Syed Adil Bukhari
The Sino-Indian War also known as the Sino-Indian Border Conflict, a war between China and India that occurred in 1962. The border between India and China is not clearly demarcated throughout. Along certain stretches of its 3,488-km length, there is no mutually agreed Line of Actual Control. India, following Independence, believed it had inherited firm boundaries from the British, but this was contrary to China’s view. China felt the British had left behind a disputed legacy on the boundary between the two newly formed republics. Unable to reach political accommodation on disputed territory along the 3,225 kilometre (2000 mile) long Himalayan border,the Chinese launched simultaneous offensives in Ladakh and across the McMahon Line on 20 October 1962. The war ended when China declared a ceasefire on 20 November 1962, and simultaneously announced its withdrawal to its claimed ‘line of actual control’. According to the China’s official military history, the war achieved China’s policy objectives of securing borders in its western sector, as China retained de facto control of the Aksai Chin. After the war, India abandoned the Forward Policy, and the de facto borders stabilised along the Line of Actual Control. The aftermath of the war saw sweeping changes in the Indian military to prepare it for similar conflicts in the future, and placed pressure on Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, who was seen as responsible for failing to anticipate the Chinese attack on India. India also reported some military conflicts with China after the 1962 war. In late 1967, there were two incidents in which both countries exchanged fire in Sikkim. The first one was dubbed the “Nathu La incident”, and the other being “Chola incident” in which advancing Chinese forces were forced to withdraw from Sikkim, then a protectorate of India and later a state of India after annexation in 1975. In the 1987 Sino-Indian skirmish, both sides showed military restraint and it was a bloodless conflict. In 2017 the two countries once again were involved in a military standoff, in which several troops were injured.
Absence of an active conflict alongside the presence of internal strength and peaceful borders are considered to be the pre-requisites for smooth development. There are ‘established principles of international law and practice that provide both the means and processes for boundary settlement’; through which China and India can resolve their border disputes.
Given China’s land mass, it shares border with 17 states, and has border and territorial disputes with most of them. Similar has been the case with India as it shares borders with most of the South Asian states. China and India, both countries have not been able to agree on border delimitation and it has never been officially drawn.Both India and China claim are contested territories of Aksai Chin and Arunachal Pradesh as the core of the dispute but many highlight the issue of Tibet and Sino-Bhutan border dispute to be the key reasons. After the military stand-off of 1962 and 1987, Doklam stand-off was considered to be one of the worst between the two countries in last 30 years. The escalation began on June 16, when Chinese construction workers were spotted in disputed territory on the remote Doklam Plateau. It is claimed that the workers were building a road that would extend China’s strategic reach further into territory claimed by Bhutan.
This border dispute in its extensive historic context has hardly seen a situation close to resolution. Over this extensive period of time, efforts have been made by parties to reach a conclusive end, however it was always one sided as most of them were proposed by China and India never agreed. Repeated eruption of border disputes has become a challenge to the well- maintained Sino-India bilateral relations. Presently China and India both have the identical and similar ambitions of sustaining economic growth and development in order to improve living standards and reduce poverty of their respective huge populations. To this end, absence of an active conflict alongside the presence of internal strength and peaceful borders are considered to be the pre-requisites for smooth development. There are ‘established principles of international law and practice that provide both the means and processes for boundary settlement’; through which China and India can resolve their border disputes.
The author is from Central Kashmir working in Corporate Sector New Delhi, the views expressed are their own.
