by J J Singh
This account deliberately does not delve into the details of this war as a number of books have been written on the subject. Instead, it takes forward the debate on India–China boundary negotiations to our contemporary times and concludes with recommendations for the way ahead for resolution of this territorial dispute. The study has analysed how China has resolved boundary disputes with twelve of its neighbours, particularly those with Russia and Vietnam which resulted in major skirmishes with the former, and a border war involving a huge loss of life and property with the latter. It also indulges in a bit of crystal gazing, analysing the future of the relationship between the two Asian powers who, creditably, never experienced a ‘clash of civilizations’ despite having been neighbours for over 3,000 years.
PART I
WHERE TIBET, CHINA AND INDIA MEET
Figure 1: East Asia—early twentieth century
1
Roof of the World: Geography of Tibet
‘Civilisation exists by geological consent, subject to change, without notice.’
—Will Durant1
The Indian subcontinent sheared and drifted from the supercontinent2 of Gondwanaland about 120 million years ago. The name Gondwanaland has possibly been derived from the Sanskrit ‘gondavana’, meaning ‘forest of the Gonds’. Around 45–50 million years ago, the Indian plate collided with Asia, which was a part of the northern supercontinent, Laurasia. This collision resulted in an upwards ‘buckling’ of the southern crust of Asia in two principal directions—north and north-east, towards the part of the globe that comprises Sinkiang province in China, Tibet and South-East Asia. The great ocean, called Tethys, that lay between the two supercontinents for over 100 million years ceased to exist as a result of this gigantic collision and the tectonic movement of the earth.
Part of the Indian plate was subsumed under the Asian continent. The results of this geographical phenomenon were: first, the creation of the mountain ranges of the Himalayas, Pamirs, Karakoram and Kunlun; second, the elevation, compression, corrugation and crumpling of the vast Tibetan land mass averaging 4,500 metres above sea level, and which had enormous deserts and innumerable saltwater lakes; and third, its impact on the topography, biological development and climate of the entire region comprising the Indian subcontinent, Tibet, western China and the northern part of South-East Asia. In the Himalayan region, the presence of marine limestone embedded with fossils that date back millions of years has corroborated the theory of geologists that almost all of Tibet was once at or just below sea level.3
Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) neighbours India on the north and has the longest shared boundary with India along the Himalayas. The ‘Roof of the World’, as the Tibetan region is called, and the Himalayan range were the outcome of one of earth’s most fascinating geological events described earlier. This high-altitude region of Asia has the highest and arguably the most striking mountains on the globe and is the fountainhead of major river systems like those of the Indus, the Sutlej, the Ganga, the Brahmaputra (Tsangpo in Tibet), the Irrawaddy, the Salween, the Mekong, the Yangtze and the Huang Ho (Yellow River), as shown in Figure 2. These river basins have spawned the great civilizations of India, China, Tibet, Mongolia and many other South-East Asian countries. As eloquently described by Mike Searle in his authoritative book Colliding Continents, ‘The Himalaya is the greatest mountain range on earth: the highest, longest, youngest, the most tectonically active, and the most spectacular of all.’4 The Himalayas are reverently called ‘deva bhoomi’ in India, meaning ‘land of the gods’.
‘In a hundred ages of the gods I could not tell thee of the glories of the Himalaya,’ say the Puranas, the ‘ancient stories’, myths, and legends of India, transmitted orally and first recorded in texts dating back before the Mahabharata. It is not surprising that all the Asian religions worship and revere the mountains. The Himalaya, the ‘abode of snow’, was where the unknown forces lived that controlled everything on Earth.5
Tibet is the epicentre of East Asia. It is an elevated land mass in the shape of a pear, with its narrow end radiating outwards from the Pamir knot like a petal (see Figure 1). The Karakoram and the Himalayan mountain chains form an impressive necklace to the south of the Tibetan massif. One-third the size of America,6 Tibet lies between two ancient civilizations and has acted as a kind of natural divide and buffer zone between them. Historically, traditionally and culturally, independent Tibet comprised four distinct regions: Ngari, U-Tsang, Amdo and Kham, besides the northern permafrost desert called Changthang, which no longer exists in the same form. This ancient land has been truncated and reconfigured by China into Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), consisting of an area of 1,228,000 square kilometres (approximately 12.8 per cent of China’s land mass).7 TAR is less than half of the original Tibet and has only one-third of the Tibetan population. Most of Amdo, Kham and other outlying regions have been merged with Sinkiang, Quinghai, Sichuan and Yunnan provinces of China.
Figure 2: Important rivers originating from Tibet
Unlike the common perception of its being some kind of a raised tableland, the Tibetan plateau mostly lies at an altitude of 4,000–5,000 metres, with peaks rising up to 7,000 metres and many passes at over 5,000 metres. It has mountain ranges, lakes, rivers, deserts and marshes. Parts of Tibet have terrain that is serrated or crumpled with mountain chains such as the Kunlun, Altyn Tagh, Nyenchen Tanglha, Tangula, Ningjing and Shule Nanshan.
This mineral-rich plateau8 (40 per cent of China’s mineral resources lie therein) has a very small percentage of arable land, on account of which it has historically been able to support only a sparse population. It is the source of major Asian river systems such as those of the Indus, Sutlej, Brahmaputra (Tsangpo), Salween, Mekong, Yangtze and Huang Ho (the Yellow River). The major population centres in the lower reaches of this region are cradled in these river valleys, which have over the centuries spawned many civilizations en route their long journeys hundreds of miles downwards to the oceans. Geographically shielded from all sides by chains of mountain massifs which have granite pillars soaring into the sky, the Tibetan civilization evolved mostly on its own. To illustrate how inaccessible Tibet is, between Assam and Mongolia, over a spatial distance of about 2,600 kilometres, there are seven high mountain ranges, most of them over 6,000 metres in altitude, and at least six major rivers with deep valleys and gorges, as illustrated in Figure 3. Before the modern era, it would generally take eight months or more to traverse such distances over such difficult terrain. This resulted in the isolation of Tibet.
Figure 3: Tibetan topography: A cross section
Buddhism, which permeated across the Himalayas, was instinctively customized by the Tibetans to suit their local conditions. This resulted in the evolution of a ‘modified’ version of Buddhism, one that is deeply treasured by all Tibetans. While their spiritual needs were met from India, they looked mainly to China for their material requirements. However, as compared with their association with the Chinese, the Tibetans had a closer and special relationship with Mongolia.9
The northern fringe of Tibet is encompassed by the Kunlum, Altyn Tagh and Nan Shan ranges. Hemmed in by these mountain chains is the great high-altitude desert region of Changthang, about 1,000 kilometres wide and spread out laterally over 2,000 kilometres in the east–west direction. This desolate and inhospitable area was largely unexplored till the twentieth century and presented a formidable barrier to invaders from the north. With most of it lying at an average altitude of around 4,500–5,000 metres, this wind-swept region of permafrost produces nothing worthwhile to humans except grass, which too appears only when the land is free of snow. ‘The greater part of Tibet is icebound during seven or eight months in the year; even the inhabited areas can be cultivated for a few months only.’10
The nomadic inhabitants of this region, the Changpas, are herders and eke out a pastoral living. In his vivid description of the climate he experienced in the northern escarpment of the Tibetan plateau, Sven Hedin, a famous explorer of the
nineteenth century, writes: ‘Those who have never been in one of those storms, can form no conception of what it is like. It is as though the entire volume of the atmosphere were concentrated into this great trough of the earth’s surface and forced through it like a roaring tide. The clouds drove overhead at racing speed; drift sand and even small stones were caught up from the ground and hurled point-blank into our faces.’11
To the east and south-east of central Tibet lie the regions of Amdo and Kham. Looking south from the Koko Nor area, one can see the high-altitude mountainous landscape with its deep canyons and ravines formed by the great rivers of the region, which, except for the Huang Ho, run north–south, as do the Irrawaddy, Salween, Mekong and the Yangtze. In this region, these very long rivers flow parallel to each other, the distance between one river and the next ranging from 50 to 100 kilometres. In this region also lie ‘three mountain ranges, the length of the Alps and much higher that were still almost totally unknown’,12 said Mike Searle (Figure 2). On the map these rivers appear quite like the fingers of a hand that don’t join. They disgorge millions of litres of water along with soil and sediments on to vast flood plains and eventually flow into the different seas of South-East Asia. They are unbelievable hurdles to movement in the east–west direction as the defiles created by the intervening ridges rise up to formidable heights of 4,000–5,000 metres (about 13,000–16,000 feet). The eastern frontier of Tibet is not easy to describe as there are no distinctive and continuous geographical features except for these rivers. The difficult terrain makes for a kind of buffer between China and Tibet. This region was inhabited by hostile tribes who at times displayed token allegiance to China or Tibet, and in certain areas to neither. Both China and Tibet kept attempting to impose their writ over these tribes, but without great success. Historically, the routes from east to west passing through these areas had been vulnerable to raids by the tribes living here. Thus it was that the Sino-Tibetan frontier in this region kept shifting from one river basin to the other, between the Yangtze, Mekong and Salween.
In southern Tibet, the comparatively fertile Indus and Tsangpo Valleys situated along the suture created by the continental collision developed as the cradle of the Tibetan civilization. Known as ‘U-Tsang’, it is the core of Tibet proper. This was the habitat of the prosperous Tibetan community where their culture, traditions and commerce evolved and thrived. The semi-nomadic tribes living in the northern slopes of the Himalayas in Tibet are known as Drukpas. This region—its heights ranging from around 4,500 to 5,500 metres—rises gradually from the Tsangpo basin to the watershed of the Himalayas. The steep southern face of the Himalayas with its stupendous rampart-like structure and the very high snow-covered peaks and massive glaciers of this region tower over the Ganga and the Brahmaputra basins and the plains of north and east India. The Himalayas have remained the natural divide between China and India over centuries.
From the north-east of India, the Great Himalayas extend westwards in a crescent shape for almost 3,000 kilometres and link up with the Indus basin at the south-western edge of Ladakh. The traditional southern frontier of Tibet generally lies along the northern slopes of the main Himalayan range going from east to west from the Isu Razi Pass on the Irrawaddy–Brahmaputra divide to Demchok in the Indus basin where the river exits the Tibetan plateau. From the tri-junction of India, Burma and Tibet, it follows the Himalayan watershed for 1,070 kilometres along the Assam frontier region (now Arunachal Pradesh), then runs westwards through the northern part of the kingdom of Bhutan for over 500 kilometres before finally coming down to Chumbi Valley. It follows the watershed of the Teesta for about 200 kilometres across Sikkim, then runs for about 1,350 kilometres along the Himalayan ramparts in northern Nepal, and another 700 kilometres or so along the Kumaon, Garhwal and Himachal regions (also referred to as the middle sector) to Demchok in eastern Ladakh, which borders the western region of Tibet called Ngari. Before the tenth century, this region formed part of the kingdom of Ladakh, and its traditional boundary with Tibet was at the watershed formed by the Mayum La.13 This area includes the famous Hindu pilgrimage sites of Mount Kailash and Manasarovar.
From Demchok, the western frontier of Tibet cuts across the Indus and continues northwards across the huge saltwater lake of Pangong Tso and the high-altitude wastelands of western Changthang, flanking Aksai Chin (desert of white stones), which it runs past to finally join the Kunlun and Karakoram ranges. The approximate distance of this stretch of the frontier is 900 kilometres up to the historical Karakoram Pass. North of the Indus basin, the eastern Ladakh region is very sparsely populated, and beyond Rudok one encounters the uninhabitable, bleak and windy western periphery of the Changthang high-altitude desert where ‘not a blade of grass grows’. An ancient caravan route leading northwards through Aksai Chin crosses the Kunlun range to Shahidulla, Yarkand and Kashgar in Chinese Turkestan.
Practically inaccessible from all directions a century ago, Tibet, the ‘hidden land of the Lamas’, would demand months of arduous trekking just to reach its periphery, the only exception being from the south, where despite the Himalayan wall there existed routes over passes leading to the heart of Tibet in a much shorter time. But only the most daring, adventurous and hardy travellers made it to Tibet, and even fewer were privileged to set their eyes on Lhasa, the sacred but ‘forbidden city’. Many never returned alive. Hence, up to the early twentieth century, Tibet remained somewhat both an enigma and a ‘Shangri-La’ (a mystical, beautiful, faraway place) in the popular imagination.
Although the two belligerents, Tibet and China, concluded peace treaties (which have been inscribed on pillars) in the eighth and ninth centuries, laying down their common borders, Tibet’s boundaries were still ‘ill-defined and frequently non-existent’.14 This was particularly so to the north and east.
A brilliant and fairly accurate geostrategic analysis of the frontiers of Tibet is contained in the military report of the Imperial General Headquarters of British India, published in 1910. While describing the frontiers and mountain systems of Tibet, this report mentions only the mountain chains to the north of the Himalayas, which include the Kunlun, Altyn Tagh, Nan Shan, Kokoshili, Tangla, Nyenchen Tanglha, Karakoram and the Great Himalayas.15 Tibet lies between the first and the last mentioned ranges. These surveys and research were done over a century ago. Significantly, the absence of any mention or depiction of the Himalayas by ancient Chinese historians, Chinese map makers or in Chinese folklore does not help strengthen China’s claim to Himalayan or cis-Himalayan regions. On the other hand, the Kunlun range does figure prominently as the southern limit of China. Zhou Enlai, the first premier of the People’s Republic of China, himself told Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of independent India, in November 1956 that the Chinese looked upon the Karakoram with the same sentiment that India looked upon the Himalayas.16 Perhaps this was to justify the Chinese claim to Aksai Chin. Historically and traditionally, Tibet’s southern jurisdiction extended at best up to the northern slopes of the Himalayas and very rarely, at any period in history, extended beyond that to the southern glacis. The Tibetan highlanders could never take to the thickly forested, hot and humid southern Himalayan slopes and definitely could not adapt to the climate of the foothills or the plains.
Tibet had been isolated and secluded for thousands of years because of its geography. Access to Lhasa, the heart of Tibet, was principally by five routes; they were from the north-west, north-east, east, south-east and south. Till the middle of the twentieth century, there were hardly any worthwhile means of surface transportation within Tibet or even roads leading to it from the neighbouring regions, except for two or three caravan routes and bridle paths in a few areas. There were mainly foot tracks and yak, camel or pony trails across the sparsely populated areas, with little logistics support along the way. Journeys across Tibet were fraught with danger and adventure, and it would take months for men and material to reach Lhasa, unless they took the access route from the south. There are exciting descrip
tions of these hazardous voyages made in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by adventurers, pilgrims, surveyors, traders and spies from Britain, France, Russia and other European nations, and from India, Japan and China. As elaborated in the report of the general staff of the army headquarters of British India, 1910, ‘It is only in the case of the Janglam—the great high road connecting Peking with the Tibetan capital, and continuing westward into Ladakh—that any effort has been made to maintain a roadway suitable for commercial traffic.’17
There were no metalled roads connecting Lhasa till the middle of the twentieth century. There were five historical caravan or trade routes, as shown in Figure 1. Two of these routes were from the north and skirted the Changthang Plateau. One was from Urumqi in Xinjiang (Sinkiang) province to Lhasa via Kashgar, Aksai Chin, Mayum Pass and Shigatse. Kashgar and Yarkand figured prominently as nodes along the silk trade route from China and Tibet to Central Asia and beyond. Marching along the western extremity of the Takla Makan desert and the Kunlun range, this route climbs up to the Tibetan plateau along the northern slopes of the Kunlun and traverses through the Aksai Chin area. It rises from an elevation of about 1,000 metres at Urumqi to 5,000 metres on the Tibetan plateau, covering a distance of over 4,000 kilometres to do so, threading its way across a number of mountain ranges. The rainfall in this region is scanty, and varies from 100 to 500 millimetres per year. Till about the mid-twentieth century, it took eight to nine months to complete this journey on foot.
The second northern route connects Lanzhou in Gansu province with Lhasa along the historical alignment via Xining in the famous Koko Nor lake region and Golmud. This route negotiates six major mountain ranges and passes at altitudes of about 5,000 metres (16,400 feet), the Tanggu La, at 5,220 metres (17,000 feet), being the most daunting of them. This route traverses a more rugged and desolate terrain than the first and is even more sparsely inhabited than many other Tibetan regions. Although the distance from Lanzhou to Lhasa is only 2,200 kilometres, much shorter than the north-western route, even at a conservative estimate it would take four to five months of arduous trekking to do this journey. The rise in elevation of about 3,000 metres from the Sichuan basin across ravines and gorges adds to the challenge of movement of man, material and related logistics along this route.