
and if Mongolia goes everything goes"; the most effective defence
was found to be attack. Chinese policy in Tibet has similarly had
defence prominently in view, for Tibetan and Mongol veneration
of the Dalai Lama gave the Chinese Emperors a vital interest in
securing his friendship or subservience. The seventeen-point
agreement of May 1951 tinder which China occupied Tibet stresses
this aspect of the matter:

" (l) The Tibetan people shall unite and drive out
imperialist aggressive forces from Tibet..

"(2) The local government of Tibet shall actively
assist the P.L.A. -- the Chinese Communist army -- to
enter Tibet and consolidate the national defences"...

No aggression can reach Tibet except through or from
India. China therefore saw or affected to see in India an enemy,
and more particularly an ally of the United Stages, for this
was the time of the Korean war. Indeed Peking informed New Delhi
on October 30 1950 that it considered India's dismay at the turn
of Tibetan events as "having been affected by foreign influences
hostile to China in Tibet". This statement the Indian Government
"read with amazement" as well it might.

Nonetheless India continued to manifest friendship for
China, even at the expense of the unfortunate Tibetans; it is
not clear that China ever reciprocated with anything but words.
Thus perhaps for fear of invalidating its claims, Peking never
tried to obtain what it wanted -- say the region of the Aksai
Chin road -- by peaceful negotiation. Yet at the Paneh Shila
period India was probably in a mood to consider any reasonable
proposition.

[page 33]

 

[Pintu]

----------------------------------------------------------------------Continuing-------------------------------------------------------------------



Some Indians however perceived that times had changed.
"Taking advantage of the peaceful liberation of Tibet", as
the-Chinese propaganda quaintly puts it, India posted troops and
administrators throughout the NEFA and in the districts along
the central sector of the border a few years later; in Ladakh
apparently these precautions were not thought necessary. New
Delhi also drew its version of India's frontiers boldly on
Indian maps. Although this version was in no way exorbitant,
except perhaps in one or two miner localities, the action was
improper and has certainly proved unwise. Finally, in 1939,
Chinese troops came right up to the NEFA boundary to crush the
Tibetan revolt and Indian troops advanced to meet them; at one
point Tamadem, the Indians crossed the boundary, but quickly
withdrew. In Ladakh, where there was no boundary recognised de
facto by both sides, China began to send patrols into territory
already patrolled occasionally by India.

It is generally impossible to be sure who attacked .
whom or which side bore the greater responsibility for the
various armed clashes that have since occurred, but since India
is, or was until recently, in possessions of most of the disputed
areas, China would naturally be the more tempted to take the
offensive. At all events it is clear that the Chinese provoked
the latest and most violent conflict. "Acting in selfdefence"
said Mr Nehru, "they have occupied another 20,000 square miles
of Indian territory".

For both sides strategic considerations have naturally
come first. Both no doubt are keenly aware that only by the Aksai
Chin road can China bring military pressure to bear on India
from western Tibet, and that only the McMahon Line gives India,
any chance of defence in the east.

In the diplomatic field China has seemed inclined to
use the border dispute as an instrument of foreign policy while
India, greatly to her credit, has persistently subordinated
measures dictated by the dispute to over-riding considerations
of foreign policy. The initiative therefore has always lain
with Peking, India's role being essentially limited to response
and protest.

For some time moreover Peking has apparently sought
to extend the scope of the dispute, which India has always tried
to minimise; India of course has much more at stake since the
dispute concerns the frontiers of India but not, to any significant
degree, the frontiers of China. In December 1961 for instance
the Panchen Lama is found accusing Mr Nehru of collusion with
the Americans and of reactionary social policies. Nehru was also
accused of taking a sham anti-colonialist line at the recent
Belgrade Conference of Non-aligned Nations, Five months later
Peking was writing that "one cannot but acknowledge that there
has been a dark side to the Sino-Indian relations since their
very beginning", as witness India's attitude to the Chinese
actions in Tibet in 1950 and 1959.

[page 34]

 

[Pintu]

------------------------------------------------------Continue------------------------------------------------------------------


[page 34]

The objectives of the Chinese offensive in NEFA were
obviously general rather than local; indeed they had an ideological
counterpart. Thus the People's Daily of October 27, 1962 writing
on Nehru's "Philosophy in the Light of the Sino-Indian Boundary
Question," utilised the Pandit's literary works to prove the
bourgeois and aggressive cast of his outlook; and his
Government, said the People's Daily at some length, was in keeping.
At home and abroad "the class nature and economic statue of
the Indian big bourgeoisie and big landlords determine that the
Nehru government depends on and serves imperialism more and more".
In short, Peking feels India -- or, more precisely, what India
stands for -- as an obstruction to Chinese policy and as a
menace to Chinese interests; no responsible Indian leader
however has attempted to blame the border dispute on the nature
of Chinese communism.

But did Peking not have some more immediate purpose in
view? Pandit Nehru and many others have suggested that the
Chinese military action along the border was promoted by the need
for an external distraction in the face of domestic arises. But
the authorities' presentation of the conflict to the Chinese
people hardly bears Out this thesis, India's friendly attitude
towards the Tibetan refugees -- still rebels in Peking's eyes --
and the relative freedom of political action allowed to the
Dalai Lama have certainly irritated Peking to some degree.
China may well hope, but probably as a subsidiary objective, to
compel India to terminate the activities of these �migr�s.

The whole Sino-Indian conflict springs from the Chinese
occupation in force of Tibet. This is an event of the first
importance. It has completely changed the strategic and political
situation not only on the Himalayas but throughout Central Asia.
All the barriers of distance and political cartography are down,
leaving China face to face with India and the Soviet Union.
The process now looks like going a stage further. China is
determined to hold Aksai Chin, partly perhaps because it is
only Aksai Chin that makes India, in a small way, a Central
Asian power.

It is perhaps safer to see the establishment of a
general political and military ascendancy in the Himalayas and
Central Asia, and to a lesser degree in the Buddhist world
generally, as Peking's main ambition. Thus India would lose what
remains of her influence in Tibet and Sinkiang; in the Himalayan
border states her prestige would evaporate; South East Asia would
have second thoughts about her offer of an "alternative path".




(Concluded)

 

[badguy2000]

And this is the last time you will refer to the people of Tibet as "uncivilized tribes". Do I make myself clear?

the "uncivilized tribes" I refered to is not Tibetan people,but the tribes in AP. those tribes are not Tibetan. In fact, even Tibetan called those tribes "barbarian".

Of curse, case is different today. In china, those tribes are label as two ethnics minorities :Menba(门巴) and Luoba(洛巴 ).

 

[Rage]

the "uncivilized tribes" I refered to is not Tibetan people,but the tribes in AP. those tribes are not Tibetan. In fact, even Tibetan called those tribes "barbarian".

Of curse, case is different today. In china, those tribes are label as two ethnics minorities :Menba(门巴) and Luoba(洛巴 ).

You have referred to the Tibetans as "barbarian" in the past. Infact, judging from your forces' conduct in that illegally annexed territory, the cap would suit you nicely.

Here is a little something on the "barbarianism" of the tribes in Arun'aachal Pradesh. The following is a description of the customes and practices of their progeny, which have varied little through the centuries:


There are some 20 Major tribes with a number of Sub-Tribes in Arunachal Pradesh. They include: the Adi, Apatani, Bugun, Galo, Hrusso, Jingpho, Khamba, Koro, Memba, Meyor, Mishmi (including Idu, Taroan and Kaman), Monpa, Nyishi (including Bangru and Puroik), Sajolang, Sartang, Sherdukpen, Tagin, Tai Khamti (including Khamyang) and Yobin Tangshang (including all of their variants).


Here is a brief description of some of these major tribes :


The Adis have two main divisions, (the Bogum and Bomis) and under each there are a number of sub-tribes. The Minyongs, Karkos, Shimongs, Bomdo, Janbos, Paggis, Pailibos, Bogum, Padams, Milangs and so on from one group ; while the Gallong and seven other groups constitute another group of Adis. The Adis by nature are democratic and organised village council called Kebang. Their traditional dance called Ponung is famous in the whole of Arunachal Pradesh. Dances are very popular among them. Adi villages are situated generally on the spurs of hills. Polyandy is unknown but polygyny is practised. Adi women are very good weavers and weave cloth with highly artistic designs.<More details>

The Apatanis are settled agriculturists inhabiting the valley around Ziro-the headquarters of Lower Subansiri district. The older men-folk tie the hair in top-knots and tattoo the faces. Wearing of circular nose plugs and tattooing of faces is the most characteristic aspect of ornamentation of older Apatani women. However, new generation of Apatani men and women have stopped this practice of tying hair knot, nose plugs and face tattooing since early 1970s. The Apatani are good cultivators and practice both wet and terrace cultivation. Paddy cum fish culture is very popular among them. Unlike other tribes of Arunachal their economy is stable.

The Buguns or Khowas are gentle, hospitable and affectionate people. They are agriculturist and perform a number of rites and ceremonies for their welfare.

The Hrusso or Akas have a custom of painting their face with black marks. They figured frequently in old historical records. Their popular belief is that they were related with the Ahom Kings.They are keen traders and trade, mainly in cloth, blankets, swords etc. They have come to some extent under both Hindu and Buddhist influence.

The Singphos represent a section of the Kachin tribe of Burma. They live on the banks of Tengapani and Noa Dehang rivers. They are agriculturists and expert blacksmiths. The ladies are good weavers too. They follow Buddhism but at the same time believe in a host of spirit.

Khambas and Membas inhabiting northern part of West Siang are Buddhist by religion. Polyandry is prevalent among them. But it is more in vogue among the Membas. Agricultural activities are popular among them . Millet and Maize are their staple food . They grow cotton and barle also.

Mishmis form the bulk of the population of Lohit, Upper Dibang Valley and Lower Dibang Valley districts. There are also the Khamtis, the Singphos and a few Adi settlement. The Mishmis are divided into three main groups namely- Idus or Chulikatas, Digarus or Taroan and Mijus or Kaman. A section of the Idu Mishmi are also called Bebejia Mishmi . Their women are expert weavers and make excellent coats and blouses. Agriculture is the main occupation of the people. By nature they are traders. Since very early days the Mishmis had relations with the plains of Assam. The chief items of trade are deer –musk, wild medicinal plants, animal skins , Mishimi – tita etc.

The Monpas are simple, gentle and courteous people. They are friendly and possess a rich heritage of culture. They dress well in artistically designed clothes. Their communal life is rich and happy. They follow Buddhism and profess Mahayana Buddhism which centre round the Tawang Monastery. Each house has a small chapel attached to it.

The Nyishi are the largest groups of people inhabiting the major part of Lower Subansiri district. Their menfolk wear their hair long and tie it in a knot just above the forehead. They wear cane bands around the waist. They believe that after death the spirit of a dead travels to the 'village of the ancestors'. The Sulungs or Puroik are considered to be one of the oldest of the tribes in the area. Their dress and constumes are simple, and the religion is a form of the primitive ' spirit culture'. <More Details>

The Sherdukpens are a small tribe. They are good agriculturist but their main interest is trade. Their religion is an interesting blend of Mahayana Buddhism and tribal magico-religious beliefs.

The Tagins are main inhabitant of Upper Sunansiri district. Their main occupation is agriculture. Polygamy is customary among them. Their dress is very simple consisting of only one piece of cloth.

The Khamtis are believed to have migrated from the Shan states of Burma . They are the only tribe in Arunachal who have a script of their own, They are Buddhist ( Hinayana cult) by religion, and bury the dead in a coffin. They include Khamyang tribe.

The Wanchos inhabit the western part of Tirap district, bordering Nagaland. They are a carefree, cheerful and hard-working people. Head hunting was customary with them in the old days. It was connected with many of the social activities of the tribe. Their society is divided into four classes the Wanghams ( chiefs ) , the Wangpana , the Wangaue and Wangaas . They have a strict sense of discipline and the law and order of the society is maintained by a village council. The entire tribe is divided into about forty confederacies of villages. Tattooing is a social custom among them . They believe in the existence of two powerful deities, Rang and Baurang. The women are good weavers but the art is restricted to the members of the chief’s families only. They are expert in wood carving also.

The Noctes inhabit the central part of Tirap to the east of the Wanchos. They are organized under powerful chief-those of Namsang and Borduria,They profess Vaishnavism and are disciple of the Bareghar Satra of Nazira, Assam, Naga Narottam who was a close friend of Shri Ram Dev Ata, the founder- satradhikar of the Brehar satra, , become his first disciple, Noctes are famous as salt producers which is their chief item of trade and barter. They are agriculturists. They also cultivate betel leaves on a commercial scale.

The Yobin, also called Lisus , are a small group of people inhabiting the remote easternmost corner of the Tirap district. They are simple and gentle people having their own culture , religion, faith and beliefs and dialect.


Tribes of Arunachal Pradesh