It was a lucid and comprehensive solution that the Chinese leader proposed. This, in substance, is what Chou En-lai put forward as a solution to the border dispute.

(a) The China-India boundary can be divided into three sectors: the middle sector, where the dispute is minimal and the areas in dispute can be easily negotiated, and the eastern and western sectors, where the claimed areas by both sides are large and efforts to solve the dispute need to be concentrated here.

(b) In the eastern sector, India projects the boundary line along what it terms the McMahon Line. While China does not recognise the McMahon Line since it was an imperialist imposition, China is willing to give up its claims on the areas India is occupying here, largely following the natural high ridges. On the western sector, China seeks India’s acceptance of the line of demarcation along what India calls Aksai-Chin.

(c) This is a reasonable solution of overlapping claims in which historical legacy is entirely on China’s side; Indian nomenclature itself speaks out – Aksai Chin: the rock of China.

The four-hour press conference terminated past mid-night when a British correspondent fervently asked for closure, so that “we might not miss the story”.

History records a tragic aftermath. Chou En-lai’s pragmatic solution to the India-China border dispute did not prevail, the consequence of which was disastrous the 1962 India-China border war, which meant humiliation and a military setback for India.

It is not easy to delve into the lessons of 1962 – at one end, they are humiliating and bitter, and they rouse emotions based on one’s national pride. An objective assessment becomes difficult, more so because of layers of historical obfuscation.

Yet it is necessary to undertake an unbiased look at the 1962 events, to ensure a corrective, so that relations of the two most populous nations of the world are placed on a sound pedestal.

Often forgotten in the whirlpool of emotions is the setting of the decades fifties and sixties of the twentieth century: an era of newly won freedom. Both ex-colonial nations had broken their shackles and were gripped by buoyant nationalism, thirsting to regain their territorial dimensions to the farthest point, even those exaggerated by hazy historical accounts.

It is in this setting that the 1962 conflagration occurred. From the Indian side, it was assertion of the McMahon Line to its farthest point, on the eastern sector, and exaggerated claims on Aksai Chin, based on British explorations into the then no-man’s land, the desolate Aksai Chin plateau. Chinese territorial ambitions swept across Tibet and Xinjiang (formerly spelt ‘Sinkiang’) and reached India’s borders, claiming the entire Aksai Chin plateau in the West and lands south of the McMahon Line in the east – present-day Arunachal Pradesh.

No purpose would be served by delving into the sticky points that led to the sudden outbreak of the 1962 border war – Indian outreach to “forward positions”, at some points even beyond the McMahon Line, and Mao’s terse dictum of ‘teaching India a lesson’. But the development that ended the border war was equally notable: Chinese unilateral withdrawal from the areas they had conquered in the eastern sector.

The unusual result was that despite a militarily humbled India, the Chinese voluntarily withdrew to what India had claimed at the outset – the McMahon Line – and it is this positioning of Indian and Chinese troops that has since served as the Line of Actual Control. In the Western sector, termed as the Aksai Chin border, the Chinese projection of the Line of Actual Control however retained some areas beyond the 1962 positions.

Five decades later, one witnesses a new scenario, a dramatic change — booming trade relationship, and the prospect of valuable interaction of India-China economies. China and India have surged as economic super powers. The two-way India-China trade has risen to a massive figure of $ 75 billion and is heading towards $ 100 billion by 2015. China is presently India’s biggest trade partner. The latest development is large Chinese investment in Indian infrastructure development is under discussion– roadway construction, high speed railways, power, and vice versa, Indian industries getting a foothold in China. It is possible to extend India-China economic collaboration on a global scale. There is talk of India-China cooperation in Afghanistan; and of building a road linking Kolkata and Kunming via Myanmar, and extension of India’s road linkage from Kunming to South East Asia.

While the prospect is of expanding economic and trade relationship, problems remain: the balance of India-Chin trade is heavily tilted in China’s favour. There are, however, moves to rectify this uneven trade relationship. India-China trade and economic relationship has grown despite the territorial dispute, both countries realizing, wisely, that economic relationship was valuable for both countries, and must grow despite the border dispute.

This dramatic change of scenarios can partly be explained by a change of India’s viewpoint. Why and how? Let me make a revelation. From the turmoil of the sixties emerged a research scholar, John Lal, a former Defence Ministry expert, whose hefty research on Aksai Chin helped in reviewing Indian thinking. John Lal’s book on Aksai Chin gave an altered view than one with which Indian foreign office was fiddling. Its substance: while Chinese claims on Aksai Chin are loose – only partly correct and lacking continuity – Indian claim to a large part of Aksai Chin is untenable.

John Lal, in fact, considered Chou En-lai’s offer of 1962 to be fair and pragmatic and served India’s needs as also China’s. This realisation helped in bringing about a transition. The Line of Actual Control on the borders that came into being when the 1962 conflict ended, was firmed up in negotiations at the apex level in 1993 and 1996. Notwithstanding periodic pin-pricks resulting from varying interpretations, the Line of Actual Control has served to project peaceful border relations.

All this does not mean end of the border dispute. Apart from the fact that the nightmarish memory of 1962 lingers on and clouds India’s global viewpoint, the possibility of conflict on the border dispute has not been erased because of divergent interpretations of the Line of Actual Control.

Strategic issues now loom large. In the fast changing global setting of the twenty-first century, the status of super powers of yesteryears has changed, and instead of the erstwhile Soviet Union it is China that increasingly confronts the United States. The European Union has lost its clout, and a host of other countries, Japan in particular, have filled the vacuum. India’s standing has enhanced. But simultaneously, China’s growing economic clout is vetting its territorial ambitions. What does all this add up for India, and its strategic policies?

India has to evaluate according to its national interests. At a time when China’s relations with the United States have entered a difficult phase, and with its oceanic territorial disputes with Japan, Vietnam and Philippines on the boil, China has no reason to spoil the atmospherics of its relations with India.

This should be the right moment to settle the India-China border dispute, especially so because of China’s leadership change. Hints have come from the high level Chinese political team recently in India that with give and take from both countries – such as embodied in the Chou En-lai formula referred above – the long-standing border can be finally settled. It is in India’s interest to take the next steps.

While India needs to retain its strategic options of close relations with United States, it can balance its strategic ties with China too on the basis of reciprocity, keeping in view the opportunities for mutually beneficial economic engagement. In the 1950s and 1960s India and China were weak developing nations and had little to offer each other except political engagement against their former colonial rulers. In the world of today, China is the world’s second largest economy and India is among the top six. The opportunities of mutually beneficial engagement are immense, and can be best realized once the border dispute is finally out of the way. (IPA Service)