China's Decision for War with India in 1962
John W. Garver
John W. Garver
Why Did China's Leaders Decide for War against India?
Why did China go to war with India in 1962? What were the reasons for that war
from the standpoint of China's leaders? What were the considerations that led China's
leaders to opt for large-scale use of armed force against India in 1962? And how
accurate were the views held by China's leaders? These are the questions this essay
addresses.
The 1962 war with India was long China's forgotten war. Little was published in
China regarding the process through which China decided for war --- unlike for the
Korean War, the Indochina wars, the conflicts over the Offshore Islands in the 1950s, and
the 1974 Paracel Island campaign. Foreign analysts, such as Neville Maxwell and Allen
Whiting writing in the early 1970s, were thus compelled to rely on inferences drawn from
Chinese public statements.1 This situation began to change during the 1990s when there
appeared a half dozen Chinese publications on the 1962 war. On the Indian side, the
publication in 2002 of India's long-classified official history of the 1962 war offered
additional new and authoritative material.2 While these sources are far from complete,
they do offer sufficient new materials to warrant a revisiting of China's road to the 1962
war.
2
This study will postulate two major, inter-related sets of reasons why China's
leaders decided for war with India in 1962.3 Ordered in the chronological fashion in
which the preoccupied China's leaders, these two sets of factors were:
1) a perceived need to punish and end perceived Indian efforts to undermine
Chinese control of Tibet, Indian efforts which were perceived as having the
objective of restoring the pre-1949 status quo ante of Tibet,
2) a perceived need to punish and end perceived Indian aggression against
Chinese territory along the border.
This study is also concerned with the accuracy of Chinese perceptions in these
two areas. It will attempt to ascertain whether China's decision for war was based, to
some degree, on misperceptions rather than on accurate assessment of the situation. This
study will argue that in terms of deterrence along the border, Chinese perceptions were
substantially accurate. Chinese perceptions regarding Indian policy toward Tibet,
however, were substantially inaccurate.
The historiography of any war is politically sensitive because it touches on the
question of which nation bears responsibility and thus the implicit moral onus for
initiating that war. The 1962 war is especially sensitive in this regard. The
historiography of that war figures prominently in the contemporary political psychology
of Sino-Indian relations --- on both sides of that relationship. While a scholar should
ideally be oblivious to the requirements of any such pressures, this ideal is hard to realize
in practice. Fortunately for a scholar who feels deep empathy with both sides of the 1962
war, this study will argue that both sides share responsibility for that war. This study
will argue that India's policies along the border, and especially the Forward Policy
adopted in November 1961, were seen by China's leaders as constituting incremental
Indian seizure of Chinese controlled territory. Moreover, there is little basis for deeming
3
these views inaccurate. But this study will also argue that Chinese perceptions of Indian
policies toward Tibet were fundamentally erroneous, and that, moreover, these
misperceptions contributed substantially to the 1962 war. Thus this study will arrive at
the felicitous conclusion that both sides bear onus for the 1962 war, China for
misconstruing India's Tibetan policies, and India for pursuing a confrontational policy on
the border.
Regarding the border, this study will test the Whiting-Maxwell hypothesis
regarding China's road to the 1962 war by drawing on recently available Chinese
accounts of the PRC decision making process. Broadly speaking Whiting and Maxwell
reached the same conclusion: China's resort to war in 1962 was largely a function of
perceived Indian aggression against Chinese territory. As noted earlier, Maxwell and
Whiting were forced to rely largely on inferences based on official Chinese statements at
the time of the 1962 war. Newly available Chinese materials allow us to go "inside" the
Chinese decision-making process in a way that was not possible in 1962. This offers a
useful testing of the Whiting-Maxwell thesis.
This study will also examine the accuracy of Chinese perceptions in a way that
Whiting and Maxwell did not attempt. Maxwell and Whiting stressed the role of
Beijing's concerns regarding Tibet in the formation of Chinese perceptions of foreign
threat in 1962. They generally took Chinese perceptions as a given, however, and were
not concerned with exploring the objective accuracy of those Chinese elite perceptions.
As Whiting said regarding Chinese perceptions of U.S. policy: "It is not the purpose of
this study to evaluate the accuracy of Chinese charges (against the United States)." Yet
Whiting went on to note that "Preconceptions can act as filters for selecting relevant
4
evidence of intention as well as determinants of bias in assessing the degree of threat to
be anticipated."4
Two concepts from psychology are useful for understanding the Chinese
perceptual filters that linked Tibet and the1962 war: fundamental attribution error and
projection. Attribution involves an individual's inferences about why another person acts
as he or she does. It is a process beginning with the perception of other persons in a
particular social context, proceeding through a causal judgement about the reasons for
the other person's behavior, and ending with behavioral consequences for the person
making the judgment. A fundamental attribution error occurs when one person
incorrectly attributes particular actions to the internal motives, character, or disposition of
another individual, rather than to the characteristics of the situation in which that
individual finds him or her self. Commission of a fundamental attribution error entails
systematic underestimation of situational determinants of other's behavior, determinants
deriving, most importantly, from the political and social roles of an individual, and
compulsions on the individual arising in particular situations due to those roles. Instead
of recognizing that the other individual acts as he/she does because of their particular
roles and the requirements of a particular situation, an observer attributes their behavior
to the personal motives or interior disposition of the other person. Social psychologists
have found this to be a very common malady. There is a pervasive tendency for
individuals to attribute others behavior to interior motivations, while attributing their own
behavior to situational factors.5 Below I will argue that Mao committed a fundamental
attribution error by concluding that Nehru sought to seize Tibet from China.
5
Projection involves transference by one individual onto another individual of
responsibility for events deriving, in fact, from actions of the first individual. It is very
difficult for people to deal with the dissonance arising from the fact that their actions
were inept and/or created pain for themselves and others. Rather than accept the blow to
self-esteem and the psychological discomfort that comes from that acceptance of
responsibility, individuals will often assign responsibility to some other individual. Thus
the person actually responsible is able to reach the comfortable conclusion that they were
not responsible. The fact that people suffered was not due to one's own actions, but to
the actions of some other person. In this way, the positive self-concept of the first
individual is maintained. Below, I will argue that India became the main object of
Chinese transference of responsibility for the difficulties that Chinese rule encountered,
and in fact created, in Tibet circa 1959.
A premise of the argument developed below is that what leaders think matters.
Some Realists find it satisfactory to look only at interests and policies, black-boxing or
ignoring the specific psychological processes through which leaders arrive at their
determinations about interests and policies. It is not necessary or possible to engage this
fundamental issue here. But it should be stipulated that the argument below rests on the
premise that particular policies derive from specific sets of beliefs and calculations linked
to those beliefs, and that different sorts of beliefs and calculations could well lead to
different policies.
6
Tibet and the 1962 War: The Chinese View of the Root Cause
A starting point for understanding the Chinese belief system about the 1962 war is
recognition that, from the Chinese point of view, the road to the 1962 war beings in
Tibet. Although Chinese deliberations in 1962 leading up to the war were closely tied to
developments on the border, Chinese studies of the 1962 war published during the 1990s
link Indian border policies to Tibet, and insist that Indian border policies derived from an
Indian effort to weaken or overthrow Chinese rule over Tibet. Chinese studies of the
1962 war insist that an Indian desire to "seize Tibet," to turn Tibet into an Indian
"colony" or "protectorate," or to return Tibet to its pre-1949 status, was the root cause of
India's Forward Policy and the 1962 war. These contemporary assertions mirror the
views of China's leaders circa 1962. In other words, Chinese beliefs about the nature of
Indian objectives regarding Tibet deeply colored Chinese deliberations regarding India's
moves along the border.
There is unanimous agreement among Chinese scholars that the root cause of the
1962 war was an Indian attempt to undermine Chinese rule and seize Tibet. The official
PLA history of the 1962 war argues that India sought to turn Tibet into a "buffer zone"
(huanzhongguo). Creation of such a buffer zone had been the objective of British
imperial strategy, and Nehru was a "complete successor" to Britain in this regard.
Nehru's objective was creation of a "great Indian empire" in South Asia by "filling the
vacuum" left by British exit from that region. Control over Tibet was, Nehru felt,
essential for "mastery over South Asia, and "the most economical method for
guaranteeing India's security."6 A study by Xu Yan, professor at the PLA's National
Defense University and one of China's foremost military historians, follows the same
7
line of argument: Nehru aspired and worked consistently throughout the 1950s to turn
Tibet into a "buffer zone." According to Xu, Nehru imbibed British imperialist
ideology, and believed that India should dominate neighboring countries. He quotes
Nehru and other early Congress Party leaders about their aspirations that India should
lead and organize the Indian Ocean region. The Indian independence struggle was also
marred by an emphasis on "pure nationalism" --- communist-jargon for non-Marxist
nationalism not underpinned by a "class analysis." Regarding Tibet, Nehru aspired to
turn that region into a "buffer zone" between China and India. This was Nehru's
consistent objective throughout the 1950s. The "decisive factor" in the deterioration of
Sino-Indian relations, according to Xu Yan, was Nehru's policy of "protecting" the
Tibetan "splittists" after the Lhasa rebellion of March 1959. 7
An article by Wang Hongwei of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and one of
China's senior India hands, presents a similar view. Prior to 1947, Britain's objective,
Wang argues, was to bring Tibet within its "sphere of influence." Britain sought
"Tibetan independence," and continually attempted to instigate Tibet to "leave China"
(touli zhongguo). Nehru was deeply influenced by this British thinking, Wang argued,
through education in Britain and by assimilation of the mentality of the British ruling
class. In 1959, the Indian government "supported the Tibetan rebels," permitted them to
carry out "anti-China activities" on Indian territory, and even gave some Tibetan rebels
military training. Simultaneous with this, India advanced claims on Chinese territory.8
Implicitly but clearly, the purpose of India doing this was to achieve Tibetan
"independence" by instigating Tibet to "leave China."
8
One of the most extensive and nuanced Chinese accounts of events leading up to
the 1962 war is by Zhao Weiwen, long time South Asian analyst of the Ministry of State
Security. Zhao's account of the road to war also begins with Tibet and attribution of
aggressive motives to Indian policy moves. From 1947 to 1952, Zhao writes, "India
ardently hoped to continue England's legacy in Tibet." 9 The "essence" of English policy
had been to "tamper with China's sovereignty in Tibet to change it to 'suzerainty' thereby
throwing off the jurisdiction of China's central government over Tibet under the name of
Tibetan 'autonomy'." (shishi shang shi yao ba zhongguo zai xizang de zhuquan cuangai
wei 'zongzhuquan', shi xizang zai 'zizhi' de mingyi xia, touli zhongyang zhengfu de
guanxia).10 By 1952, however, the PLA's victories in Korea, in Xikang province, the
conclusion of the 17 Point Agreement of May 1951, the PLA's occupation of Tibet, and
Beijing's forceful rejection of Indian efforts to check the PLA's move into Tibet, forced
Nehru to change course. Nehru now began direct talks with Beijing over Tibet. There
were, however, "right wing forces" in India who "refused to abandon the English legacy"
in Tibet and who pressured Nehru in 1959. Moreover, Nehru himself "harbored a sort of
dark mentality" (huaiyou moxie yinan xinli), the exact nature of which is not specified
but which presumably included aggressive designs on Tibet.11 These factors led Nehru to
demonstrate an "irresolute attitude" (taidu bu jinyue) in 1959. On the one hand he said
that Tibet was a part of China and that he did not want to interfere in China's internal
affairs. On the other hand, he permitted all sorts of "anti-China activities and words"
aimed against China's exercise of sovereignty over Tibet. Zhao is more sensitive than
other Chinese analysts to the domestic political pressures weighing on Nehru in 1959.
Yet even she suggests that Nehru's "dark mentality" led him to give free reign to "anti9
China forces" in an attempt to cause Tibet to "throw off the jurisdiction of China's central
government."
The attribution to India by contemporary Chinese scholars of a desire to seize
Tibet mirrors --- as we shall see below --- the thinking of Chinese leaders who decided to
launch that war. This is probably due to the fact that published scholarship in China is
still expected to explain and justify, not to criticize, the decisions of the Chinese
Communist Party, at least on such sensitive matters as war and peace.
Indian Policy toward Tibet
Assessment of the accuracy of Chinese views regarding Indian policy toward
Tibet depends on ascertaining what actually transpired in Indo-Tibetan-Chinese relations
in the years prior to the 1962 war. A brief review is thus requisite.
In 1949 and 1950 India covertly supplied small amounts of arms to the Tibetan
government.12 During the same period and while the PLA was preparing to move into
Tibet, the Indian government sought via diplomatic protests to the new PRC government
to prevent or limit PLA occupation of Tibet. Beijing rejected these Indian protests with
stern warnings. New Delhi also initially sought to uphold Indian rights in Tibet inherited
from Britain and embodied in treaties with the old Republic of China. These rights
included trading missions, representative officers, telecommunications facilities, and
small military contingents to guard these facilities in several Tibetan towns. Beijing
viewed these rights as products of imperialist aggression against China and unilaterally
abrogated the treaties upon which they were based. By 1952 or so, Nehru had accepted
China's views of these old treaties and of India's derivative special rights in Tibet. Many
10
in India, including a number of very prominent individuals though not initially Nehru,
were concerned with the fate of Tibet's Buddhist-based and Indian-influenced civilization
under rule by the Chinese Communist Party. Nehru became increasingly sensitive to this
"sentimental," "cultural" (terms Nehru used) interests in Tibet as the years passed. 13
On the other hand, India actually helped China consolidate its control over Tibet.
In October 1950 India refused to sponsor a Tibetan appeal to the United Nations. When
El Salvador sponsored such an appeal, India played a key role in squashing it. Many
governments, including the U.S., the British, and many Middle Eastern, were willing to
follow India's lead on this issue, and India's opposition to the Tibetan appeal to the U.N.
was, in fact, a major reason for its non-consideration.14 New Delhi also turned down U.S.
proposals 1950 of Indo-U.S. cooperation in support of Tibetan resistance to China.15
India also played a key role in persuading the young Dalai Lama not to flee abroad and
try to rally international support for Tibet, but to return to Tibet and reach an
accommodation with China's Communist government --- an accommodation that
occurred with the 17-Point agreement of May 1951. Then in 1954 India formally
recognized China's ownership of Tibet as part of an effort to reach a broader
understanding with China. Again, most countries recognized India's leadership on this
matter. After the 1954 agreement between China and India regarding Tibet, the Indian
government encouraged the Dalai Lama and his local Tibetan government to assert its
autonomy under the 17-Point agreement. Perhaps most important of all, until mid-1959
India allowed trade with Tibet to continue unimpeded. Prior to the mid-1950s when
newly PLA-built roads into Tibet were opened, India's supply of foodstuffs, fuels, and
basic goods was essential to restraining inflation in Tibet created by demand for these
11
commodities due to the introduction of large numbers of Chinese soldiers and
construction workers into a region with a subsistence economy.
In mid 1957 the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) began covert assistance
to rebels in the Kham region of southeastern Tibet. Assistance rendered through this
CIA program was actually quite limited totaling only 250 tons of munitions, equipment,
and supplies between 1957 and 1961.16 But CIA operations came to the attention of
Chinese intelligence, and thus became a concern of China's government. Tibetan
refugees that found asylum in northern Indian cities (especially Darjeeling, Kalimpong,
and Gangtok) in the 1950s also supported in various ways resistance movements inside
Tibet. Covert operatives from various countries including the U.S., Nationalist China,
and the PRC, were also active in those cities. By late 1958 Beijing began demanding that
India expel key leaders of the Tibetan resistance based in India, and suppress activities
supporting opposition to Chinese policies within Tibet. Nehru sought a middle course,
restricting Tibetan activities, but refusing to expel Tibetan leaders. A key question we
will return to below is how much Nehru knew about CIA operations in 1958-61.
Once the Tibetan national rising began in Lhasa on 10 March 1959, India did not
wash its hands of Tibetan affairs as Beijing insisted. Rather, Indian media and elected
Indian politicians, including Nehru and virtually every other Indian politician, expressed
greater or lesser sympathy with Tibet's struggle. Beijing condemned a large number of
Indian moves that it said encouraged the rebellion. These Indian moves included: the
Indian Consul General in Lhasa met with demonstrating Tibetans in the early days of the
Lhasa uprising; granting asylum to the Dalai Lama; having official contact with the
Dalai Lama; treating the Dalai Lama as an honored guest; permitting the Dalai Lama to
12
meet with the media and foreign representatives; not quashing the Dalai Lama's appeal
to the United Nations; granting asylum to ten thousand or so Tibetan refugees who
followed the Dalai Lama to India; concentrating those refugees in camps near the
Tibetan frontier; not suppressing "anti-China activities" conducted in those refugee
camps; permitting or encouraging negative commentary by Indian newspapers about
China's actions in Tibet; Nehru raising the "Tibet issue" in India's parliament and making
critical comments about China's policies in Tibet; Nehru permitting the Indian
parliament to discuss Tibet; allowing "anti-China activities" by protesters in Indian
cities; not punishing Indian protestors for defacing a portrait of Mao Zedong; instigating
an "anti-China campaign" in the Indian press; restricting trade between India and Tibet;
and allowing the Dalai Lama to speak of "a Tibetan government in exile." All these acts
constituted, in China's view, "interference in the internal affairs of China."17 Beijing saw
these Indian actions as ways in which New Delhi was attempting to "seize Tibet."
CCP Leaders Perceptions of Indian "Expansionism" in 1959
As noted earlier, the uniform belief of PRC historians of the 1990s that India
wanted to seize Tibet, mirrors the beliefs of China's leaders in 1959. In the aftermath of
the uprising that began in Lhasa on 10 March 1959, the CCP decided to dissolve the
Tibetan local government, assert its own direct administration, and begin implementing
social revolutionary policies in Tibet. On 25 March "central cadre" met in Shanghai to
discuss the situation in Tibet. Mao gave his views of the situation. India was doing bad
things in Tibet, Mao Zedong told the assembled cadre, but China would not condemn
India openly at the moment. Rather, India would be given enough rope to hang itself
13
(guo xing bu yi --- literally "to do evil deeds frequently brings ruin to the evil doer").
China would settle accounts with India later, Mao said.18
Three weeks later, as thousands of Tibetans fled into India where outraged Indian
and international sympathy welcomed them, Mao intensified the struggle against India.
On 19 April Mao ordered Xinhua news agency to issue a commentary criticizing
unnamed "Indian expansionists." Mao personally revised the draft commentary.19 Four
days later Mao ordered a further escalation. Renmin ribao should now openly criticize
Nehru by name, Mao directed. When Mao was presented with the draft, he rejected it.
The draft missed the point, Mao said. The target should not be "imperialism," but "Indian
expansionists" who "want ardently to grab Tibet" (wangtu ba xizang naleguochu).20 Days
later, on 25 April, Mao convened a Politburo Standing Committee meeting. Mao
immediately asked about the status of the revised editorial criticizing Nehru. He then
directed that the criticism should "be sharp, don't fear to irritate him [Nehru], don't fear to
cause him trouble." Nehru miscalculated the situation, Mao said, believing that China
could not suppress the rebellion in Tibet and would have to beg India's help. Here Mao
implied that Nehru was pursuing a strategy of fomenting rebellion in Tibet in hopes that
Beijing would solicit Indian help in dealing with that rebellion. The objective was to
maintain Sino-Indian friendship, Mao said, but this could only be achieved via unity
through struggle. Nehru's incorrect ideas had to be struggled against.21 Implicit in Mao's
comments was the notion that Nehru's instigation was responsible for the rebellion in
Tibet.
The polemic ordered and revised by Mao appeared on 6 May 1959 under the title
"The Revolution in Tibet and Nehru's Philosophy."22 The main charge leveled against
14
India was conduct of an "anti-China slander campaign" being waged by Nehru and the
Indian media over events in Tibet. Nehru's main offense against China was what he was
saying about Tibet, and the encouragement those words gave to rebels in Tibet. In his
comments, Nehru denied "that a handful of upper-strata [Tibetan] reactionaries are
responsible for the rebellion in Tibet, describes the just action of the Chinese people in
putting down the rebellion as a 'tragedy' and expresses sympathy for the rebellion. Thus,
he commits a most deplorable error," according to the article. The "vociferous selfstyled
sympathizers of the Tibetan people" in fact "sympathize with those who for
generations oppressed, exploited, and butchered the Tibetan people" -- with the "big serfowners"
who tortured and oppressed the Tibetan people under the "cruelest and most
savage serfdom in the world." Nehru was spreading such "slanders" against China in
Tibet via speeches to the Indian parliament and interviews with Indian newspapers. This
"slander campaign" against China had to cease. If it did not, China would hit back:
"So long as you do not end your anti-Chinese slander campaign, we will not cease
hitting back. We are prepared to spend as much time on this as you want to. We
are prepared too, if you should incite other countries to raise a hue and cry against
us. We are also prepared to find all the imperialists in the world backing you up
in the clamor. But it is utterly futile to try to use pressure to interfere in China's
internal affairs and salvage the odious rule of the big serf-owners in Tibet.
Nehru's sympathy for the Tibetan serf-owning class stemmed from the "dual
character" of the Indian "big bourgeoisie," which by its class nature "has a certain urge
for outward expansion." Thus Nehru and the Indian "big bourgeoisie" strove "to prevent
China from exercising full sovereignty over its territory in Tibet." They wanted Tibet to
have "a kind of semi-independent status," to be a "sort of buffer zone between China and
India."
15
It is significant that Nehru's most egregious offense was his words. It was these
words which were reflective of his "philosophy," of his inner nature, of his class
character, of his role as a representative of the Indian "big bourgeoisie" and its ambitions
for expansion in Tibet. Mao's close involvement in the drafting of this document makes
clear that it fully represented Mao's own views.
The same day Renmin ribao published this commentary Zhou Enlai outlined
Chinese views for an assembly of socialist country representatives in Beijing. In doing
so, Zhou underlined the links between Nehru's words, his "class nature," and his counterrevolutionary
objectives in Tibet. Nehru and people from the Indian upper class, Zhou
explained, "oppose reform in Tibet, even to the extent of saying that reform is
impossible." Their motive in doing this was to cause "Tibet to remain for a long time in a
backward state, becoming a 'buffer state' between China and India." "This is their
guiding mentality, and also the center of the Sino-Indian conflict," Zhou said. (emphasis
added) "A section of the Indian upper class had inherited England's old policy of saying
Tibet is an 'independent country', saying that China only has 'suzerainty', or saying Tibet
is a 'protectorate.'" All these formulations were violations of China's sovereignty, Zhou
said. Nehru and company claimed sympathy for the Tibetans, but "Actually, they
sympathize with the serf-owners. Their objective is to cause Tibet not to advance, not to
reform, to become a 'buffer country,' to remain under India's influence, and become their
protectorate." This was "Nehru and company's" "basic class reaction."23
The question of responsibility for the crisis in Tibet figured prominently in the
contentious talks between Mao Zedong and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in Beijing
on 2 October 1959. After a complete disagreement over Taiwan, Khrushchev turned to
16
India and Tibet, saying: "If you let me, I will tell you what a guest should not say --- the
events in Tibet are your fault. You ruled in Tibet, you should have had your intelligence
[agencies] there and should have know about the plans and intentions of the Dalai Lama"
[to flee to India]. "Nehru also says that the events in Tibet occurred on our fault," Mao
replied. After an exchange over the flight of the Dalai Lama, Khrushchev made the
point: "If you allow him [the Dalai Lama] an opportunity to flee to India, then what has
Nehru to do with it? We believe that the events in Tibet are the fault of the Communist
Party of China, not Nehru's fault." "No, this is Nehru's fault," Mao replied. "Then the
events in Hungary are not our fault," the Soviet leader responded, "but the fault of the
United States of America, if I understand you correctly. Please, look here, we had an
army in Hungary, we supported that fool Rakosi --- and this is our mistake, not the
mistake of the United States." Mao rejected this: "The Hindus acted in Tibet as if it
belonged to them."24
The proposition that an Indian desire to seize Tibet underlay Indian actions
continued to be central to Chinese thinking in the weeks prior to the 1962 war. On 16
October 1962, two days before the Politburo approved the PLA's plan for a large scale
"self defensive counter-attack" against India, General Lei Yingfu, head of the PLA's "war
fighting department " (zuo zhan bu), reported to Mao on why India had six days
previously launched a major operation to cut off Chinese troops atop Thagla Ridge. Lei
had been appointed to head an ad hoc small group established to probe the motives and
purposes behind Indian actions. Tibet headed Lei's list of five major Indian motives.
"Nehru has consistently wanted to turn China's ethnically Tibetan districts into India's
colony or protectorate," Lei reported to Mao. Lei adduced various Indian actions of
17
1950, 1956, and 1959 to substantiate this proposition. In March 1959, Lei reported to
Mao, Nehru "incited the Dalai Lama group to undertake rebellious activity of openly
splitting the motherland." Nehru "always wanted to use the strength of a minority of
Tibetan reactionaries to drive China out of the Tibetan areas of Tibet, [western] Sichuan,
and Qinghai." When Nehru saw this "plot" of using Tibetan reactionaries to split China
had failed, he "sent Indian forces to aggress against China's borders." "Yes," Mao said
as he nodded in agreement with Lei's conclusions about Tibet. "Nehru has repeatedly
acted in this way."25
Typically, Mao Zedong stated the matter most directly and forcefully. Speaking
to a visiting delegation from Nepal in 1964, Mao told his foreign visitors that the major
problem between India and China was not the McMahon line, but the Tibet question. "In
the opinion of the Indian government," Mao said, "Tibet is theirs."26
The Erroneous Nature of Chinese Perceptions of Indian Policy toward Tibet
The fact that China's leaders saw Indian efforts as attempts to "grab Tibet," to turn
Tibet into "a buffer zone," to return Tibet to its pre-1949 status, to "overthrow China's
sovereignty," or to cause Tibet to "throw off the jurisdiction of China's central
government," does not necessarily mean that those perceptions were accurate. In fact,
this core Chinese belief was wrong. This belief which Chinese analysts explain
underpinned China's decision for war in 1962, was, in fact, inaccurate. It was a deeply
pernicious Chinese misperception that contributed powerfully to the decision for war in
1962.
18
The Indian government indisputably was attempting to influence events inside
Tibet, as well as relations between the Tibetan local government and Beijing. What is in
question is not Indian actions, but the motives and purposes which lay behind those
actions.
Nehru's policies derived not from a desire to seize Tibet or over-throw Chinese
sovereignty there, but from a desire to uphold Tibet's autonomy under Chinese
sovereignty as part of a grand accommodation between China and India --- an
accommodation that would make possible a global partnership between India and China.
Nehru envisioned a compromise between Chinese and Indian interests regarding Tibet,
with Chinese respect for Tibetan autonomy combined with Indian respect for Chinese
sovereignty over Tibet. This accomodation would, Nehru believed, provide a basis for a
broad program of cooperation between China and India on behalf of the peoples of the
developing countries and against the insanity of a nuclear-armed bipolar Cold War.
Nehru believed that by demonstrating India's acceptance of China's ownership and
military control of Tibet while simultaneously befriending China on such issues as war in
Korea, the PRC's U.N. admission, the peace treaty with Japan and transfer of Taiwan to
the PRC, Indochina, and decolonization and the Afro-Asian movement, China could be
won to cooperation with India. The two leading Asian powers would then create a new
axis in world politics. In terms of Tibet, Nehru hoped that China would repay India's
friendship and consolidate the Sino-Indian partnership by granting Tibet a significant
degree of autonomy.27
A series of moves by Nehru in 1959 contradicts the proposition that he sought to
undermine China's rule over Tibet. When he granted asylum to the Dalai Lama in March
19
1959 he believed, on the basis of earlier comments by Zhou Enlai regarding such a
possibility in 1950, that Beijing would not regard it as an unfriendly act. After the Dalai
Lama's flight to India, Nehru initially thought the Tibetan leader could work out a deal
with Beijing restoring a degree or autonomy and permitting his return to Lhasa --- as had
been the case in 1951. Nehru stated repeatedly and publicly that Tibet was part of China
and that events there were an internal affair of China. After the Dalai Lama's 1959 flight
to India, Nehru urged the Tibetan leader to avoid speaking of independence, saying that
such a goal was "impractical." Instead, Tibet should seek mere autonomy instead, Nehru
said. India refused to support, and indeed actively discouraged, a Tibetan appeal to the
United Nations in 1959 and 1960 --- as it had in 1950. New Delhi urged Britain and
other states not to open contacts with the Dalai Lama and worked to obstruct the Dalai
Lama's efforts to establish such contacts. Even after the U.S. State Department stated in
February 1960 that the United States believed the principle of self determination should
apply to the Tibetan people, India did not welcome this move. These moves do not
suggest a policy of seeking to overthrow China's control over Tibet. As Tsering Shakya
concluded, Nehru's handling of Tibet during 1959-1960 (and indeed all the way to the
1962 war according to Shakya), amounted to an effort to placate Beijing at the expense
of the Dalai Lama and Tibetan independence.
John W. Garver
China's Decision for War with India in 1962
John W. Garver
Why Did China's Leaders Decide for War against India?
Why did China go to war with India in 1962? What were the reasons for that war
from the standpoint of China's leaders? What were the considerations that led China's
leaders to opt for large-scale use of armed force against India in 1962? And how
accurate were the views held by China's leaders? These are the questions this essay
addresses.
The 1962 war with India was long China's forgotten war. Little was published in
China regarding the process through which China decided for war --- unlike for the
Korean War, the Indochina wars, the conflicts over the Offshore Islands in the 1950s, and
the 1974 Paracel Island campaign. Foreign analysts, such as Neville Maxwell and Allen
Whiting writing in the early 1970s, were thus compelled to rely on inferences drawn from
Chinese public statements.1 This situation began to change during the 1990s when there
appeared a half dozen Chinese publications on the 1962 war. On the Indian side, the
publication in 2002 of India's long-classified official history of the 1962 war offered
additional new and authoritative material.2 While these sources are far from complete,
they do offer sufficient new materials to warrant a revisiting of China's road to the 1962
war.
2
This study will postulate two major, inter-related sets of reasons why China's
leaders decided for war with India in 1962.3 Ordered in the chronological fashion in
which the preoccupied China's leaders, these two sets of factors were:
1) a perceived need to punish and end perceived Indian efforts to undermine
Chinese control of Tibet, Indian efforts which were perceived as having the
objective of restoring the pre-1949 status quo ante of Tibet,
2) a perceived need to punish and end perceived Indian aggression against
Chinese territory along the border.
This study is also concerned with the accuracy of Chinese perceptions in these
two areas. It will attempt to ascertain whether China's decision for war was based, to
some degree, on misperceptions rather than on accurate assessment of the situation. This
study will argue that in terms of deterrence along the border, Chinese perceptions were
substantially accurate. Chinese perceptions regarding Indian policy toward Tibet,
however, were substantially inaccurate.
The historiography of any war is politically sensitive because it touches on the
question of which nation bears responsibility and thus the implicit moral onus for
initiating that war. The 1962 war is especially sensitive in this regard. The
historiography of that war figures prominently in the contemporary political psychology
of Sino-Indian relations --- on both sides of that relationship. While a scholar should
ideally be oblivious to the requirements of any such pressures, this ideal is hard to realize
in practice. Fortunately for a scholar who feels deep empathy with both sides of the 1962
war, this study will argue that both sides share responsibility for that war. This study
will argue that India's policies along the border, and especially the Forward Policy
adopted in November 1961, were seen by China's leaders as constituting incremental
Indian seizure of Chinese controlled territory. Moreover, there is little basis for deeming
3
these views inaccurate. But this study will also argue that Chinese perceptions of Indian
policies toward Tibet were fundamentally erroneous, and that, moreover, these
misperceptions contributed substantially to the 1962 war. Thus this study will arrive at
the felicitous conclusion that both sides bear onus for the 1962 war, China for
misconstruing India's Tibetan policies, and India for pursuing a confrontational policy on
the border.
Regarding the border, this study will test the Whiting-Maxwell hypothesis
regarding China's road to the 1962 war by drawing on recently available Chinese
accounts of the PRC decision making process. Broadly speaking Whiting and Maxwell
reached the same conclusion: China's resort to war in 1962 was largely a function of
perceived Indian aggression against Chinese territory. As noted earlier, Maxwell and
Whiting were forced to rely largely on inferences based on official Chinese statements at
the time of the 1962 war. Newly available Chinese materials allow us to go "inside" the
Chinese decision-making process in a way that was not possible in 1962. This offers a
useful testing of the Whiting-Maxwell thesis.
This study will also examine the accuracy of Chinese perceptions in a way that
Whiting and Maxwell did not attempt. Maxwell and Whiting stressed the role of
Beijing's concerns regarding Tibet in the formation of Chinese perceptions of foreign
threat in 1962. They generally took Chinese perceptions as a given, however, and were
not concerned with exploring the objective accuracy of those Chinese elite perceptions.
As Whiting said regarding Chinese perceptions of U.S. policy: "It is not the purpose of
this study to evaluate the accuracy of Chinese charges (against the United States)." Yet
Whiting went on to note that "Preconceptions can act as filters for selecting relevant
4
evidence of intention as well as determinants of bias in assessing the degree of threat to
be anticipated."4
Two concepts from psychology are useful for understanding the Chinese
perceptual filters that linked Tibet and the1962 war: fundamental attribution error and
projection. Attribution involves an individual's inferences about why another person acts
as he or she does. It is a process beginning with the perception of other persons in a
particular social context, proceeding through a causal judgement about the reasons for
the other person's behavior, and ending with behavioral consequences for the person
making the judgment. A fundamental attribution error occurs when one person
incorrectly attributes particular actions to the internal motives, character, or disposition of
another individual, rather than to the characteristics of the situation in which that
individual finds him or her self. Commission of a fundamental attribution error entails
systematic underestimation of situational determinants of other's behavior, determinants
deriving, most importantly, from the political and social roles of an individual, and
compulsions on the individual arising in particular situations due to those roles. Instead
of recognizing that the other individual acts as he/she does because of their particular
roles and the requirements of a particular situation, an observer attributes their behavior
to the personal motives or interior disposition of the other person. Social psychologists
have found this to be a very common malady. There is a pervasive tendency for
individuals to attribute others behavior to interior motivations, while attributing their own
behavior to situational factors.5 Below I will argue that Mao committed a fundamental
attribution error by concluding that Nehru sought to seize Tibet from China.
5
Projection involves transference by one individual onto another individual of
responsibility for events deriving, in fact, from actions of the first individual. It is very
difficult for people to deal with the dissonance arising from the fact that their actions
were inept and/or created pain for themselves and others. Rather than accept the blow to
self-esteem and the psychological discomfort that comes from that acceptance of
responsibility, individuals will often assign responsibility to some other individual. Thus
the person actually responsible is able to reach the comfortable conclusion that they were
not responsible. The fact that people suffered was not due to one's own actions, but to
the actions of some other person. In this way, the positive self-concept of the first
individual is maintained. Below, I will argue that India became the main object of
Chinese transference of responsibility for the difficulties that Chinese rule encountered,
and in fact created, in Tibet circa 1959.
A premise of the argument developed below is that what leaders think matters.
Some Realists find it satisfactory to look only at interests and policies, black-boxing or
ignoring the specific psychological processes through which leaders arrive at their
determinations about interests and policies. It is not necessary or possible to engage this
fundamental issue here. But it should be stipulated that the argument below rests on the
premise that particular policies derive from specific sets of beliefs and calculations linked
to those beliefs, and that different sorts of beliefs and calculations could well lead to
different policies.
6
Tibet and the 1962 War: The Chinese View of the Root Cause
A starting point for understanding the Chinese belief system about the 1962 war is
recognition that, from the Chinese point of view, the road to the 1962 war beings in
Tibet. Although Chinese deliberations in 1962 leading up to the war were closely tied to
developments on the border, Chinese studies of the 1962 war published during the 1990s
link Indian border policies to Tibet, and insist that Indian border policies derived from an
Indian effort to weaken or overthrow Chinese rule over Tibet. Chinese studies of the
1962 war insist that an Indian desire to "seize Tibet," to turn Tibet into an Indian
"colony" or "protectorate," or to return Tibet to its pre-1949 status, was the root cause of
India's Forward Policy and the 1962 war. These contemporary assertions mirror the
views of China's leaders circa 1962. In other words, Chinese beliefs about the nature of
Indian objectives regarding Tibet deeply colored Chinese deliberations regarding India's
moves along the border.
There is unanimous agreement among Chinese scholars that the root cause of the
1962 war was an Indian attempt to undermine Chinese rule and seize Tibet. The official
PLA history of the 1962 war argues that India sought to turn Tibet into a "buffer zone"
(huanzhongguo). Creation of such a buffer zone had been the objective of British
imperial strategy, and Nehru was a "complete successor" to Britain in this regard.
Nehru's objective was creation of a "great Indian empire" in South Asia by "filling the
vacuum" left by British exit from that region. Control over Tibet was, Nehru felt,
essential for "mastery over South Asia, and "the most economical method for
guaranteeing India's security."6 A study by Xu Yan, professor at the PLA's National
Defense University and one of China's foremost military historians, follows the same
7
line of argument: Nehru aspired and worked consistently throughout the 1950s to turn
Tibet into a "buffer zone." According to Xu, Nehru imbibed British imperialist
ideology, and believed that India should dominate neighboring countries. He quotes
Nehru and other early Congress Party leaders about their aspirations that India should
lead and organize the Indian Ocean region. The Indian independence struggle was also
marred by an emphasis on "pure nationalism" --- communist-jargon for non-Marxist
nationalism not underpinned by a "class analysis." Regarding Tibet, Nehru aspired to
turn that region into a "buffer zone" between China and India. This was Nehru's
consistent objective throughout the 1950s. The "decisive factor" in the deterioration of
Sino-Indian relations, according to Xu Yan, was Nehru's policy of "protecting" the
Tibetan "splittists" after the Lhasa rebellion of March 1959. 7
An article by Wang Hongwei of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and one of
China's senior India hands, presents a similar view. Prior to 1947, Britain's objective,
Wang argues, was to bring Tibet within its "sphere of influence." Britain sought
"Tibetan independence," and continually attempted to instigate Tibet to "leave China"
(touli zhongguo). Nehru was deeply influenced by this British thinking, Wang argued,
through education in Britain and by assimilation of the mentality of the British ruling
class. In 1959, the Indian government "supported the Tibetan rebels," permitted them to
carry out "anti-China activities" on Indian territory, and even gave some Tibetan rebels
military training. Simultaneous with this, India advanced claims on Chinese territory.8
Implicitly but clearly, the purpose of India doing this was to achieve Tibetan
"independence" by instigating Tibet to "leave China."
8
One of the most extensive and nuanced Chinese accounts of events leading up to
the 1962 war is by Zhao Weiwen, long time South Asian analyst of the Ministry of State
Security. Zhao's account of the road to war also begins with Tibet and attribution of
aggressive motives to Indian policy moves. From 1947 to 1952, Zhao writes, "India
ardently hoped to continue England's legacy in Tibet." 9 The "essence" of English policy
had been to "tamper with China's sovereignty in Tibet to change it to 'suzerainty' thereby
throwing off the jurisdiction of China's central government over Tibet under the name of
Tibetan 'autonomy'." (shishi shang shi yao ba zhongguo zai xizang de zhuquan cuangai
wei 'zongzhuquan', shi xizang zai 'zizhi' de mingyi xia, touli zhongyang zhengfu de
guanxia).10 By 1952, however, the PLA's victories in Korea, in Xikang province, the
conclusion of the 17 Point Agreement of May 1951, the PLA's occupation of Tibet, and
Beijing's forceful rejection of Indian efforts to check the PLA's move into Tibet, forced
Nehru to change course. Nehru now began direct talks with Beijing over Tibet. There
were, however, "right wing forces" in India who "refused to abandon the English legacy"
in Tibet and who pressured Nehru in 1959. Moreover, Nehru himself "harbored a sort of
dark mentality" (huaiyou moxie yinan xinli), the exact nature of which is not specified
but which presumably included aggressive designs on Tibet.11 These factors led Nehru to
demonstrate an "irresolute attitude" (taidu bu jinyue) in 1959. On the one hand he said
that Tibet was a part of China and that he did not want to interfere in China's internal
affairs. On the other hand, he permitted all sorts of "anti-China activities and words"
aimed against China's exercise of sovereignty over Tibet. Zhao is more sensitive than
other Chinese analysts to the domestic political pressures weighing on Nehru in 1959.
Yet even she suggests that Nehru's "dark mentality" led him to give free reign to "anti9
China forces" in an attempt to cause Tibet to "throw off the jurisdiction of China's central
government."
The attribution to India by contemporary Chinese scholars of a desire to seize
Tibet mirrors --- as we shall see below --- the thinking of Chinese leaders who decided to
launch that war. This is probably due to the fact that published scholarship in China is
still expected to explain and justify, not to criticize, the decisions of the Chinese
Communist Party, at least on such sensitive matters as war and peace.
Indian Policy toward Tibet
Assessment of the accuracy of Chinese views regarding Indian policy toward
Tibet depends on ascertaining what actually transpired in Indo-Tibetan-Chinese relations
in the years prior to the 1962 war. A brief review is thus requisite.
In 1949 and 1950 India covertly supplied small amounts of arms to the Tibetan
government.12 During the same period and while the PLA was preparing to move into
Tibet, the Indian government sought via diplomatic protests to the new PRC government
to prevent or limit PLA occupation of Tibet. Beijing rejected these Indian protests with
stern warnings. New Delhi also initially sought to uphold Indian rights in Tibet inherited
from Britain and embodied in treaties with the old Republic of China. These rights
included trading missions, representative officers, telecommunications facilities, and
small military contingents to guard these facilities in several Tibetan towns. Beijing
viewed these rights as products of imperialist aggression against China and unilaterally
abrogated the treaties upon which they were based. By 1952 or so, Nehru had accepted
China's views of these old treaties and of India's derivative special rights in Tibet. Many
10
in India, including a number of very prominent individuals though not initially Nehru,
were concerned with the fate of Tibet's Buddhist-based and Indian-influenced civilization
under rule by the Chinese Communist Party. Nehru became increasingly sensitive to this
"sentimental," "cultural" (terms Nehru used) interests in Tibet as the years passed. 13
On the other hand, India actually helped China consolidate its control over Tibet.
In October 1950 India refused to sponsor a Tibetan appeal to the United Nations. When
El Salvador sponsored such an appeal, India played a key role in squashing it. Many
governments, including the U.S., the British, and many Middle Eastern, were willing to
follow India's lead on this issue, and India's opposition to the Tibetan appeal to the U.N.
was, in fact, a major reason for its non-consideration.14 New Delhi also turned down U.S.
proposals 1950 of Indo-U.S. cooperation in support of Tibetan resistance to China.15
India also played a key role in persuading the young Dalai Lama not to flee abroad and
try to rally international support for Tibet, but to return to Tibet and reach an
accommodation with China's Communist government --- an accommodation that
occurred with the 17-Point agreement of May 1951. Then in 1954 India formally
recognized China's ownership of Tibet as part of an effort to reach a broader
understanding with China. Again, most countries recognized India's leadership on this
matter. After the 1954 agreement between China and India regarding Tibet, the Indian
government encouraged the Dalai Lama and his local Tibetan government to assert its
autonomy under the 17-Point agreement. Perhaps most important of all, until mid-1959
India allowed trade with Tibet to continue unimpeded. Prior to the mid-1950s when
newly PLA-built roads into Tibet were opened, India's supply of foodstuffs, fuels, and
basic goods was essential to restraining inflation in Tibet created by demand for these
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commodities due to the introduction of large numbers of Chinese soldiers and
construction workers into a region with a subsistence economy.
In mid 1957 the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) began covert assistance
to rebels in the Kham region of southeastern Tibet. Assistance rendered through this
CIA program was actually quite limited totaling only 250 tons of munitions, equipment,
and supplies between 1957 and 1961.16 But CIA operations came to the attention of
Chinese intelligence, and thus became a concern of China's government. Tibetan
refugees that found asylum in northern Indian cities (especially Darjeeling, Kalimpong,
and Gangtok) in the 1950s also supported in various ways resistance movements inside
Tibet. Covert operatives from various countries including the U.S., Nationalist China,
and the PRC, were also active in those cities. By late 1958 Beijing began demanding that
India expel key leaders of the Tibetan resistance based in India, and suppress activities
supporting opposition to Chinese policies within Tibet. Nehru sought a middle course,
restricting Tibetan activities, but refusing to expel Tibetan leaders. A key question we
will return to below is how much Nehru knew about CIA operations in 1958-61.
Once the Tibetan national rising began in Lhasa on 10 March 1959, India did not
wash its hands of Tibetan affairs as Beijing insisted. Rather, Indian media and elected
Indian politicians, including Nehru and virtually every other Indian politician, expressed
greater or lesser sympathy with Tibet's struggle. Beijing condemned a large number of
Indian moves that it said encouraged the rebellion. These Indian moves included: the
Indian Consul General in Lhasa met with demonstrating Tibetans in the early days of the
Lhasa uprising; granting asylum to the Dalai Lama; having official contact with the
Dalai Lama; treating the Dalai Lama as an honored guest; permitting the Dalai Lama to
12
meet with the media and foreign representatives; not quashing the Dalai Lama's appeal
to the United Nations; granting asylum to ten thousand or so Tibetan refugees who
followed the Dalai Lama to India; concentrating those refugees in camps near the
Tibetan frontier; not suppressing "anti-China activities" conducted in those refugee
camps; permitting or encouraging negative commentary by Indian newspapers about
China's actions in Tibet; Nehru raising the "Tibet issue" in India's parliament and making
critical comments about China's policies in Tibet; Nehru permitting the Indian
parliament to discuss Tibet; allowing "anti-China activities" by protesters in Indian
cities; not punishing Indian protestors for defacing a portrait of Mao Zedong; instigating
an "anti-China campaign" in the Indian press; restricting trade between India and Tibet;
and allowing the Dalai Lama to speak of "a Tibetan government in exile." All these acts
constituted, in China's view, "interference in the internal affairs of China."17 Beijing saw
these Indian actions as ways in which New Delhi was attempting to "seize Tibet."
CCP Leaders Perceptions of Indian "Expansionism" in 1959
As noted earlier, the uniform belief of PRC historians of the 1990s that India
wanted to seize Tibet, mirrors the beliefs of China's leaders in 1959. In the aftermath of
the uprising that began in Lhasa on 10 March 1959, the CCP decided to dissolve the
Tibetan local government, assert its own direct administration, and begin implementing
social revolutionary policies in Tibet. On 25 March "central cadre" met in Shanghai to
discuss the situation in Tibet. Mao gave his views of the situation. India was doing bad
things in Tibet, Mao Zedong told the assembled cadre, but China would not condemn
India openly at the moment. Rather, India would be given enough rope to hang itself
13
(guo xing bu yi --- literally "to do evil deeds frequently brings ruin to the evil doer").
China would settle accounts with India later, Mao said.18
Three weeks later, as thousands of Tibetans fled into India where outraged Indian
and international sympathy welcomed them, Mao intensified the struggle against India.
On 19 April Mao ordered Xinhua news agency to issue a commentary criticizing
unnamed "Indian expansionists." Mao personally revised the draft commentary.19 Four
days later Mao ordered a further escalation. Renmin ribao should now openly criticize
Nehru by name, Mao directed. When Mao was presented with the draft, he rejected it.
The draft missed the point, Mao said. The target should not be "imperialism," but "Indian
expansionists" who "want ardently to grab Tibet" (wangtu ba xizang naleguochu).20 Days
later, on 25 April, Mao convened a Politburo Standing Committee meeting. Mao
immediately asked about the status of the revised editorial criticizing Nehru. He then
directed that the criticism should "be sharp, don't fear to irritate him [Nehru], don't fear to
cause him trouble." Nehru miscalculated the situation, Mao said, believing that China
could not suppress the rebellion in Tibet and would have to beg India's help. Here Mao
implied that Nehru was pursuing a strategy of fomenting rebellion in Tibet in hopes that
Beijing would solicit Indian help in dealing with that rebellion. The objective was to
maintain Sino-Indian friendship, Mao said, but this could only be achieved via unity
through struggle. Nehru's incorrect ideas had to be struggled against.21 Implicit in Mao's
comments was the notion that Nehru's instigation was responsible for the rebellion in
Tibet.
The polemic ordered and revised by Mao appeared on 6 May 1959 under the title
"The Revolution in Tibet and Nehru's Philosophy."22 The main charge leveled against
14
India was conduct of an "anti-China slander campaign" being waged by Nehru and the
Indian media over events in Tibet. Nehru's main offense against China was what he was
saying about Tibet, and the encouragement those words gave to rebels in Tibet. In his
comments, Nehru denied "that a handful of upper-strata [Tibetan] reactionaries are
responsible for the rebellion in Tibet, describes the just action of the Chinese people in
putting down the rebellion as a 'tragedy' and expresses sympathy for the rebellion. Thus,
he commits a most deplorable error," according to the article. The "vociferous selfstyled
sympathizers of the Tibetan people" in fact "sympathize with those who for
generations oppressed, exploited, and butchered the Tibetan people" -- with the "big serfowners"
who tortured and oppressed the Tibetan people under the "cruelest and most
savage serfdom in the world." Nehru was spreading such "slanders" against China in
Tibet via speeches to the Indian parliament and interviews with Indian newspapers. This
"slander campaign" against China had to cease. If it did not, China would hit back:
"So long as you do not end your anti-Chinese slander campaign, we will not cease
hitting back. We are prepared to spend as much time on this as you want to. We
are prepared too, if you should incite other countries to raise a hue and cry against
us. We are also prepared to find all the imperialists in the world backing you up
in the clamor. But it is utterly futile to try to use pressure to interfere in China's
internal affairs and salvage the odious rule of the big serf-owners in Tibet.
Nehru's sympathy for the Tibetan serf-owning class stemmed from the "dual
character" of the Indian "big bourgeoisie," which by its class nature "has a certain urge
for outward expansion." Thus Nehru and the Indian "big bourgeoisie" strove "to prevent
China from exercising full sovereignty over its territory in Tibet." They wanted Tibet to
have "a kind of semi-independent status," to be a "sort of buffer zone between China and
India."
15
It is significant that Nehru's most egregious offense was his words. It was these
words which were reflective of his "philosophy," of his inner nature, of his class
character, of his role as a representative of the Indian "big bourgeoisie" and its ambitions
for expansion in Tibet. Mao's close involvement in the drafting of this document makes
clear that it fully represented Mao's own views.
The same day Renmin ribao published this commentary Zhou Enlai outlined
Chinese views for an assembly of socialist country representatives in Beijing. In doing
so, Zhou underlined the links between Nehru's words, his "class nature," and his counterrevolutionary
objectives in Tibet. Nehru and people from the Indian upper class, Zhou
explained, "oppose reform in Tibet, even to the extent of saying that reform is
impossible." Their motive in doing this was to cause "Tibet to remain for a long time in a
backward state, becoming a 'buffer state' between China and India." "This is their
guiding mentality, and also the center of the Sino-Indian conflict," Zhou said. (emphasis
added) "A section of the Indian upper class had inherited England's old policy of saying
Tibet is an 'independent country', saying that China only has 'suzerainty', or saying Tibet
is a 'protectorate.'" All these formulations were violations of China's sovereignty, Zhou
said. Nehru and company claimed sympathy for the Tibetans, but "Actually, they
sympathize with the serf-owners. Their objective is to cause Tibet not to advance, not to
reform, to become a 'buffer country,' to remain under India's influence, and become their
protectorate." This was "Nehru and company's" "basic class reaction."23
The question of responsibility for the crisis in Tibet figured prominently in the
contentious talks between Mao Zedong and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in Beijing
on 2 October 1959. After a complete disagreement over Taiwan, Khrushchev turned to
16
India and Tibet, saying: "If you let me, I will tell you what a guest should not say --- the
events in Tibet are your fault. You ruled in Tibet, you should have had your intelligence
[agencies] there and should have know about the plans and intentions of the Dalai Lama"
[to flee to India]. "Nehru also says that the events in Tibet occurred on our fault," Mao
replied. After an exchange over the flight of the Dalai Lama, Khrushchev made the
point: "If you allow him [the Dalai Lama] an opportunity to flee to India, then what has
Nehru to do with it? We believe that the events in Tibet are the fault of the Communist
Party of China, not Nehru's fault." "No, this is Nehru's fault," Mao replied. "Then the
events in Hungary are not our fault," the Soviet leader responded, "but the fault of the
United States of America, if I understand you correctly. Please, look here, we had an
army in Hungary, we supported that fool Rakosi --- and this is our mistake, not the
mistake of the United States." Mao rejected this: "The Hindus acted in Tibet as if it
belonged to them."24
The proposition that an Indian desire to seize Tibet underlay Indian actions
continued to be central to Chinese thinking in the weeks prior to the 1962 war. On 16
October 1962, two days before the Politburo approved the PLA's plan for a large scale
"self defensive counter-attack" against India, General Lei Yingfu, head of the PLA's "war
fighting department " (zuo zhan bu), reported to Mao on why India had six days
previously launched a major operation to cut off Chinese troops atop Thagla Ridge. Lei
had been appointed to head an ad hoc small group established to probe the motives and
purposes behind Indian actions. Tibet headed Lei's list of five major Indian motives.
"Nehru has consistently wanted to turn China's ethnically Tibetan districts into India's
colony or protectorate," Lei reported to Mao. Lei adduced various Indian actions of
17
1950, 1956, and 1959 to substantiate this proposition. In March 1959, Lei reported to
Mao, Nehru "incited the Dalai Lama group to undertake rebellious activity of openly
splitting the motherland." Nehru "always wanted to use the strength of a minority of
Tibetan reactionaries to drive China out of the Tibetan areas of Tibet, [western] Sichuan,
and Qinghai." When Nehru saw this "plot" of using Tibetan reactionaries to split China
had failed, he "sent Indian forces to aggress against China's borders." "Yes," Mao said
as he nodded in agreement with Lei's conclusions about Tibet. "Nehru has repeatedly
acted in this way."25
Typically, Mao Zedong stated the matter most directly and forcefully. Speaking
to a visiting delegation from Nepal in 1964, Mao told his foreign visitors that the major
problem between India and China was not the McMahon line, but the Tibet question. "In
the opinion of the Indian government," Mao said, "Tibet is theirs."26
The Erroneous Nature of Chinese Perceptions of Indian Policy toward Tibet
The fact that China's leaders saw Indian efforts as attempts to "grab Tibet," to turn
Tibet into "a buffer zone," to return Tibet to its pre-1949 status, to "overthrow China's
sovereignty," or to cause Tibet to "throw off the jurisdiction of China's central
government," does not necessarily mean that those perceptions were accurate. In fact,
this core Chinese belief was wrong. This belief which Chinese analysts explain
underpinned China's decision for war in 1962, was, in fact, inaccurate. It was a deeply
pernicious Chinese misperception that contributed powerfully to the decision for war in
1962.
18
The Indian government indisputably was attempting to influence events inside
Tibet, as well as relations between the Tibetan local government and Beijing. What is in
question is not Indian actions, but the motives and purposes which lay behind those
actions.
Nehru's policies derived not from a desire to seize Tibet or over-throw Chinese
sovereignty there, but from a desire to uphold Tibet's autonomy under Chinese
sovereignty as part of a grand accommodation between China and India --- an
accommodation that would make possible a global partnership between India and China.
Nehru envisioned a compromise between Chinese and Indian interests regarding Tibet,
with Chinese respect for Tibetan autonomy combined with Indian respect for Chinese
sovereignty over Tibet. This accomodation would, Nehru believed, provide a basis for a
broad program of cooperation between China and India on behalf of the peoples of the
developing countries and against the insanity of a nuclear-armed bipolar Cold War.
Nehru believed that by demonstrating India's acceptance of China's ownership and
military control of Tibet while simultaneously befriending China on such issues as war in
Korea, the PRC's U.N. admission, the peace treaty with Japan and transfer of Taiwan to
the PRC, Indochina, and decolonization and the Afro-Asian movement, China could be
won to cooperation with India. The two leading Asian powers would then create a new
axis in world politics. In terms of Tibet, Nehru hoped that China would repay India's
friendship and consolidate the Sino-Indian partnership by granting Tibet a significant
degree of autonomy.27
A series of moves by Nehru in 1959 contradicts the proposition that he sought to
undermine China's rule over Tibet. When he granted asylum to the Dalai Lama in March
19
1959 he believed, on the basis of earlier comments by Zhou Enlai regarding such a
possibility in 1950, that Beijing would not regard it as an unfriendly act. After the Dalai
Lama's flight to India, Nehru initially thought the Tibetan leader could work out a deal
with Beijing restoring a degree or autonomy and permitting his return to Lhasa --- as had
been the case in 1951. Nehru stated repeatedly and publicly that Tibet was part of China
and that events there were an internal affair of China. After the Dalai Lama's 1959 flight
to India, Nehru urged the Tibetan leader to avoid speaking of independence, saying that
such a goal was "impractical." Instead, Tibet should seek mere autonomy instead, Nehru
said. India refused to support, and indeed actively discouraged, a Tibetan appeal to the
United Nations in 1959 and 1960 --- as it had in 1950. New Delhi urged Britain and
other states not to open contacts with the Dalai Lama and worked to obstruct the Dalai
Lama's efforts to establish such contacts. Even after the U.S. State Department stated in
February 1960 that the United States believed the principle of self determination should
apply to the Tibetan people, India did not welcome this move. These moves do not
suggest a policy of seeking to overthrow China's control over Tibet. As Tsering Shakya
concluded, Nehru's handling of Tibet during 1959-1960 (and indeed all the way to the
1962 war according to Shakya), amounted to an effort to placate Beijing at the expense
of the Dalai Lama and Tibetan independence.
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