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India-China border conflict
Topic Started: Tue May 6, 2014 3:38 pm (320 Views)
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Sino-Indian border dispute

Sovereignty over two large and various smaller separated pieces of territory are contested between China and India. The westernmost, Aksai Chin, is claimed by India as part of the state of Jammu and Kashmir and region of Ladakh but is controlled and administered as part of the Chinese autonomous region of Xinjiang. It is a virtually uninhabited high altitude wasteland crossed by the Xinjiang-Tibet Highway. The other large disputed territory, the easternmost, lies south of the McMahon Line. It was formerly referred to as the North East Frontier Agency, and is now called Arunachal Pradesh. The McMahon Line was part of the 1914 Simla Convention between British India and Tibet, an agreement rejected by China.

The 1962 Sino-Indian War was fought in both of these areas. An agreement to resolve the dispute was concluded in 1996, including "confidence-building measures" and a mutually agreed Line of Actual Control. In 2006, the Chinese ambassador to India claimed that all of Arunachal Pradesh is Chinese territory amidst a military build up. At the time, both countries claimed incursions as much as a kilometre at the northern tip of Sikkim. In 2009, India announced it would deploy additional military forces along the border.

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Full Detail http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Indian_border_dispute

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1987 skirmish

1987 Sino-Indian skirmish

The 1987 Sino-Indian skirmish was the third military conflict between the Chinese People's Liberation Army and Indian Army that occurred at Sumdorong Chu Valley, with the previous one taking place almost a quarter of a century earlier.

Events leading up the near war

After her return to power in 1980 as Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi ordered a general review of India's security plans. In 1982-83, she approved a plan submitted by the Chief of the Army Staff, General K.V. Krishna Rao, to upgrade the sporadic deployment of forces along the Line of Actual Control with the People's Republic of China.

Since the late 1960s, India had developed an elaborate plan to defend the Himalayan frontier with China. This involved the provision of screening defences at the Line of Actual Control, or LAC, and the building of strong defence nodes at key points along the frontier. By the early 1980s, while the forces to man the defences were ready, the nodes were not, and the greatest weakness was in the fact that the servicing road network had not been built. The decision was taken to resume the defence infrastructure construction.

Since 1962, India had not returned to the site of its major defeat—the Namka Chu an east-west running stream which separates the Thag La and the Hathung La ridge to its south. India's efforts to occupy Thag La was the casus belli for the October 1962 Chinese military attack on India. Because there were no other feasible defensive locations north of Tawang, the government had more or less decided that in the event of a new war, they would abandon the town and prepare for battle at the Se La pass to its east. However, after the 1980 review, it was decided by the military strategists that it was important to defend Tawang in a future conflict. The army made it clear that the only viable line of defence for Tawang would be along the Hathung La ridge. In 1983, an Intelligence Bureau team went to the pasturage of Sumdorong Chu which is north-east of the confluence of the Namka Chu and Nyamjiang Chu. The defence forces stayed through the summer and returned in winter. This procedure was followed for two years. In 1986, Indian forces found that the Chinese had preceded them and set up semi-permanent structures there.

In Feb 1986 the army nominated a new chief, General K. Sundarji, who was determined to press the decisions taken by General Krishna Rao. In addition, Sundarji sought government permission to conduct an exercise named Operation Chequerboard to see how quickly troops based in the Assam plains could take up their positions on the Sino-Indian border. As part of the exercise, towards the end of the year, the army landed a brigade of troops at Zimithaung, south of Hathung La using its new heavy lift Mi-26 helicopters. These forces occupied the Hathung La, across the Namka Chu from Thag La. All this alarmed the Chinese forces in the region; they responded with alacrity and moved up their forces to take up positions all along the LAC. At points near this area—Sulu La, Bum La, etc. the troops were now face to face with their Indian counterparts. This caused concerns of Sino-Indian clashes. However, the forces did not engage in combat.

Possibility of war

At the end of 1986, India granted statehood to Arunachal Pradesh, which is an area claimed by China but administered by India. The Chinese government proceeded to protest. But the military movements in Tawang, taken in conjunction with this political action were seen as a provocation by the Chinese. In early 1987 Beijing's tone became similar to that of 1962, and with the Indian Army refusing to stand down, Western diplomats predicted war.

The result was a thaw. Indian Foreign Minister N.D. Tiwari arrived in Beijing in May 1987 en route to Pyongyang, North Korea. He carried with him messages from Indian leaders that there was no intention on New Delhi's part to aggravate the situation. The first formal flag meeting to discuss “ the freezing of the situation” since 1962, was held on the fifth of August 1987 at Bum La in the aftermath of the Wangdung affair. Both sides decided to take up talks with renewed urgency and the following year, Rajiv Gandhi visited Beijing, returning Zhou Enlai's '60s visit.

Aftermath

Both India and China realised the danger of inadvertent conflict and after initial posturing the decision was made to de-escalate their deployments. The Sumdorong Chu fallout was that India and China decided to restart their dialogue on a new and more urgent basis. After Rajiv Gandhi's September 1988 visit, there was a hiatus of sorts because of political turmoil in India. But finally in 1993, the two countries signed an agreement to ensure peace along the LAC.

The agreement brought in an interesting concept of "mutual and equal" security where thinning of forces was envisaged, based on geographical and logistical considerations. However, its most important element is to have the two sides work out a mutually acceptable Line of Actual Control. As of now the two sides have their own versions of the Line and there are points, especially in the Sikkim-Bhutan-India trijunction, the Sumdorong Chu area and so on where the claims are disputed.

Full Detail http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1987_Sino-Indian_skirmish
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China, India spar over disputed border

NEW DELHI/SHANGHAI Sat Nov 30, 2013 8:27am EST

(Reuters) - China on Saturday urged India not to aggravate problems on the border shared by the two nations, a day after the Indian president toured a disputed region and called it an integral part of the country.

The two countries, which fought a brief border war in 1962, only last month signed a pact to ensure that differences on the border do not spark a confrontation.

But Indian President Pranab Mukherjee's visit to the state of Arunachal Pradesh in the remote eastern stretch of the Himalayas that China claims as its own provoked a fresh exchange of words.

"We hope that India will proceed along with China, protecting our broad relationship, and will not take any measures that could complicate the problem, and together we can protect peace and security in the border regions," China's official news agency, Xinhua, quoted Qin Gang, a spokesman of the country's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as saying.

"Currently Sino-India relations are developing favorably and both sides are going through special envoy meetings and amicable discussions to resolve the border dispute between our two countries."

Mukherjee was on a routine visit to Arunachal which has been part of the Indian state for decades, and where India has regularly been holding elections. But China has of late grown increasingly assertive and questioned New Delhi's claims over the territory, calling it instead South Tibet.

Mukherjee told members of the state's legislative assembly it was "a core stakeholder in India's Look East foreign policy" that intends to link the country's northeast with South East Asia.

"We seek to make our neighbors partners in our development," Mukherjee said in Itanagar, the state capital. "We believe that India's future and our own best economic interests are served by closer integration with Asia."

China lays claim to more than 90,000 sq km (35,000 sq miles) disputed by New Delhi in the eastern sector of the Himalayas, while India says China occupies 38,000 square km of its territory on the Aksai Chin plateau in the west.

(Reporting by Krishna N Das in New Delhi and Adam Jourdan in Shanghai; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/30/us-india-china-border-idUSBRE9AT06A20131130


India border dispute posts
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/india-china-border-dispute
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India Caves to China on Border Dispute

The two nations will sign a border agreement that was almost entirely dictated by Beijing.

By Ankit Panda
October 22, 2013

India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is known for his soft-spoken manner and propensity for understatement. One recent example is his observation, made ahead of his visit to China this week, that “India and China have historical issues and there are areas of concern.”

Among the historical issues Singh was referring to are the three major military incidents between China and India: the Sino-Indian War of 1962, the 1967 Chola Incident, and a 1987 skirmish. In 2013, the two came close to adding a fourth to this list when a PLA platoon was found to have set up camp 30 km south of Daulat Beg Oldi, in Ladakh, near Aksai Chin. Aksai Chin is perceived by India as an inextricable part of Jammu and Kashmir, and by China as a strategically vital bridge between Xinjiang and Tibet.

China and India had signed agreements in the 1990s to establish a modus vivendi on the border in the form of the Line of Actual Control (LoAC). The 1993 agreement included a statement that "No activities of either side shall overstep the line of actual control.” Since then, India has claimed that Chinese troops have conducted several hundred illegal patrols south of the LoAC every year, but because the PLA troops have always eventually withdrawn to the Chinese side of the LoAC, a major bilateral crisis has been averted.

Singh also referenced the incident from April of this year when he mentioned the “areas of concern” between India and China. India’s defeat at the hands of China in 1962 remains a painful memory for many strategic thinkers in India, and the April 2013 incident played out in a way that poured salt into old wounds.

This was particularly true given that the Indian Army has long viewed Daulat Beg Oldi, which is located at the nexus of Indian Ladakh and Uyghuristan, as a strategically important piece of territory. Therefore, when the Indo-Tibetan Border Police discovered the Chinese platoon camp there in mid-April, the Indian government perceived it as a very serious violation of the LoAC.

India attempted to avoid escalation by instructing the army to practice absolute restraint in approaching the Chinese platoon. Consequentially, no weapons were discharged and India attempted to negotiate China’s withdrawal diplomatically. Over the three weeks, however, China reportedly increased its military presence in Aksai Chin in order to intimidate Delhi.

When asked by India Today if Delhi’s response to the Chinese incursion was too timid, Indian External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid responded: "The response should not be seen as timid or robust or whether it is proportional. This (incursion) is adverse to our interests. The fact that they happen to be where we don't want them to be is established. We don't wish them to be there.”

Ultimately, despite his best diplomatic efforts, Khurshid was unable to merely “wish” the Chinese away. The Chinese platoon withdrew only when the Indian government acquiesced to Chinese demands to destroy live in bunkers in the Chumar sector. Throughout the entire incident China denied India’s charge that the PLA had camped out in “India proper” as delineated by the LoAC; it maintained that it had never crossed into Indian territory.

This week Singh will visit China for what is almost certain to be his last time as India’s prime minister. While there he will meet with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, dine with Xi Jinping, and is expected to sign a draft border cooperation agreement. The Indian media are heralding Singh’s upcoming visit as a triumphant meeting between the leaders of two equally strong states, noting that Xi Jinping’s dinner invitation is "a rare honor for an Indian leader.”

But the border cooperation agreement is unlikely to be a panacea for India-China border disputes. Brahma Chellaney, an Indian analyst, has argued that the agreement will be a major strategic victory for China as India "in the manner of a vanquished nation, merely offered its comments and suggestions on the Chinese-imposed draft and sent its national security adviser and defense minister in rapid succession to Beijing to commit itself [to the draft].”

Singh’s travels to China are unlikely to repair the damage done to India’s interests in Ladakh this past April. If anything, India’s next government would be wise to study the April 2013 episode as a lesson in coercive diplomacy.

http://thediplomat.com/2013/10/india-caves-to-china-on-border-dispute/
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China Plays Down Border Dispute with India


By BRIAN SPEGELE
Feb. 24, 2014 9:25 a.m. ET

BEIJING—China's Foreign Ministry on Monday played down a long-simmering border dispute with India, brushing off a blunt comment by the front-runner to become India's next prime minister that Beijing is set on territorial expansion.

Over the weekend, Indian opposition leader Narendra Modi traveled to an area near the country's disputed Himalayan border with China—over which the two fought a border war in 1962—and warned Beijing to abandon its territorial ambitions. He said China "will have to leave behind its mind-set of expansion."

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying denied that China has expansionist tendencies and described the territorial dispute with India as a complex and sensitive matter "left over from history."

"I want to say that you can all see in history China has never actively launched a war of aggression to invade and occupy one inch of territory," said Ms. Hua.

The comments by Mr. Modi followed growing apprehension across Asia over China's ambitions. From Japan to the Philippines and Vietnam, regional leaders have criticized Beijing for what they view as aggressive measures by China to establish control over contested territories, some of which are strategically important and rich in resources.

Ms. Hua's comments were muted compared with the rhetorical barrage her agency has directed in recent weeks toward Japan and its leader, Shinzo Abe. While rejecting Mr. Modi's claims of expansionism, Ms. Hua also stressed the "joint efforts" taken by both sides to work through the dispute, which is centered on remote Himalayan borderlands.

Observers are watching China's approach to relations with India, particularly given recent overtures by Japan's government to bolster ties with New Delhi. Following a January meeting between Mr. Abe and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the countries pledged to more closely work together for stability and peace in the face of a changing strategic environment.

Harsh V. Pant, an expert on China-India relations at King's College London, said China has toned down its rhetoric against India in anticipation of a new Indian government. At the same time, he said, Beijing is concerned about India's newly forming partnerships with Japan and others in the region.

"China might be calculating that further pushing India into the arms of its regional adversaries might not be in its best interest, at least in the short term," he said.

Concerned about a backlash among smaller Asian nations fearful of China's rise, Beijing has pledged better relations with its neighbors, particularly those in Southeast Asia. But growing assertiveness by Chinese security forces, including an increasingly capable navy, in disputed waters in the South China Sea has further strained ties.

The China-India territorial dispute stems from a brief border war in 1962, which was won by China. Relations soured last spring after India alleged Chinese troops had set up a post inside their territory. China has denied any incursion.

Write to Brian Spegele at brian.spegele@wsj.com

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304610404579402833047196794
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DEFENCE & AEROSPACE

New Indian leader will place 90,000 soldiers along border disputed with China

POSTED BY CRAIG HILL ⋅ MAY 22, 2014

India is creating a mountain strike corps of 90,000 soldiers along the 2,000-mile stretch of disputed border with China. Just last year Chinese troops entered territory claimed by India, high in the Himalayas, sparking a three-week standoff.

China will be a top foreign policy challenge for Narendra Modi, the incoming prime minister who won a landslide victory last week. Business ties between India and China are booming. But despite rounds of talks, the two countries have yet to resolve their decades-old dispute over the 2,000-mile border between the two countries. It remains one of the most militarised borders in the world.

The strike corps will have its own mountain artillery, combat engineers, anti-aircraft guns, and radio equipment. Over 35,000 soldiers have already been raised in new infantry units in India’s northeastern state of Assam. The entire corps will be fully raised over the next five years with 90,274 troops at a cost of $10.6 billion. The proposal to raise a new strike corps was recommended last year by India’s China Study Group, a government body that considers all strategic issues related to China.

The strike corps signals a new assertiveness in New Delhi and will provide an additional defence capability to India, which for a long time focused on the land borders with Pakistan. While the decision predated Mr. Modi, he is likely to further strengthen India’s military modernisation which is one of his party’s top agenda items.

“China has made frequent border transgressions into Indian border,” says retired Lieutenant General Prakash Katoch, who formerly commanded the Indian Army‘s Special Forces wing. “The new prime minister has to ensure that our borders are well protected. It cannot be business as usual.”

He predicts that as both countries are growing and keen to increase their influence, China and India will increasingly step on each other’s areas of interest and importance.


Lingering grievances

India and China fought a brief border war in 1962. Ever since, the relationship between the neighbouring Asian countries has been mired in distrust, although business ties between India and China are robust: they share over $70 billion in annual bilateral trade, a figure that’s projected to rise in the next decade.

China lays claims to more than 35,000 square miles of land in the eastern sector of the Himalayas, while India says China occupies 14,600 square miles of its territory on the Aksai Chin plateau in the west. Last year in May the two armies ended a three-week standoff in the Ladakh region after Chinese troops entered at least six miles into territory claimed by India. China denied that troops had crossed into Indian territory. Since then both the countries have taken a number of steps to reduce border tension including prior notice of military patrols along the ill-defined border.

Yet both countries are building roads, railroads, and airfields along the border, which would facilitate the rapid movement of troops and artillery to the border zone. Having seen the massive improvements China has made in its border infrastructure, India is now building roads and upgrading its airfields along China’s border and deploying attack helicopters and fighters jets to them. Eventually, C-130J planes, bought by the Indian Air Force from the US, will be deployed in the eastern command. The multi-tasking C-130J is the most advanced special operations aircraft in the world that can transport troops to remote places.

“We lost the war in 1962 [with China] because we had no connectivity to our borders,” says Maj. General P.L. Kher (ret.), a veteran of 1962 war. “We lost the war because we were poorly trained and equipped. We want friendship with China but there is no reason that we should not strengthen our military capability.”

At one of the Indian border posts during the 1962 war, out of 60 Indian soldiers who were guarding the post only 14 survived, including Kher.

The 1962 war and India’s defeat remains a subject many within the Indian military establishment do not like to discuss. The inquiry report about why India lost the war remains a top secret. India’s traditional policy has been not to build any offensive military formations along the China border, fearing it might provoke Beijing.

Source: Christian Science Monitor – India scales up military forces on disputed China border

http://chinadailymail.com/2014/05/22/new-indian-leader-will-place-90000-soldiers-along-border-disputed-with-china/
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India doubts China amid border dispute, US$40 Billion trade deficit and China's illegal occupation of Tibet

China talks trade, economic potential on visit to new India government

By TOMMY WILKES and FRANK JACK DANIEL, ReutersJune 8, 2014 11:28pm

NEW DELHI - China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi promised on Sunday to help India's economic development and emphasized that the two countries see eye-to-eye of most issues, playing down difference over a trade deficit and a festering border dispute.

Wang was visiting India as a special envoy of China's president on a two-day trip designed to show Beijing's interest in improving cooperation between the world's two most populated nations on issues including regional security.

The trip came two weeks after India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi won a resounding majority in a general election on promises of reviving a flagging economy.

"China stands by your side throughout your efforts of reform and development," Wang told the Hindu newspaper.

"No country can choose its neighbor, but friendship may be fostered," he said, calling for innovative solutions to resolve the two country's vastly differing perception of where large stretches of their shared Himalayan border lies.

Modi is seeking to strengthen India's armed forces and economy, in part to enable him to react more decisively in foreign relations than his predecessor, the mild-mannered Manmohan Singh.

Wang met his Indian counterpart Sushma Swaraj on Sunday for talks that lasted more than three hours, the first high-level meeting between the two countries since Modi assumed office.

"Both leaders felt that there was tremendous untapped potential for the growth of economic ties," Syed Akbaruddin, spokesman for India's Ministry of External Affairs, told a media briefing following the talks.

Akbaruddin said China and India are looking at least six more visits at ministerial level or above this year, a significant intensification of bilateral meetings.

China dealt India a humiliating defeat in a short border war in 1962, an event that has cast a shadow over relations ever since, with occasional flare ups along disputed patches of the border to this day.

India runs a $40 billion trade deficit with China, and when Modi meets Wang on Monday he is expected to renew India's demands for greater market access to reduce that gap.

China's own embrace of an export-led model has helped its economy outgrow India's fourfold since 1980.

At the meeting on Sunday, Swaraj and Wang raised the possibility of China investing in industrial parks in India, a move that could help rebalance trade.


‘Deception’

The foreign minister's trip was met with small street protests in New Delhi by Tibetan exiles who called on Modi to challenge Wang about ongoing repression in the restive Chinese region that shares deep cultural ties with India.

Tibet's spiritual leader the Dalai Lama last week angered Beijing by praying for the "martyrs" of the Tiananmen Square massacre by Chinese forces 25 years ago. He called on China to embrace democracy.

Lobsang Sangay, the political leader of Tibetans in exile also stirred things up by reviving a campaign to bring about a government in Tibet with more autonomy.

Wang's trip is a precursor to an expected visit to India by Xi Jinping later this year, on Modi's invitation.

Since assuming power on May 26, Modi, from the nationalistic Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has moved quickly to assert India with neighboring countries. He invited regional leaders including the prime minister of traditional rival Pakistan to his inauguration.

But despite the bonhomie, many of Modi's allies have a hawkish view of China, arguing that overtures by India's largest neighbor should not be taken a face value.

"Diplomacy, for them, is an art of deception," wrote Ram Madhav, a senior leader of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a hardline Hindu nationalist organization that has close ties to the BJP. Most government ministers, including Modi, are long term activists in the RSS and its offshoots.

"The Modi government should realize that the real foreign policy challenge comes not from Pakistan but from China," he said in a column in the Indian Express newspaper on Sunday.

Modi's national security advisor, Ajit Doval, a daring former spy chief, also harbors doubts about China's motives, writing a series of papers in recent years alleging that Chinese agents have provided money and arms to insurgent groups in India's remote and troubled northeast.


Both the RSS and Doval are seen as sympathetic to the cause of autonomy in Tibet. Wang is due to meet Doval on Monday. — Reuters

http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/364783/news/world/china-talks-trade-economic-potential-on-visit-to-new-india-government
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