Sino-Indian war
Sino-Indian war (1962). On 20 October 1962, China invaded India in a short, sharp border war that lasted a month before Chinese troops unilaterally withdrew to pre-hostility positions on 21 November 1962. The war was fought along the Sino-Indian border in the heights of the Himalayan mountains in Ladakh and Aksai Chin (in northern Jammu and Kashmir province) in the west, and in the North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA) (now Arunachal Pradesh province) in the east. The Himalayan frontier zone had always been an area of great geopolitical importance. The strategic significance of the Tibetan plateau to Indian security had long been recognized by the British, who spent much time and effort preventing Russian incursions into the region. In 1904 Britain invaded Tibet to ensure a friendly regime in the capital, Lhasa, and in 1907, Britain and Russia established a neutral belt from Persia (now Iran) across to Tibet to separate the two empires. When the British left south Asia in 1947, these strategic priorities remained to trouble the newly independent Indian government. To compound matters, long stretches of the Sino-Indian border had never been agreed. In particular, the Chinese rejected the ‘McMahon line’ along the NEFA border.
As long as China was weak and distracted by internal and external pressures, the question of the border was unimportant. However, once the communists unified China in 1949, the authorities in Beijing wanted Tibet restored to central control. In 1950-1, People's Liberation Army (PLA) forces moved into Tibet and occupied Lhasa. This move by the Chinese brought PLA forces up against Indian army posts along the poorly demarcated common frontier. Against the advice of his military advisers, the Indian leader, Jawaharlal Nehru, adopted a forward policy designed to establish Indian control over the disputed border areas in Ladakh and the NEFA. Nehru, like the British before him, did not want a powerful country like China to control Tibet, but unlike the British, Nehru did not have the military force to control Tibet. In 1956-7, Chinese engineers constructed a road across the disputed Aksai Chin. This highway connected recently conquered Tibet to Sinkiang in western China. The road was a vital part of Chinese strategy to link Tibet to China and provided for military access to Tibet and the sensitive border region. The remoteness of the area was shown by the fact that the Indians were unaware of the road until the Chinese announced its completion in September 1957. In 1958-9, a Tibetan revolt against Chinese rule led to the flight of the Tibetan leader, the Dalai Lama, to India. The suppression of the Tibet revolt by the PLA polarized attitudes in Delhi and Beijing, and reduced chances of a peaceful solution to the border dispute. From the summer of 1959, armed clashes between Indian and PLA units escalated. In late 1959, Chou En-lai, China's premier, suggested a mutual withdrawal in the NEFA to 12.4 miles (20 km) behind the McMahon line. Meanwhile, forces would remain in situ in Ladakh/Aksai Chin in the west. The proposal proved China's priorities: it was willing to concede the McMahon line in the east if India conceded Aksai Chin (and China's strategic highway) in the west.
Unfortunately, Nehru pursued an increasingly intransigent line and rejected the Chinese offer. India then looked to the USSR for military aid and an alarmed China launched a full-scale invasion in Ladakh/Aksai Chin and the NEFA on 20 October 1962. In the NEFA, 20, 000 PLA troops poured across the border and advanced towards the plains of India. The Indian troops in the Himalayas were hopelessly outmatched. Nehru had ignored the military realities of fighting at high altitude, and poor lines of communications left Indian posts without supplies and isolated. On 21 October, the Chinese launched a third front by attacking down the Lohit valley near the Burmese border in eastern NEFA. All along the frontier, Indian units fell back under the pressure of the PLA assault. On 29 October, a beleaguered Nehru asked for American aid but before this was needed the PLA unilaterally fell back to the old border on 21 November.
As in the Korean war, the Red Chinese displayed a disconcerting lack of nuance (to diplomats of the wordy western school), putting their military money exactly where their mouth was. The war secured Aksai Chin in exchange for recognizing the McMahon line and the NEFA as Indian, but this could have been agreed without bloodshed. Chinese casualties for the war are unknown, but Indian casualties (including POWs) exceeded 7, 000.
Bibliography
- Maxwell, Neville, India's China War (London, 1970)
— Matthew Hughes
