The Chinese have forcibly occupied thousands of kilometers of Indian territory in the northern and eastern sectors, including 5,800 sq km of Gilgit-Baltistan illegally ceded by Pakistan who had earlier occupied the territory from India. In total China occupies more than 20,000 sq km of Gilgit-Baltistan covering Shaksgam, Raskam and Aghil valleys, apart from a large chunk in Ladakh. It is strange that while India is in constant negotiations with Pakistan over its occupation of parts of Jammu & Kashmir, it has not taken any steps to negotiate with China for recovery of the parts of this State under its illegal occupation.

The recent Border Development Cooperation Agreement (BDCA) signed during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Beijing is the last nail in the coffin of Indian diplomacy. First, the agreement admits there is no common understanding of the Line of Actual Control (LAC). In face of this blatant admission of differing perceptions of the LAC how can there be border cooperation between the two sides? This exposes the hollowness of the agreement.

The agreement says that the two sides shall carry out border defence cooperation on the basis of their respective laws and relevant bilateral agreements. India had earlier signed a number of agreements with China on border issues, but China has violated these agreements on many occasions. What is the guarantee that China will not violate this new agreement? Further the BDCA says that the two sides agree that they shall not follow or trail patrols of the other side in areas where there is no common understanding of the LAC. Chinese have always been of the view that they can walk into Indian territory as they had recently done in Chumar, Depsang in Daulat Beg Oldi sector.

In such “a doubtful situation”, the BDCA says that either side has the right to seek a clarification from the other side and clarifications and replies should be exchanged through established mechanisms.

India has stopped patrolling in some areas along the LAC. Adequate infrastructure and border outputs have not been set up at many places. This gives the Chinese an added advantage to infiltrate into Indian territory and the BDCA forbids India to follow the Chinese patrol. Each time Chinese intrusion took place, our leaders were in the habit of denying and going further to cover it up saying “differing perceptions about LAC.”

The fact is that India has not yet understood the Chinese ploy of Sun Tzu – the supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting. China has been playing this game ever since 1962 and India has not been able to give a fitting reply, despite having the military potential. The Chief of Air Staff NAK Browne had rightly said that had Indian Air Force (IAF) been directly involved in the 1962 war, the Chinese could have been pushed back beyond the border. The IAF had been successful in pushing back the Pakistani intruders from the Kargil sector.

In reply to the Chinese Sun Tzu ploy, the present Indian leaders have been maintaining that the border between India and China is “undefined” This is contrary to the facts that since Independence the Government of India has been publishing official maps of the country with clearly defined borders with China based on the lines drawn during the colonial era.

In 1865, the British rulers sensing likely expansionist plans of then Czarist Russia and the Middle kingdom drew India’s northern boundary in the Ladakh region with Tibet which extended beyond the Kuen-Lun (Kunlun) mountains up to Khotan and included the Aksai Chin desert and linked Demchok in the south with the 18,000 feet high Karakorum pass in the north. This is popularly called the Johnson Line drawn by WH Johnson of the Survey of India. It included Shahidulla in far off Karakash valley about 400 km from Leh.

With a view to get the Chinese agree to this boundary line, the then Viceroy Lord George Curzon in 1899 tried to exclude much of the Aksai Chin by proposing the MacCartney-Macdonal line, but the Chinese refused. Interestingly, this line, by and large, coincides with the Line of Actual Control and Chinese claim line. However, realizing the strategic importance of Aksai Chin and sensing the aggressive designs of the pro-Soviet Sinkiang government of the warlord Sheng Shih-Tsai, the British in 1940-41 the British gave a second thought and came back to the Johnson Line.

As Tibet, which shared borders with India, was then independent of the Chinese kingdom, the consent of the Chinese was not necessary. The British declared Tibet as a buffer state. The Johnson line, therefore, became the northern boundary between India and Tibet. In 1907, the British and the Russians came to an agreement to leave Tibet “in that state of isolation from which, till recently, she has shown no intention to depart.”

Though Jammu and Kashmir was an independent kingdom, the 1846 Treaty of Amritsar gave British the responsibility of its security. This made Britain responsible for J&K’s northern and eastern borders with Sinkiang and Tibet.

After the British annexed Assam, mainly the Brahmaputra valley in 1826, they took over the control over the hills in 1886 when an expedition went up the Lohit valley at the far end of today’s Arunachal Pradesh. But in the western end of the sector, immediately east of Bhutan, a Tibetan administered wedge known as the Tawang tract coming alongside the east of Bhutan up to its southern alignment and running eastwards till just west of Bomdila, was considered by the British to be open country.

The Chinese began asserting their rights over Tibet by mid-1910. In 1911 citing the Chinese policy of expansion as a cause, Viceroy Hardinge ordered “a sound strategical boundary.” In September 1911, the British decided that the Outer Line, including the entire tribal belt and Twang tract, should be the boundary with Tibet-cum-China.

The British called for a conference in Shimla in October 1913 which the Chinese attended reluctantly, but the Tibetan authorities came quite eagerly as they were now engaged in conflict with their Chinese suzerains. The then Foreign Secretary Henry McMahon led the British delegation. The boundary line that followed was known as McMahon Line which extended to the edge of the Tibetan plateau. It was an ethnic boundary in the sense that the area, except for the Tawang tract, was non-Tibetan in character. The Survey of India for the first time showed the McMahon Line as the official boundary. Tibetans, however, did not accept the “annexation” of the Tawang tract, but tacitly accepted the rest of McMahon Line demarcation. The Chinese, however, soon repudiated the Shimla Convention and thus the McMahon Line.

It is a sad fate for the country that after Independence we have not been able to maintain the strategic legacy handed over to us by the erstwhile British rulers. It is high time that in the interests of nation’s territorial integrity, the Government and the diplomats assert claim on both the Johnson Line and the McMahon Line.

Chinese occupation of Aksai Chin was a strategic move looking into future needs of resources as was its taking control of Shaksgam valley in exchange of nuclear assistance to Pakistan and now strategic footprints into Gilgit-Baltistan region. In 1963, Pakistan handed over 5,800 sq km kilometre of the territory of Gilgit-Baltistan (which it had captured from India) to China without the consent of the local people. Pakistani administration even threatened the ruler of Hunza of torture and imprisonment. The ruler of Hunza claimed the area up to Aghil Pass. As part of the frontier settlement plan the then Pakistani Foreign Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and the then Chinese Foreign Minister Chen Yi signed a provisional agreement on March 2, 1963 in Beijing allowing China to occupy Shaksgam, Raskam, Shimshal and Aghil valleys of the disputed territory of Gilgit-Baltistan.

China has already built feeder roads eastward through Shaksgam linking Gilgit with Hotan, an important Chinese military headquarters at the cross-section of the Tibet-Xinjiang Highway and Hotan-Golmud Highway. The feeder road stretching along the southern rim of Eastern Turkmenistan connects Gilgit with Aksai Chin and shortens the distance by more than 800 miles. China’s control over the northern valleys of Gilgit-Baltistan has helped connect military and industrial complexes of north-western Tibet to Pakistan’s Gwadar port and also ports in Iran.

China is investing another $18 billion to construct a 200 km long tunnel in Gilgit-Baltistan which will help run rail service between Kashgar and Gwadar port in Balochistan. An agreement to this effect has been signed by the Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif who has also agreed to set up Chinese industrial zones along the Karakoram Highway and laying fibre optic across the Karakoram Mountains

Soon after China occupied Tibet in September 1951, Chinese gave priority to motorable roads – the Chamdo-Lasha, the Qinghai-Lasha and the Tibet-Xinjiang Highway passing through Aksai Chin and linking western Tibet to East Turkmenistan.

According to the official report of the 1962 war (Chinese aggression) “the preliminary survey work an planned Tibet-Sinkiang road having been completed by the mid-1950s, China started constructing a motorable road in the summer of 1955. The highway ran over 160 km across the Aksai Chin region of north-east Ladhak. It was completed in the second half of 1957. Arterial roads connecting the highway with Tibet were also laid.”

India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was in delusion and was swayed by the Chinese rhetoric of Hindi-Chini Bhai-Bhai and therefore could not the read the Chinese design. Rape of Tibet could have been prevented in time with the support of international diplomacy and adequate border out posts could have been set up.

India had been trading with central Asia and more particularly Kashgar and Yarkand for millennia. India controlled the Zoji-la Pass as well as Ladhak and Karakoram Pass was open to caravans. But Nehru took a decision to shut down Indian Consulate in Kashgar, only because China objected to Demchok being the border pass for traders between Ladhak and western Tibet.

China is now encircling India by its String of Pearls in the India Ocean by its presence in Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Pakistan. Nepal too is at times is dancing to the tune of its northern neighbour across the Himalaya and China is claiming Doklam Plateau in Bhutan and intends to cut off the Chicken Neck Corridor connecting mainland India with its northeastern region.

Contrary India has not taken any effective steps to encircle China in the East and South China Seas despite friendly offers being made by the Philippines and Vietnam. India’s presence there is limited to few oil exploration blocks. Some exploration programme ran into rough weather as China voiced objections.

It is high time that India gear up and take on China in the interests of its territorial integrity. It should read the writing on the wall. An article in a pro-Chinese government newspaper, Wenweipo has outlined China’s six war strategies in the next 50 years with a view to avenge the humiliation meted out to Imperial China by the British in the Opium War of 1840-42 and to recover the “lost territories.” The Chinese government has so far not contradicted the article.

According to the article the first war would be in the year 2020-25 for unification of Taiwan, the second war would be for “re-conquest” of Spratly Island in 2025-30, the third war would be for “re-conquest” of Southern Tibet (Arunachal Pradesh in India) in 2035-40, the fourth war would be for “re-conquest” of Diaoyu Island (Senkaku) and Ryuku Islands in 2040-45, the fifth war would be for unification of Outer Mongolia in 2045-50 and the sixth war would be for taking back lands lost to Russia in 2055-60.

Regarding, the proposed China’s war with India for “recovering” Southern Tibet (Arunachal Pradesh), the article says “China has long been the imaginary enemy of India. The military objective of India is to surpass China. India aims to achieve this by self-development and importing advanced military technologies and weapons from US, Russia and Europe, chasing closely to China in its economic and military development.”

It further suggests “the best strategy for China is to incite the disintegration of India. By dividing into several countries, India will have no power to cope with China.”

'Öf course, such plan may fail. But China should at least try its best to incite Assam province and once conquered Sikkim to gain independence, in order to weaken the power of India. This is the best strategy,” the article said.

As a second best plan the article suggests “to export advanced weapons to Pakistan, helping Pakistan to conquer Southern Kashmir region in 2035 and to achieve its unification. While India and Pakistan are busy fighting against each other, China should take a Blitz to conquer Southern Tibet, at the time occupied by India.”

Thus the writing on the wall is clear. India should take China seriously.