It’s in India’s long-term strategic interest to settle the boundary dispute with China
Brig. B.L. Poonia (retd)
India claims Aksai Chin across Ladakh and Thagla Ridge across NEFA (North-East Frontier Agency), and China claims both Aksai and NEFA. But how does the claim of a nation get justified, on any piece of territory? It has to be either by conquest or by consent. Was India ever in possession of these areas, or were these territories ever acquired by India under any treaty? The answer is no.
If that be so, on what basis have we based our claim upon these areas, and how exactly are we justified in blaming China for being in possession of Aksai Chin or Thagla Ridge? Moreover, why have we been made to believe that China had forcefully occupied these areas, and China was the aggressor, and India the victim, in 1962?
Well, the simple answer to these complex questions lies in Nehru’s desire to acquire these areas, fully knowing that India had no historical or legal claim on them. But why did such a strange desire germinate in his mind? That is a mystery. India became independent on 15 August 1947, and People’s Republic of China came into existence about two years later on 1 October 1949. Nehru considered China militarily a weak nation, incapable of facing India, and firmly believed that physical possession of territory was nine-tenths of the law.
Neville Maxwell, in his book India’s China War, writes, ‘In 1834, Gulab Singh’s Dogras invaded Ladakh, but were pushed back by the Tibetans. A non-aggression treaty was signed in October 1842, asking each other to respect “the old, established frontiers”, where the most advanced Indian post in Ladakh was at Chushul, far short of Aksai Chin.’ This formed the de facto boundary between Ladakh and Tibet, which the British printed on their maps as ‘Alignment of the British Boundary Commission 1846-47’, and later extended the same towards the northwest, naming it as the ‘Foreign Office Line-1873’. But even this was far short of Aksai Chin, running west of the Karakoram Range. Aksai Chin, the area east of Karakoram Range, had always been a part of Tibet, and Tibet was at that time unquestionably under the control of China.
Importance of Aksai Chin
Maxwell writes, ‘Aksai Chin means “desert of white stones’”. It is a high and desolate plateau, 17,000 feet above sea level, covering an area of 33,000 square kilometres, where nothing grows and no one lives, lying between the towering ranges of Karakoram and Kuen Lun. The ancient silk route lay along this. The British strategic interest lay in keeping the mighty Russian empire and the Chinese away, by having Aksai Chin as a buffer zone, since the Russians, the Chinese, and the British feared each other.’
W.H. Johnson, a British officer of Survey of India, who visited Khotan (China) in 1865 via Aksai Chin, drew a boundary line showing Aksai Chin in Kashmir territory. It was named Johnson Line (also known as Johnson-Ardagh Line), and the same was published in an atlas in 1868. It had no legal sanctity as it was a unilaterally drawn line, that was sought to be proposed, but the British never even communicated this as a boundary proposal to China. Interestingly, this is the line from which India derives its claim on Aksai Chin.
In 1899, the British proposed to divide Aksai Chin through the McCartney-MacDonald Proposal, a boundary line suggesting that a portion of Aksai Chin be included in the British territory. But the Chinese never replied. After 1899, there was no further attempt by the British to get China to agree to a boundary alignment across Ladakh.
So, the only ratified boundary that had legal sanctity, was the one which existed as per the ‘Ladakh-Tibet Treaty of 1842,’ which continued to be marked as the official boundary on the British maps, per which the entire Aksai Chin remained a part of China. However, the Johnson Line, which had no legal sanctity, continued to be shown as ‘boundary undefined’, thereby implying it to be one of the boundaries ‘to be proposed’. But for China, the strategic importance of Aksai Chin increased manifold, after the construction of the Aksai Chin Highway in 1957, which linked the vast regions of Sinkiang Province with Western Tibet.
Now let us move on to NEFA and examine the history of the McMahon Line. The sudden collapse of Chinese power in Tibet in 1911-12 tempted Lord Hardinge to capture the area that later came to be known as NEFA. However, a direct attack on Tibet would have resulted in a war with China. Hence Britain convoked a tripartite conference in Simla, comprising Britain, China and Tibet in October 1913. Since China exercised ‘suzerainty’ over Tibet, it still controlled Tibet’s foreign policy. But the Simla Conference did not result in any treaty to which China was a party, since the British proposals were not acceptable to China. Hence the British played a trick, and secretly signed a bilateral agreement with Tibet. However, even the 1913 Simla Convention showed Aksai Chin as part of Tibet.
But this bilateral agreement was kept a secret, since it was in violation of the Anglo-Chinese Convention of 1906, as well as the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907, under which Britain was prohibited to enter into negotiations directly with Tibet except through an intermediary of the Chinese government.
Four months later in February-March 1914, the British invited Tibet to Delhi for further discussions on the Assam-Tibet border but China was not informed. A secret treaty was signed on 24 March 1914, and the alignment agreed upon was the McMahon Line, which resulted in the drawing of a new boundary alignment, marked on maps between Assam and Tibet, extending from Bhutan into Burma. It was a 1,050-kilometre-long line, of which 890 kilometres lay in India, and 160 kilometres in Burma. Essentially, it pushed the British boundary up northward by about 100 kilometres. The newly added area on the map came to be known as NEFA, covering an area of 65,000 square kilometres.
However, China was not a part of this treaty and it made it clear that since Tibet did not enjoy sovereign identity, or treaty-making powers, it would not recognise any treaty which excluded China, in violation of the Anglo-Chinese Convention 1906. Legally, this treaty was illegal.
World War l broke out soon thereafter, and the McMahon Line was forgotten, till the Survey of India began to show it as its northeast boundary in 1937, but qualifying it as ‘undemarcated’. Soon thereafter, both British and China got involved in World War II. The British left India in 1947, leaving behind two unilaterally drawn boundary lines on maps, across Ladakh and NEFA, without the consent of China. Since both these boundary lines had not been ratified by China, they lacked legal sanctity to be treated or claimed as international boundaries. That is why the British never even attempted to occupy or capture either Aksai Chin or NEFA, nor did it ever lay any claim on these areas.
The Chinese power returned in Tibet in 1950, but soon China got occupied with the Korean War from 1950 to 1953. During this period, India ‘quietly’, without consulting China, annexed NEFA in1951 by sending a strong patrol under Maj. Bob Khating of Assam Rifles, who hoisted the Indian flag at Tawang on 9 February1951, forcing the Tibetan administration out of Tawang, in spite of its vehement protests. Thus, the McMahon Line was ‘unilaterally’ transported from the maps to the ground as the de facto northeast boundary of India.
India added 65,000 square kilometres of territory by annexing NEFA, which legally belonged to China, but China did not protest. This puzzling silence of China can be construed as her acceptance of the McMahon Line, since China wanted to maintain good friendly relations with India to resolve its border issues. However, Nehru misconstrued China’s quietude for its military weakness, which encouraged him further to make similar moves to acquire more of the Chinese territory.
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