The military standoff at the India-China border in the Doklam area of Sikkim and the clamorous demand for Gorkhaland in West Bengal has erupted into a major crisis at the frontiers of India’s north-eastern border.  Sikkim has been a part of India for 42 years and completely streamlined into the politics, education, and culture of the country. Let us look back at the history of the largest boundary dispute of the world between India and China.

• India’s position has always been that a traditional boundary called McMahon Line exists between India and Tibet which was agreed by the Great Britain, China, and Tibet at the 1914 Shimla conference. The Tibet-Sikkim boundary was accepted along with the watershed of Teesta-Amochu river as per the Anglo-Chinese convention of 1906.
• It was in 1950 that the Chinese military was present at the India-China border, as the PLA moved in Tibet.
• Jawaharlal Nehru raised the matter of Chinese activity to Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai in 1954 and 1956. The latter proclaimed that although China had no claims on Indian territory, the maps shown to them were old and irrelevant Kuomintang maps.
• In 1959, Zhou’s clear writing that the Chinese rejected the McMahon line in the eastern sector as a colonial vestige and disputed the Kunlun boundary in the western sector was bewildering.
• Nehru and the Indian public viewed this as a cartographic aggression as China started building the Aksai Chin Road from Sinkiang to Tibet.
• India in 1959 assigned an asylum to the dissident Buddhist monk Dalai Lama that brought a new disquiet and consternation in bilateral relations. This disturbingly convinced China that CIA, as well as Indian agencies, were underpinning trouble by aiding the Tibetan guerrilla war.
• The year 1962 saw with dismay a war in the Himalayas over the longest boundary dispute. This attrition was excruciating and traumatizing for the unprepared Indian forces. Thousands of soldiers died desecrating the terrain as well as relations between both nations.
• The Chinese demolished several Indian posts and created a virtual Line of Actual Control in the Chip Chap River Valley, Galwan River Valley, and Pangong Lake.
• They themselves declared a ceasefire withdrawing their forces 20km behind LAC. This position was entirely unilateral and can be attributed to logistical difficulties in the rough mountains.
• Chinese preoccupation with the Tibetan revolt, logistical construction activities of Tibet and the ravaging Cultural Revolution left the boundary unpatrolled for several years.
• Meanwhile, India upgraded its military and technical capabilities to counter the Chinese aggrandizement. India began satellite surveys, slight reconnaissance, and military presence at the border area by 1970s.
• Tensions re-emerged in the mid-1980s when the Indian and Chinese patrols ended up in face-to-face confrontations in the Sumdorungchu Valley (called Wangdong by China) which is at the tri-junction with Bhutan.
• This time Indian aggression led to the moving in of Indian troops in the Longrola and Hathungla heights and dominating it. Seven years of negotiation restored the status quo.
• Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s visit to China came as a watershed in the diplomatic relations between both nations where they finally agreed to negotiate the border. He denied any territorial concessions but was ready for adjustments.
• It is worth noting here that Zhou Enlai had once suggested that China might recognize the McMahon line if India accepted the Chinese claim in the Western sector of moving the boundary from Kunlun to the Karakoram. However, this proposal was never mentioned ever again by them in any peace talks.
• 1989 was a disastrous year for the Chinese leadership as it witnessed the student led pro-democracy protest consequential in the Tiananmen Square massacre. The Chinese Communist Party hardened its stance and all chances of an easy settlement of boundary vanished. On the other hand, the turbulent coalition governments in India were not in a position to handle the issue.
• Gorbachev’s policies of Glasnost and Perestroika to reform the Soviet Union proved to disastrous and the whole union soon disintegrated into 15 independent nations ending the communist era. The world returned to being unipolar leaving the United States as the sole superpower. The geopolitics of the world and dynamics of the foreign policies underwent transfiguration.
• Then came a breakthrough in 1993 under the prudent leadership of India PM P. V. Narasimha Rao, the Border Peace and Tranquility Agreement, signed by both nations during his visit to China on September 7, 1993. An international treaty was formalized delinking boundary issue with bilateral relations of both nations, in order to maintain peace and status quo on the border. It also spoke of mutually agreed Confidence-Building Measures, restrictions on air activity and limiting of military exercises and deployment.
• This agreement led to normalization of relations boosting trade and people-to-people contact. China is India’s largest trade partner and over 11000 Indian students are present in China.
• Experts state that LAC is not a “live” border, rather a concept. There hasn’t been any mutually agreed demarcation of the border on land or on the map.

Nevertheless, it remains the most peaceful border in the last 30 years. Both sides have generally avoided provocations and there haven’t been any cross-border firings.

However, slight skirmishes have occurred on the border that rejuvenates tensions. The Depsang incident of 2013 saw Chinese presence on Indian land, but India’s vehement objection led to the vacating of the area within three weeks. It can be attributed to the standard operating procedures and mechanisms in the 1993 agreement.

Furthermore, in 2014, the People’s Liberation Army entered Indian territory in Chumar during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to India and left only after a fortnight. This move wasn’t considered a rogue action by Indian observers and could be a demonstration of dominance or symbolic indication of their seriousness towards boundary settlement.

This paranoid misadventure has returned to the borders, this time over the Doklam plateau in the Chumbi valley at the tri-junction of India, China, and Bhutan. It is where China is reportedly building a road that could lead to Sikkim. Official complaints from Bhutan are viewed as an Indian proxy by the Chinese who claim the whole Doklam region as their own territory.

The stand-off has deteriorated enough for China to refuse the entry of Indians for the Kailash Mansarovar yatra. In fact, 2500 Indian troops have been deployed at the border and harsh rhetoric can be seen from the Chinese media. The Indian government apart from beefing up security have called for an All-Party meeting to brief the security situation. National Security Advisor Ajit Doval is set to visit China in a few weeks. Normalization or worsening of relations can only be speculated as of now, but an imminent war would be a strategic and economic disaster for both countries. Valid negotiations are the only fundamental solution for a sound future relationship between both nuclear-capable nations.

Courtesy: “Choices” India’s Foreign Policy by Shiv Shankar Menon