India China Border Dispute: India not of 1962

June 17, 2020November 30, 2020 Tietler

India China Border Dispute

India China Border Dispute escalated after clashing between the soldiers at the Galwan Valley in Ladakh. Fatalities have taken place on both sides. This bloody face-off came at a time when the Globe is fighting for survival against corona and also asking the role of China in the global pandemic. So, Chine is trying to divert the world’s attention.

These casualties are the first incident at the India-China border in 45 years. In the future, this incident may be recognized as the Kargil war of India-China relations. It may halt further diplomatic ties between both countries.

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India’s infrastructure plans triggered China

Irritated by India’s rapid infrastructure development in strategic locations of the Line of Actual Control (LAC), China sent hundreds of soldiers to the post. India too deployed units and clarified infrastructure projects won’t be stopped. The Chinese have already developed its infra along the border and now when India is doing the same in its own territory, China gets pinned out.

The Indian and Chinese army have been locked in an eye-to-eye situation since May in several areas, including Pangong Tso and Galwan Valley. The first encounter happened on May 5-6, when Indian and Chinese patrols on the northern bank of Pangong Tso lake clashed. The Indian side patrols on foot, and before the recent tensions, could go up to Finger 8. The fight between Indian and Chinese soldiers in May 2020 happened at Finger 5, which led to “disengagement”. The Chinese have now stopped the Indian soldiers moving beyond Finger 2.

Dispute of Pangong Tso

Most of the clashes between the two armies occur in the disputed portion of the lake. The points in the water at which the Indian claim ends and the Chinese claim begins are not agreed upon mutually. As already told, 45 km-long western portion of the lake is under Indian control, while the rest is under China’s control.

[button-red url=”” target=”” position=””]What if there is a full War[/button-red]

It’s absolutely true that Chinese are more advanced than India but that doesn’t mean that they can defeat India.

India has many advantages:

Local Separatist Movement: Every country has some areas where people are against the government. In the case of Pakistan, it’s Baluchistan. Similarly, the Chinese also have some parts in the south also who are against the government. So, just supporting those causes (local movement)also create China weaker from inside. But in India, there is no any big separatist movement going on. And if existed those are in colonies and so can be fussed by local government only.
India is a very big consumer of Chinese products. A war means complete sanctions on the trade and would end up making china economically weak.
Both the countries are nuclear-equipped, India has an edge over China since we can get ourselves involved in a nuclear war, and they cannot. ( Because of the Nuclear pact-NPT)
India is a close ally to Russia as well as the USA. And incidentally, in the COVID era, the USA is in the mood to nullify Chinese presence from the global economic portfolio. The USA will come together with India and fight against China.
China has a huge standing army, but geographically China is three times bigger than India. China shares territorial borders with 18 countries and they have border disputes with almost all neighbors. so they cannot use all army against India even in a full-scale war.
India is surrounded by sea to three sides and no threats from those sides. Most of the army of India is in North and northwest along with china and Pakistan respectively.
Indian navy is considered the strongest navy in the Indian ocean. China still has one more weakness. It imports 60% crude oil and all this oil pass through the Indian ocean. If war broke out, it will be next to impossible for them to transport oil as we have Andaman and Nicobar, very close to the strait of Malacca.
Indian army experience of fighting insurgencies in Kashmir for many decades. They have fought almost 4 wars. They know how to fight in mountainous regions much better than Chinese troops.

INDO-China War 1962

In 1962, China was not a great military power as it is today. But it still went for a war against India because of three principal reasons.

1.) There was a tremendous sense of Chinese insecurity in Tibet, particularly after the Dalai Lama crossed over to India and established the government-in-exile. China saw and it continues to see, India as a troublesome factor behind the Tibetan unrest.

2.) The war against India was a safety strategy on the part of the then Chinese supremo Mao Zedong, whose politico-economic policy of “The Great Leap Forward” was proving to be a disaster for the Chinese people.

3.) Despite China being a communist country, it never gave up the country’s past culture in which they believe that China is the center of global civilization and all the nations must acknowledge its political and cultural supremacy. That means China will not allow any other nation, at least in Asia, to be as important as it is. Mao did not like the global attention and importance that India’s then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was drawing those days.

If Mao believed in the concept of Middle Kingdom, Nehru thought of a world where the militaries should be disbanded.

There was luck on one side and misconception in another

Opposite to popular perception, the 1962 war was not an Indian defeat. In fact, it was not even a war in a true sense as no air force or navy was used by either side. In 1962, India did not have a definite agenda, it did try to prick the Chinese under the false impression that the Chinese also want peace.

Under the hope of the USA and Russia’s assistance, India did not focus on developing any military capability while knowing that China was preparing for war. Knowing the fact that USSR will support India and the USA may also step into India’s aid, the Chinese attacked when the US and USSR were busy with the Cuban missile crisis.

PM Nehru had believed that India, being a peace-loving nation did not need an army and police will be enough for any internal disturbances. All this lead to 12,000 Indian troops facing the Chinese force of over 80,000 which had much superior artillery.

Towards the unprecedented end of the war, the Chinese had withdrawn from NEFP, citing reasons that they wanted peace. The real reason for the with-drawl was that ahead of NEFP, lay highly fortified positions of the Indian army. On top of that, the USA finally dispatched a carrier battle group to provide air support to India and started to air-rush war supplies. If the war continued, India would definitely win that war.

Still, it is surprising to call the 1962 war; a Chinese ‘victory’.

Why India had such humiliation in the war?

India’s refusal to support the Tibetan cause.

Despite repeated requests from the Tibetan government, Nehru refused to help Tibet.

In UNO, when it came to discussing China’s annexation of Tibet, Nehru’s response was that ‘Tibet, as far as we are concerned, is simple’. It was taken up only as part of a routine discussion on international relations. He was championing the cause of China’s entry into the United Nations at that time. Hence he refused to raise the Tibetan issue in the UN.

India watched silently when China slowly but surely occupied Tibet and stood at its own doorstep by 1952. The then young Dalai Lama, the spiritual and political leader of Tibet came to India to help but was not provided.

Panchsheel.

Panchsheel was ‘born in sin’. Having watched the occupation of Tibet by China, India had, through this agreement, put its stamp of approval on the occupation. Amid the cries of ‘Hindi-Chini Bhai Bhai’ India and China signed the historic Panchsheel Agreement in 1954. Nehru declared in the Parliament that “We have done no better thing than this since we became independent”.

The fact is, this agreement had officially and fatally undone all that good work done over decades to uphold the independence of Tibet. It was the very title ‘Agreement on Trade and Intercourse between the Tibetan region of China and India’, which proved fatal to the Tibetan cause.

Not containing China in time

The Nehru government had information about the transgressions by the Chinese in the Aksai Chin area in 1952 itself. Intelligence messages in 1952 said that the Chinese were engaged in converting a mule track into a jeep track in the Aksai Chin area. By 1953 that the jeep track was being fast updated into a highway.

In 1957 the Chinese media had officially announced that they were building a highway linking Xinjiang with Tibet through Aksai Chin. Yet, Nehru kept the country in dark until 1959.

In a letter to China, he mentioned that the Chinese workers working in Aksai Chin region ‘had not secured valid visas’, as though that was the real problem.

No preparation for war

Nehru had the belief that China would never attack India because “Is it imaginable that a war between India and China will remain confined to those countries? It will be a world war”.

Hence no preparation; no planning. “Defence against whom?” Menon said to have asked famously. So, when the Chinese came attacking, Menon was in New York, Nehru in the UK, then in Africa and later in Sri Lanka.

There was no road link between Srinagar and Leh; there were only four airbases, and just one brigade to man the entire 2,000 km border. The army wanted one additional brigade and they were given just one battalion. The shortage of ammunition plagued the army throughout.

Failure of Indian leadership to understand China

The biggest reason for India’s failure was that India PM Nehru was manipulated by Zhou Enlai & Mao. They convinced that Communist China is not the enemy of India and captured Tibet & India’s land of Aksai Chin. If Indian leadership anticipated that allowing China to occupy Tibet would create a huge security problem for India, then India might have sent troops in early 1950s to defend Tibet. Sardar Patel has warned about this Chinese threat to Nehru but he died and so Chinese occupied Tibet and attacked India.

Neglect of Defense of India

Independent India has neglected the defense of India as India has other priorities. Thus operational effectiveness of the Indian Army suffered and the Indian Army was not able to counter Chinese moves in the Eastern Sector. But the 1962 war proved to be a wakeup call and when Pakistan attacked India in 1962 and 1971, the Indian Army was well prepared.

Lessons from the 1962 War:

The India-China War in 1962 was independent India’s most traumatic and worst-ever security failure which left an indelible impression on our history and psyche.

The very first lesson is, India finally realized that to be taken seriously in geopolitics, a country needs a strong military. The Indian army doubled in size in 2 years, it set up training schools for specialized troops in mountain warfare, the defense budget was tripled, and the Indian army along with the Air Force and Navy went through an entire revamp in its organization. Thanks to this Chinese ‘lesson’, India beat a superior Pakistan military in 1965 and completely demolished them in 1971.

Conclusion:

The war of 1962 will always remain the most inferior point in Indian history. This was a struggle between Communists & democracy and Democracy emerged stronger after the war. Even though India suffered the war, the memory of war is still fresh in India’s memories and this war made India which we see today. Southern Parties like DMK dropped the demand of separate Nation after witnessing the support for the Indian Army among Tamil speaking Indians. For the first time, India was united against an external enemy. The 1962 debacle marked the end of the Nehru era and Nehru could never recover from this betrayal of China. The war of 1962 has calligraphed the history of Indian Victory in wars of 1965,67,71 and 1999.

[alert-note]Things to Know[/alert-note]

Pangong Tso lake:

It is a 135-km long lake, located in the Himalayas at the height of approximately 4,350 m, stretches out from India to China. One-third of the water body, its 45 km stretch, is in Indian control while the rest of the 90 km is under Chinese control. It is a saltwater lake.

India- China Border:

India and China share a 3,488 km long boundary. Unfortunately, the entire boundary is disputed. The line, which delineates the boundary between the two countries, is popularly called the McMahon Line.

In 1913, the boundary between India and Tibet was formalized after a discussion between the Indians and the Tibetans. A Convention was adopted, which resulted in the delimitation of the Indo-Tibetan boundary.

In 1957, China occupied Aksai Chin and built a road through it. This incident was followed by occasional clashes along the border, which finally culminated in the border war of 1962. The boundary, which came into existence after the war, came to be known as Line of Actual Control (LAC).

Line of Actual Control

The LAC is divided into three sectors: western, middle, and eastern.
The countries disagree on the exact location of the LAC in various areas,
1. India claims that the LAC is 3,488 km long,
2. China believes it to be around 2,000 km long.
The two armies try and dominate by patrol to the areas up to their respective perceptions of the LAC. This often brings them into conflict.
The LAC mostly passes on the land, but in Pangong Tso , the LAC passes through the water as well…

“Fingers” in the lake

The mountains on the lake’s northern bank, Chang Chenmo, jut forward in spurs, which the Army calls “fingers”.

India claims that the LAC is bordered with Finger 8, but it physically controls area only up to Finger 4. Chinese border posts are at Finger 8, while it believes that the LAC passes through Finger 2.