The McMahon Line- a Century of Discord

by J J Singh

  The vague and ambiguous manner of description—or rather, the established norms for definition of boundaries in the oriental system of governance—can be gauged from the inscriptions on the famous stone pillar of Lhasa, which say: ‘Downward from the place where the Chinese are met will be China and upward from the place where the Tibetans are met will be Tibet.’6 Similarly, as presented by the Tibetan plenipotentiary at the Simla Conference, ‘They (Tibetans) fixed upon a stone pillar at Merugang (North of Sining), bend of the Ma-chu (Huang ho) river and Chortenkarpo (near Ya-chao in Szechuan) as boundaries.’7 Pillars akin to the one at Meru ‘had been set up both at Lhasa and Xian, the Chinese capital (about 1,020 years ago)’. The Tibetans produced in support of their claims ‘tomes of delicate manuscripts bound in richly embroidered covers … also with the official history of Tibet, compiled by the 5th Dalai Lama and known as the “Golden tree of the Index of the sole ornament of the World”, a work of great scope and colossal dimensions’.8

  As has been described earlier, in Chapter 20, after a period of warm and cordial relations in the early 1950s, the complicated dimension and contours of the boundary dispute between India and China began to emerge from 1957 onwards. This happened as China failed to keep its word on revising the old Kuomintang (KMT) period maps which showed large parts of Indian territory in China. To top it all, in 1957, the Chinese announced with great fanfare the formal inauguration of the Aksai Chin highway, which passed through Indian lands. China was clearly in control of the situation, having sensed the discomfiture of India’s leadership when these facts emerged in the public domain. The presence of the Chinese army in Aksai Chin began to be monitored and challenged by Indian patrols, leading to ugly situations and aggressive face-offs. These incidents were handled at the highest political and diplomatic levels by the two nations, but unfortunately the boundary problem and these events were not debated in Indian Parliament and were kept outside the public domain. The Chinese maps of 1956 included Aksai Chin and Arunachal Pradesh as part of China. In an official magazine, China Pictorial, published in July 1958, there was a map of China ‘which showed the whole of NEFA [except present-day Tirap district], large areas of Ladakh, considerable areas in Uttar Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh … as part of China’.9 There was a flurry of diplomatic demarches and correspondence between the two countries’ foreign offices, and protests lodged against the growing number of intrusions and air violations in the region, particularly since 1956, but these were not talked about until 1959.

  Beginning 14 December 1958, Nehru decided to confront Zhou Enlai and display serious concern and surprise at the depiction of parts of India as Chinese territory even after nine years of China’s becoming a republic. At least nine letters were exchanged during the following year between the two prime ministers on the boundary dispute. Eventually, they agreed to meet in 1960, even though the vast perceptional variation in the two countries’ boundary claims made chances of a positive outcome extremely remote. The proceedings of this meeting have been covered in Chapter 19. In those days the media were not so alert, and the nation to a large extent was unaware of Chinese activities along the northern frontier and of China’s territorial claims in Aksai Chin and the north-east. Friction and tension caused by contradictory perceptions of the boundary led to armed clashes and face-offs between the two sides in the late 1950s.

  Eventually, acting under pressure from all quarters, including the Congress party, and to show transparency, Nehru decided to put India’s entire correspondence with China relating to the boundary dispute in the public domain in the shape of White Papers. The first of these was laid before Parliament on 7 September 1959.10 However, upon receipt of this information, an alarmed nation, media and Parliament raised the political stakes so high that any compromise was ruled out. It was not the same in the case of China, where the CPC leadership was kept well informed but their media was muffled and the people were only exposed to heavily edited and biased information. There was no question of any overt opposition to Mao’s decisions, even if it meant China’s going to war to resolve the border dispute. Eventually, despite serious internal problems, Mao decided to go to war with India in 1962.

  Before we examine the progress and current status of India’s boundary negotiations with China, it would be prudent to review the resolution of such disputes by China with some of its other neighbours. ‘Any consideration of Beijing’s boundary policy must include a discussion of “unequal treaties” because of the pivotal role they play in nearly all of China’s boundary disputes and settlements. The PRC’s definition of an unequal treaty is neither clear nor consistent.’ Additionally, the list of such treaties has undergone changes based on ‘political expediency’.11 An endeavour has been made here to discuss the status of China’s frontier disputes and the Chinese modus operandi of resolving them.

  China has one of the largest land frontiers of any country in the world, extending over 22,000 kilometres with fourteen neighbouring countries. It has more or less settled its land boundaries with all its neighbours except India and Bhutan. Its boundary agreements were often timed keeping in mind the dynamics of the international situation and maintenance of balance of power in the region. However, as far as its maritime frontiers are concerned, China has continuing problems with quite a few countries in the South China Sea and East China Sea region as well.

  The first challenge for the People’s Republic of China was to secure its place as an independent and sovereign nation. This process took a few years. India was one of the first non-communist nations to recognize the new republic. At the Conference of Afro-Asian Nations at Bandung in 1955, Zhou Enlai, the Chinese prime minister, extended a friendly hand to other nations and said China would like to peacefully settle its boundaries with its neighbours. China realized that the world hadn’t failed to notice that its ‘liberalization’ of Tibet wasn’t peaceful at all, and had also noted the duress under which the seventeen-point agreement was signed by the Tibetans. Moreover, by the late 1950s, as China’s relations with India and the Soviet Union began to deteriorate and US involvement in South Asia increased, China decided to resolve its boundary disputes with its smaller neighbours. Most of these nations had an innate fear of an expansionist China.

  In the early 1960s, apprehending castigation by the non-communist world, China began an endeavour at image building. Thus a ‘reasonable and accommodative’ China settled its boundaries peacefully with Burma (Myanmar), Nepal, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Mongolia. It would not be out of place to mention that wherever the Chinese conceded their claimed territories in favour of the countries mentioned above, the areas in question were not of critical significance to them. Also, ‘the settlement of the disputes served larger important strategic objectives’, noted Eric Hyer in The Pragmatic Dragon: China’s Grand Strategy and Boundary Settlements. In the case of Nepal, with tension building up along the Sino-Indian border, Zhou Enlai displayed a spirit of conciliation and concluded a boundary settlement with B.P. Koirala, the prime minister of Nepal, on 20 March 1960, based on the watershed principle and the five principles of peaceful coexistence (Panchsheel). Similarly, the Chinese also signed an accord with Burma (Myanmar) in 1961, again basically adopting the watershed principle as well as the line drawn by McMahon in 1914. This was also done to project to the world the ‘reasonableness’ of their approach to boundary resolution with its neighbours.

  China’s largest land frontier, of about 4,250 kilometres, was with the erstwhile Soviet Union (Russia); here it had serious boundary disputes that led to many armed clashes in the 1960s. Ideological differences between the two had precipitated their boundary dispute. In 1969, there was a major incident in the disputed island of Zhenbao on the Ussuri river, in which heavy casualties were taken by a Soviet army patrol. The Chinese strategy is best described by Kissinger in On China: the Chinese ‘laid a trap’ so as to decimate the Russian patrol and ‘deal him [Russia] a psychological blow to cause him to desist’. However, this strategy did not work and the Soviets
reacted violently, literally wiping out a Chinese battalion at the Xinjiang border. With the deterioration of relations between the two countries, there was a massive build-up of opposing forces. It was feared that a major Soviet offensive was imminent. The possibility of an attack on China’s nuclear facilities was also not ruled out. This is when the US intervened and warned both sides that it would not, as narrated by Kissinger, ‘remain indifferent’ and ‘that it would act according to its strategic interests’. It remains unclear whether it was this warning that prevented the situation from escalating into war or whether it was the ‘Cold War dynamics’ that settled the matter, as noted by Kissinger in On China.12

  However, the Sino-Soviet boundary problem over the disputed islands along the Amur and Ussuri rivers, and over some areas along the western borders, simmered until boundary treaties were signed in 1991 and 1994 for these regions, as the cold war had ended with the disintegration of the Soviet Union. The final resolution of this boundary dispute was achieved by involvement of the political leadership, who displayed high statesmanship and strong political will. Both sides understood the changed international power matrix, and negotiations were now pegged on earlier treaties and negotiations and on non-insistence of preconditions by either side. While delimiting the boundaries, the status quo was maintained, by and large, with small adjustments, with both sides conceding some of their claims. Importantly, the Chinese were able to retain the Zhenbao Island, and the Heixiazi or Bolshoi Ussurysky Island was made into an ‘eco-tourism zone’ shared by Russia and China, each getting 50 per cent of the island territory.

  The Chinese believed their policy of standing firm, based on the principle of mutual understanding and accommodation, even against a stronger nation, eventually yielded dividends. The Chinese are convinced that from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries, they were subjected to unequal treaties and humiliation by the world powers. China shares a frontier of about 1,350 kilometres with Vietnam, and its disputed frontier with that nation dates back centuries. Although it had been an independent nation for most of its history, Vietnam had been a vassal state of China for a few centuries before its colonization by the French in the nineteenth century. Eventually, Vietnam became independent in September 1945. China decided to forcibly settle the festering boundary problem with Vietnam, despite its being a communist country.

  One needs to analyse the reasons that prompted China to launch a massive offensive across the northern border of Vietnam with about twenty infantry divisions supported by armour and artillery in the spring of 1979. As it did with India, China attacked a militarily unprepared adversary, in Deng’s words ‘to teach the Vietnamese a lesson’. China wanted Vietnam to first ‘tow its line’ on the boundary dispute. Second, the close relationship between Vietnam and the Soviet Union was like a red rag to China, and it wanted to settle scores with the Soviet Union because of its ballooning ideological differences with that nation. Third, the Chinese took umbrage at the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia and its harsh and unfair treatment of the minorities, including the ethnic Chinese, living in northern Vietnam.

  Curiously, one more reason put forward by some analysts was that Deng wanted to expose and weed out some of the dead wood from the senior ranks of the PLA, which as a matter of fact he did. Another factor that influenced the Chinese decision was the unlikelihood of intervention in this conflict by the West, particularly the US. Though both China and Vietnam claimed to have won, this war resulted in a victory for neither side but ended in a colossal loss of life and destruction of property. Northern Vietnam was laid waste and thousands of innocent civilians were killed. The Chinese were reported to have lost 7,000 to 9,000 soldiers. A greater number were wounded. The Vietnamese casualties were even higher. As was the case in its border war with India in the north-east, the Chinese withdrew unilaterally from the captured areas in Vietnam, asserting that they had achieved their aim. This war reinforces the Tibetan adage mentioned earlier in this work: ‘Lion fights dog; even though victorious, lion defeated.’ Eventually the Chinese lost face in the bargain.

  China offered many concessions to the Central Asian states after the break-up of the Soviet Union in order to get their support, and was thus able to settle its boundaries with them easily. The Chinese offered them favourable terms, as they had with India’s smaller neighbours in the 1960s. Thus, by the 1990s, China had been able to resolve most of the boundary disputes with its neighbours, except for India and Bhutan. When viewed in the context of China’s recent trillion dollars’ worth One Belt One Road (OBOR) and the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) initiative, which would connect most of these Central Asian states with China to the east and Europe to the west, and to the warm waters of the Arabian Sea through Pakistan, these boundary agreements make eminent sense, and reflect the far-sightedness of the Chinese leadership.

  Dr Wenwen Shen, an Asia expert and visiting fellow at Australian National University, in China and Its Neighbours: Troubled Relations, writes: ‘It is, however, the maritime borders that have caused most trouble … with China being accused of increasingly assertive behaviour towards its neighbours … (China has) to assure its neighbours that it is not a bully … The last thing that China needs in its current situation is an armed conflict with any of its neighbours. In an era of growing political and economic interdependence such a development could only impact negatively on China. This analysis is exceptional.’13

  Relations between the two Asian giants had nosedived after the undeclared border war. Although diplomatic relations were not broken, the missions had been scaled down to that of chargé d’affaires on both sides. India insisted that relations with China would be normalized only once the boundary issue was resolved. The thaw began in 1976, when the Mao era subsided and ambassador-level representation was restored.

  Deng Xiaoping met with India’s foreign minister, A.B. Vajpayee, in 1979 and proposed a solution to the boundary dispute based on a ‘package’ deal. If that was not possible at an early date, said Deng, he was recommending cooperation in other domains. Talks on the boundary problem commenced at the official level from 1980 onwards, but hardly made much progress. It needs to be recalled that the earlier offer of a ‘swap’ deal suggested by Zhou Enlai in his meetings with Nehru in April 1960 had fetched no response from India.

  The visit of the Indian prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi, to China in 1988, a prime-ministerial visit after a gap of thirty-four years, was path-breaking. Even though the visit did not bring about any settlement of the border dispute, it created the right environment for the two countries to carry forward the dialogue process, which seemed to have reached a dead end after eight rounds of the official-level talks that had started in December 1981, after the India visit of the Chinese foreign minister. For the first time, India did not insist on resolution of the boundary issue as a condition for any other matters to be taken up. Both sides agreed to ‘seek fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable solution to the boundary question, and agreed to expand and develop bilateral relations in all fields’.14 The talks laid the foundation for a more vibrant, multidimensional relationship between Asia’s largest nations. A joint working group (JWG) was created at a senior level aided by an expert group at the working level for negotiations on the boundary issue and realization of a road map for reducing tensions along the frontier. A joint economic group was created too, to enhance trade and commerce between the two countries.

  The next landmark visit to China was that of Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao in 1993, during which it was agreed that the de facto border being manned or actively patrolled by either side would be termed as the Line of Actual Control (LAC), without prejudice to the respective positions on the boundary of either country. The signing of the Agreement on Maintaining Peace and Tranquility along the LAC was a very significant step taken during this visit. This agreement stipulated that the boundary issue would be solved through ‘peaceful and friendly consultations’. Both sides agreed to respect the LAC and that ‘neither side shall use
or threaten to use force against the other by any means’. Besides this, it was agreed that the JWGs of both sides would evolve confidence-building measures relating to military activities, including those of the air force of both countries, so as to reduce tension along the LAC and maintain peace (Appendix 5). During the process of clarification of the LAC in the eighth meeting of the JWG in 1995, the ‘two sides had identified eight pockets of dispute’15 where they perceived the alignment of the boundary differently. Further negotiations would focus on these disputed areas—and also other areas where such differences had cropped up later (there are about fifteen of them as of 2018)—and resolve them peacefully.

  These events were followed by the signing of the Agreement on Confidence-Building Measures (CBMs) along the LAC between the militaries of both sides during the India visit of President Jiang Zemin in 1996 (Appendix 6). A number of high-profile visits by national leaders to each other’s countries followed. The two sides re-emphasized that any border settlement must be fair and equitable. The challenge that both sides are now confronted with is how to reconcile the known differences within a reasonable time frame. Whereas India’s international boundary has been clearly and unambiguously shown on maps since 1954, the Chinese have been loathe to share large-scale maps of all sectors showing their claim line, except in the middle sector, which was done in March 2000. Further, as far as the western sector is concerned, both sides exchanged their maps very briefly during the meeting on 17 June 2002, and returned them after a cursory look. There appeared no meeting point or even a scope for discussion as both countries had shown ‘maximalistic positions’.16 There was no exchange of such maps relating to the eastern sector at any stage. As brought out earlier, it was only during the official level talks in 1960 that the Chinese gave a signed small-scale map showing their perception of the Sino-Indian boundary. This issue has not progressed till date and needs to be revived as the first step of the LAC clarification leading to the resolution of the boundary problem. This is unlikely to happen in a hurry as China is capable of waiting indefinitely until it acquires a dominant negotiating position.