The Sino-Indian Border Dispute
Section 2:1959-61
DD/I Staff Study
CIA/RSS
Reference Title: Polo XVI
by Central Intelligence Agency
August 19, 1963
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Off. Ser. No. 2
THE SINO-INDIAN BORDER DISPUTE
SECTION I I. (1959-1961)
This is the second in a series of three working papers on the Sino-Indian border dispute. This Section II deals with the period from late 1959 to early 1961. Section III will cover the remainder of 1961 and most of 1962, through the Chinese attack of 20 October.
Useful comments by P. D. Davis and H. G. Hagerty of OCI have been incorporated. The DDI/RS would welcome comment, addressed either to the Chief or to the writer, Arthur Cohen, [DELETE]
SECTION II. (1959-1961)
Summary
By fall 1959 the Chinese leaders were convinced of the need for negotiations with Nehru, in order to prevent their international prestige -- including. their position in the world Communist movement -- from deteriorating. Shortly after the August 1959 clashes they also recognized, or were made aware by Indian party boss Ghosh, that Nehru's advisers might use these skirmishes to push him and the entire government further to the "right"-- i.e. towards a militant anti-China policy and a willingness to accept some degree of American support in this policy. The practical strategic danger such a development posed was that the arc of U.S. bases "encircling" China would be extended through India. They continued to see Nehru as still having a "good side" (anti-Western) as well ad a "bad side" (anti-Chinese) and therefore as possibly still amenable to persuasion through personal diplomacy on the matter of a border settlement. This meshed well with their new-found concern with preventing the establishment of a military government in New Delhi.
As they moved toward negotiations, however, they took an irrational action which temporarily clouded the atmosphere for talks in New Delhi. The Chinese physically and mentally coerced the leader of a small Indian police party they had captured during a clash in October 1959, in order to secure a "confession" that the Indians had sparked the incident. When it became public knowledge that the Indian prisoner had been manipulated by Maoist methods used in forced confession, popular and official Indian resentment caused a reaction which hurt Peiping more than the charge that Chinese troops had fired first. Having learned the lesson, the Chinese have since made a special point of their "brotherly" concern for Indian prisoners.
By late fall, Chou began to press Nehru hard to begin talks with him. During an exchange of ministerial letters, Nehru raised certain pre-conditions for talks, stipulating on 16 November the requirement that the Chinese withdraw from Longju and that both sides withdraw from the disputed area in Ladakh. In the latter area, Indian troops would withdraw south and west to the line which Peiping claimed on its 1936 maps, and Chinese troops would withdraw north and east of the line claimed by India on its maps. In effect, Nehru's stipulation would be tantamount to a Chinese withdrawal from the Aksai Plain and the Sinkiang-Tibet road, and the Chinese said as much. Chou En-lai's reply of 17 December went right to the point of realpolitik, arguing from actual Chinese possession, complaining that Nehru's concession would be only "theoretical" as India had no personnel there to withdraw, and insisting on the area's importance for "it has been a traffic artery linking up the vast regions of Sinkiang and Tibet." The Indian leaders indicated some sensitivity on Chou's additional point that New Delhi was "utterly unaware" of Chinese roadbuilding in the area until September 1958 -- "proving" continuous Chinese jurisdiction -- and informed their embassies to take the line that intrusions cannot give a neighboring country any legal right to an area "merely because such intrusions were not resisted by us or had not come to our notice earlier." Turning a conciliatory side, Chou in this 17 December letter stated that following the 21 October 1959 clash Peiping had stopped sending out patrols, and he requested a personal meeting with Nehru to establish "principles" for negotiating the dispute. Chou then hinted that Peiping would be willing to exchange its claim to the area south of the McMahon line for New Delhi's claim to the Aksai Plain. Nehru was reluctant to meet personally with Chou, and persisted in this attitude until January 1960, when, on the advice of his ambassadors and certain cabinet members, he agreed to drop his pre-conditions.
In this period, Khrushchev made several public statements in which he deplored the border dispute, clearly implying that Chinese military actions were jeopardizing Moscow's relations with New Delhi. In November, he described the dispute as a "sad and stupid story" -- a remark which angered the Chinese leaders -- and hinted that he favored a compromise. Soviet officials tried to create the impression among Indian diplomats that Khrushchev had intervened directly with Peiping on New Delhi's behalf, but, when pressed for explicit proof, scaled down their remarks to suggest that the Russians had merely urged talks on Peiping as soon as possible. The Russians, in fact, had no influence with the Chinese leaders. Foreign Secretary Dutt later told an American official that Khrushchev had been no help with the Chinese "at all," remaining just as neutral in private as in public and hoping that these two "friends" of the Soviet Union would settle their dispute. Although the Chinese leaders clearly viewed Khrushchev's .public remarks as hostile to them, and Peiping subsequently claimed that Sino-Soviet polemics logically followed the September 1959 TASS statement of neutrality between China and India, the Soviet position on the Sino-Indian dispute in fact remained a peripheral issue in the Sino-Soviet dispute.
In January 1960, the Chinese moved quickly to bring the Burmese to Peiping for a Sino-Burmese border agreement, in order to provide an "example" of how a friendly country should settle its border problems with China. Prior to that time, the Chinese for several years had been parrying Burmese requests for a settlement, but, once the decision to bring Nehru to negotiations had been made (October-November 1959), the Chinese leaders apparently calculated that a speedy border agreement with Prime Minister Ne Win would make it more difficult for Nehru to reject similar talks. The Chinese also used the Sino-Burmese agreement against their critics in the Soviet bloc, and Ne Win speculated on 30 January that the Chinese leaders had been "quite anxious" to settle the border dispute with Burma prior to Khrushchev's stopover in New Delhi, trying thus to undercut Nehru's argument to the Soviet leader on the intransigence of the Chinese on the border issue.
Constantly under pressure from Parliament and the press not to take a soft line with Peiping, Nehru was compelled to make even an agreement "to meet" with Chou appear as part of a hard, anti-China policy. Nehru's 5 February 1960 letter to Chou agreed to a meeting but not to substantive negotiations, as the Chinese claim that the entire border had never been delimited was "incorrect...and on that basis there can be no negotiations.'' Nevertheless, he invited Chou to meet with him in New Delhi to explore every avenue for a settlement, and he defended this formal invitation in Parliament by calmly insisting that no policy change was involved: he had always said he was prepared "to meet" anybody, anywhere. It was Nehru's intention merely to determine what Chou "really wants" -- as Foreign Secretary Dutt put it -- and to probe Peiping's long-term intentions on the border. The firmness of Nehru's letter of invitation was intended partly to scotch rumors that he and his advisers were willing to exchange the Aksai Plain for formal Chinese recognition of the McMahon line -- rumors fed by Krishna Menon's slip in a speech to the effect that India would not yield "...any part of our administered territory along the border," i .e. would remain silent on areas occupied by the Chinese. In February and early March, there were other indications that Nehru was looking for some way to accept Chinese use of the Sinkiang- Tibet road while retaining nominal Indian sovereignty over the Aksai Plain.
The Chinese leaders apparently read these early signs as tantamount to an invitation to further probe the apparent soft spot -- relating to the Aksai Plain -- in the Indian position, and prepared for substantive negotiations rather than meaningless "exploratory" talks. They attempted to make credible their expressed willingness to negotiate a settlement, not only by agreeing to send Chou to India in the face of two Nehru refusals to go to China but also by acting quickly to sign a border agreement with Nepal in March, just two months after Chou's success with the Burmese. But when Chou indicated to Nehru his intention to spend six days in New Delhi (despite Nehru's busy schedule) and to come at the head of a high-level delegation, Nehru and his advisers were taken aback. Nehru's advisers noted that whereas New Delhi was approaching the Chou-Nehru meeting merely in terms of improving relations, Chinese notes and Chou's acceptance letter had looked toward a concrete border "settlement." When asked what Chou would be doing In New Delhi for six days, Nehru replied that Chou was quite capable of talking steadily for three or four hours at a stretch. When Nehru in April contemplated and discussed the line to take during the anticipated bargaining Chou would conduct, the advice he received from all sides was to be adamant. Thus Chou, who on late April came with a business- like delegation and a real hope of gaining agreement in principle that the border was not delimited and was therefore subject to negotiation, was confronted by an Indian prime minister who had already rejected bargaining.
In probing the presumed soft spot in the Indian position, Chou departed from diplomatic precedent, working over Nehru and his top advisers, including Krishna Menon, in separate, private, man-to-man sessions. In each session, Chou ran into a stone all of opposition -- even with his "old friend,'' Menon -- and after three days of almost uninterrupted discussions, he had made no dent in the Indian position on Ladakh; in turn, he rejected Nehru's suggestion that Chinese troops be withdrawn from "occupied" areas. The most Chou was able to salvage from his near- total failure was to be able to give an impression that the talks would be continued. The Chinese clearly underestimated Nehru's adamancy in April 1960. They may have read the signs of compromise in New Delhi correctly in February and March, but they carried that estimate into late April, well after Nehru's back had been stiffened decisively by his advisers.
The April 1960 Chou-Nehru talks seem in retrospect to have been Peiping's last chance for a negotiated settlement with Nehru. Nehru rejected Chou's proposal that they meet again, and refused to agree formally either to a ''line" of actual control or to stop sending out Indian patrols. Nehru agreed merely to a temporary, informal "understanding" to halt patrolling and to turn the issue over to subordinate officials, who were to meet to examine the historical and legal evidence of each side and draft a joint report, but who were not empowered to recommend a solution.
The border experts talks in middle and late 1960 served as an instrument of the Chinese effort to perpetuate an impression of continuing negotiations, but they eventually proved detrimental to Peiping's historical and legal case. By the end of the third and final session in December 1960, the Indian experts were convinced that the vaunted Chinese case had proved to be in fact a weak one. The Indian case, owing much to the excellent and extensive administrative records the British had maintained in the India Office Library in London, and published in a detailed Report available to the general public, was impressive. It was argued adroitly on many points of fact (i.e. documentary evidence), logic, and international law, demonstrating that New Delhi could produce a respectable legal case when British-educated, first-class legal experts and historians were called on. However, New Delhi's ability to drive home effectively to laymen specially selected points was inferior to Peiping's, and Indian officials later commented that India's position in the dispute had not been understood in Southeast Asia, partly because "All-India Radio is no match for Peiping Radio." That the Chinese themselves were troubled and recognized that the Indian case was at least as strong as their own is suggested by their failing to publish the experts reports, and by their limiting knowledge of the reports' contents to certain CCP members and deputies of the National People's Congress rather than distributing it to the general public and foreigners. (As of mid-1963, Peiping has not made generally available the texts of the separate Indian and Chinese experts reports.)
Following the Chou-Nehru talks, the Chinese leaders apparently followed a two-fold policy of ceasing regular patrol activity along the border while on occasion sending out reconnaissance parties in the immediate vicinity of their border posts. The primary goal was to reduce further the possibility of armed clashes, clashes which had hurt them politically and had spoiled any chance they may have had of negotiating a settlement. The rationale of a policy of only limited reconnaissance was set forth in a captured Tibetan document of November 1960, which warned PLA personnel to remain cool, not to replace political policy with emotions, otherwise
We would not look to the larger situation and would not ask for orders or wait for directions from above before opening fire and striking back. In that case, we might gain a greater military victory, but politically we would fall into the trap of the other side and would cause only great injury to the party and state -- the biggest mistake.
The document also suggested a Chinese estimate as of November 1960 that New Delhi did not intend to re-take large areas of Chinese-held border territory because the Indians did not have the military capability to do so. However, the cessation of regular forward patrolling did not mean an end to the cautious and surreptitious construction of certain new posts at specially selected points, particularly in the more inaccessible valleys in Ladakh. In addition to this stealthy forward movement of individual posts, the Chinese border experts gave the Indian experts in 1960 a new map of the Chinese-claimed "line" -- a "line" which in 1960 was at points well to the west of the map-alignment of the same area which Chou had shown Nehru in 1956.
Regarding Indian protests in 1960 that Chinese planes were violating Indian airspace, Chou told Nehru in April that India need only shoot one of the planes down to see that these were not Chinese Communist aircraft. However, the Indian leaders continued to protest, reluctant to believe Peiping's claim that the planes belonged to the U.S., or reluctant to state publicly that they believed the claim.
As of January 1961, the Chinese strategy remained: to work for a rapprochement with New Delhi, to treat India as still nonaligned, and to avoid personal attacks on Nehru. The prospect of a major Sino-Indian war apparently was considered only as an unlikely eventuality, which, if it were to occur, would completely change the nature of the border struggle, then regarded as political. According to a Chinese Communist Foreign Ministry report of January 1961, it was Mao himself who provided the general principle of diplomatic forbearance for the period: "In 1960, Chairman Mao again instructed us repeatedly that in our struggle, some leeway must be provided to the opponent." This was conceived as the key part of Mao's dual policy of "unity and struggle" toward India, at times taking a hard line with New Delhi and at other times taking a soft line. The Chinese may have seen this dual policy as flexible, but to New Delhi China was becoming India's most important enemy and the policy of ''unity and struggle" toward India meant nothing but "struggle." It may be, therefore, that the Chinese leaders, including Mao, by early 1981 believed that they had some room for future diplomatic maneuvering with New Delhi, when in fact such room no longer existed.
THE SINO-INDIAN BORDER DISPUTE
SECTION 11. (1959-1961)
Prelude to Negotiations: Fall 1959 - January 1960
The Chinese leaders recognized, or were made aware, [1] shortly after the August 1959 clashes, that Nehru's advisers might use these skirmishes to push him and the entire government further to the "right" -- i.e. towards a militant anti-China policy and a willingness to accept some degree of American support in this policy. The practical strategic danger such a development posed was that the arc of U.S. bases "encircling" China would be extended through India. Both Mao Tse-tung and Liu Shao-chi reportedly alluded to the danger in their talks with Indian party boss Ajoy Ghosh in Peiping in early October 1959. At the 8 October meeting with Ghosh, Liu reportedly stated:
We have taken very seriously the establishment of military rule in Pakistan. There is an entire game being planned by the U.S. imperialists to capture major Asian nations, especially the countries which are neighbors of China and the Soviet Union. Burma, Japan, Pakistan, Nepal, Ceylon, India and other countries like Indonesia are the major Asian countries by which the two great socialist countries, the Soviet Union and China, are being surrounded. In this way, by capturing the Asian countries, the U.S. imperialists want to encircle the socialist camp militarily.
In Pakistan and Burma, they have already succeeded, and they are still trying to repeat the same episode in Indonesia. After the successful coup in Pakistan, the Americans are now trying to make the same thing happen in India.
This persistent concern with "encirclement" by military regimes combined with General Thimayya's attempt to force Krishna Menon's removal as defense minister apparently raised real fears among the Chinese leaders (as it had among the Indian Communists) that India was on the brink and must be snatched away from going into the U.S. imperialist camp" (Liu to Ghosh, 8 October meeting).
Regarding their appraisal of Nehru's political attitude, Mao is reported to have told Ghosh on 5 October that the Chinese recognize -- as Ghosh did -- a difference between Nehru and certain of his advisers. The latter, particularly those in the Ministry of External Affairs and including General Thimayya, were "rightists" who wanted to exploit the border dispute to help the U.S. "isolate China." According to Liu Shao-chi's remarks to Ghost on 8 October, Nehru might decide in favor of these "rightists," but for the present all efforts should be directed toward preventing him from doing so. Regarding their appraisal of Nehru's "class background," Liu stated that the Chinese leaders see the Indian prime minister as "a reactionary and basically anti-Communist; he is not even like Sukarno, who has appreciated the Indonesian Communist Party." Despite this doctrinal characterization, they seem to have acted on the basis of political expediency, centering their attention on Nehru's political attitude within the Indian leadership -- that is, on their view of him as still different from the Indian military figures such as Thimayya, who were unalterably "hard" on the matter of policy toward Peiping.
The Chinese prescription for preventing the establishment of a military dominated government in India, avoiding thereby a repetition of developments in Pakistan and Burma, was two-fold and seemed to exclude military pressure. According to Mao and Liu, there must be
(1) CPI efforts to develop more support for Nehru against military "rightists"; and
(2) settlement of the entire border dispute through Sino-Indian negotiations -- a course which would require first a "proper atmosphere" and then the "pressure of the masses" on Nehru to negotiate.
The first part of the prescription continued to impose on the Indian party, which was already split into a pro-Soviet and a pro-Chinese faction, the dilemma of trying to support Nehru's policy while avoiding anti-Chinese statements. The neutral stand taken by the Indian party on the border issue provided it only a temporary refuge, and on 14 November 1959, under the pressure of public opinion, the Communists finally came out in support of India's claim on the McMahon line. However, in its important resolution, the Indian party refrained from condemning Chinese military action on the border, equivocated on the matter of Ladakh, and insisted on "no pre-conditions" for talks.
The second part of the prescription required a major Chinese Communist diplomatic effort. However, Mao and Liu had told Ghosh of their desire not to appear ''weak" in calling for negotiations. They were aware that some Indian troops had been moved up to border posts on the Indian side, and they apparently intended in October 1959 to have the PLA increase its own presence on the Chinese side. Chinese troops in October were directed to warn Indian border-post personnel to retire from the border area. Under these circumstances, an appeal from Peiping for immediate talks -- along the lines requested by the CPI with Soviet encouragement -- would, in the Chinese view, embolden rather than discourage the Indian leaders in their effort to firm up their border posts. The Chinese leaders insisted to Ghosh that negotiations must await a "proper atmosphere" in India and that when circumstances were ripe for talks there must be no Indian "prior conditions." [2] They wanted to approach negotiations in a series of steps, in the course of which Sino-Indian tensions were expected to ease. When Chou finally wrote to Nehru on 19 October suggesting that Vice President Radhakrishnan visit Peiping, he indicated that such a visit "might serve as a starting point for negotiations." When the letter was delivered by the Chinese ambassador on 24 October, Nehru and the vice president were in an angry mood and Nehru turned the proposal down because Chinese troops had shot up a patrol of Indian border police on 21 October. This incident made it necessary for the Chinese to reconsider the step by step approach to talks.
In his 7 November letter to Nehru, Chou indicated that talks were now an urgent matter and requested that the Indian prime minister meet with him "in the immediate future" to discuss a border settlement. Chou also indicated his concern about the possibility of future clashes. He stated that the "most important duty" was for both sides to work for the complete elimination of the possibility "of any border clash in the future," and suggested that in order to create "a favorable atmosphere" for settlement of the border issue, both Indian and Chinese troops should withdraw 12-1/2 miles from the McMahon line in the east and the line of actual control in the west. This suggestion, he asserted, was merely an extension to the entire border of an earlier Indian proposal (note of 10 September 1959) that neither side send its troops into Longju. Actually, Chou's suggestion that troops withdraw, leaving a demilitarized zone under "civil administrative personnel and unarmed police," was a refinement of his own 8 September proposal for a return to the "long-existing status quo" under which the Chinese accepted the McMahon line de facto while retaining unchallenged possession of northeastern Ladakh. Chou's view of military disengagement along the border included no real Chinese concessions. His letter indicated that a mutual, rather than a unilateral, withdrawal was necessary; Chou in this way tried to break the impasse created by Nehru's stipulation that Chinese troops must be pulled back from certain outposts in Ladakh before negotiations.
Chou's letter left Nehru with the choice of accepting the mutual withdrawal proposal or appearing the intransigent party. However, it was not an attempt to stall any further on the matter of beginning ministerial talks.
Nehru's first response indicated that the atmosphere in India was still not ripe for bargaining, nor were his advisers disposed to do so. Cabinet members at the 9 November Congress Working Committee meeting recorded their opinion that adequate steps should indeed be taken to prevent further clashes, but these steps should not affect India's security or involve any acceptance of "Chinese aggression." That is, Nehru's stipulation of 26 September, regarding Chinese withdrawals prior to negotiations, still held. However, the Indian leaders did not slam the door: they informed the press that Nehru on 9 November had stated that "the spirit of the Chinese letter is not bad."
At this time, when the Chinese leaders were moving toward negotiations, they indulged in a bit of irrational Maoist gaucherie which clouded rather than cleared the atmosphere. Through a Foreign Ministry note, the Chinese had informed the Indian ambassador on 12 November that Chinese "frontier guards" were prepared to turn over the 10 Indian "soldiers" (New Delhi insisted they were border police) captured by them and the bodies of the nine who had been killed. The Indians were handed over on 14 November near the Kongka Pass together with their arms and ammunition, 20 days after they had been captured. New Delhi's suspicion that the Chinese had been handling the captured police in a typical Maoist manner, attempting to coerce them into seeing things Peiping's way, was confirmed. At the prisoner-return ceremony, Karam Singh, the leader of the captured Indian group, waved goodby to his Chinese "brothers," according to an NCNA dispatch, and according to the leftist president of the India-USSR Society for Cultural Relations, Baliga, who had had two long interviews with Chou En-lai in Peiping in early November, Chou claimed that Karam Singh had "confessed" that the Chinese troops had not used mortars on the 21 October clash as India had alleged. Baliga told American officials in Hong Kong on 11 November that he was convinced the release of the Indian prisoners had been delayed until the Chinese were certain their brainwashing had been completed. When it became publicly known [3] that they had been "interrogated" in a special Maoist way and that Karam Singh had been forced to "confess," [4] a wave of anger swept Parliament and the Indian press, nullifying any propaganda gains the Chinese may have made or thought they had made by the "fraternal" release of the prisoners with their weapons.
The Indian leaders did not accept Chou's proposals for ministerial-level talks and a mutual troop pullback, and they countered by stipulating a new set of pre-conditions for negotiations. Nehru's answer to Chou's 7 November letter was drafted primarily by Home Minister Pant and reviewed by the Prime Minister before it was dispatched on 16 November. As preliminary stipulations for negotiations, it advanced the following proposals and for the following reasons:
(1) Chinese withdrawal from Longju, with India ensuring that it will not be re-occupied by Indian forces. (This was stipulated because it was in "our possession" and "our personnel were forcibly ousted by the Chinese therefore they should withdraw, " [DELETE])
(2) Mutual Indian and Chinese withdrawal from the entire disputed area in Ladakh. Indian troops would withdraw south and west to the line which China claimed on its 1956 maps and Chinese troops would withdraw north and east to the line claimed by India on its maps. (This required the Chinese to withdraw from Aksai Plain, the area traversed by the Sinkiang-Tibet road, imposing a very small burden on the Indians, as they had not yet moved any regular army or additional police-administrative personnel into the area.) [5]
(3) Personal talks with Chou En-lai are acceptable, but "preliminary steps" should first be taken to reach an "interim understanding" to ease tensions quickly. (This was intended to sidestep a Chinese effort to rush Nehru into "summit" talks with Chou and to premit special representatives with detailed information to argue with the Chinese over specific claims.)
(4) A mutual 12-1/2-mile withdrawal all along the border is unnecessary, as no clashes would occur if both sides refrained from sending out patrols. India has already halted patrolling. (This was intended to retain [DELETE]alll posts on the McMahon line, which are favorably situated on "high hill- tops" and are supplied by air, to prevent the 12-1/2-mile proposed fallback from leaving new posts 5-days march from the NEFA border, and to retain a "large majority" of the passes which open from Tibet into India. If no settlement were reached, "it would be impossible for us to establish the status quo in all these places and easy for the Chinese to come down and occupy them.")
Foreign Secretary Dutt reportedly anticipated that the Chinese would attempt to compromise on these proposals by accepting the Longju stipulation, but insisting that New Delhi in turn accept the status quo in Ladakh. The counterproposals provided Nehru with a policy which rejected any military action against the Chinese and established the border dispute as a long-term matter requiring cautious and adroit political maneuvering. He had moved effectively to disarm his critics among the press and in Parliament by not agreeing to withdrawals from Indian territory; on the contrary, he called for Chinese withdrawals from Longju and the Aksai Plain, indicating thereby that he was taking a firm line with Peiping. At the same time, he suggested to the Chinese that he was willing to consider the merits of their claim to the Aksai Plain despite the fact that they would be required to withdraw as a price for such consideration. On this point, he expected the stalemate to continue, which was an implicit assurance to Peiping that India would not attempt to retake the area by military action. If the final outcome of the exchange of letters in November were only an agreement to begin talks on a lower level, neither he nor Chou would be conceding anything important to the other and neither would lose face.
During the three-day debate in Parliament in late November, Nehru demonstrated a remarkable ability for maintaining an even keel. He spoke of the need to maintain India's nonalignment policy but conceded that it must necessarily become nonalignment "with a difference," the difference presumably being a new policy toward Peiping. [6] In reply to the Opposition's call for "action" to make the Chinese vacate Indian territory, Nehru said the border issue was simply part of a greater problem — i.e. the overall Chinese political and economic as well as a military challenge, which is a long-term matter — that the issue was not just one of war and peace between two countries, but one concerning the whole world, and there is no nation more anxious for peace than the Soviet Union and none which cares less for peace than Communist China. Following a concerted Opposition attack on Defense Minister Krishna Menon, Nehru intervened to stress the entire Cabinet's responsibility for India's defense policy. In his speech of 27 November, he vouched for Menon's patriotism and hoped the dispute sparked by Thimayya's threatened resignation would die down: we are working together satisfactorily and to continue the dispute "especially in present circumstances" would be "harmful." When the Opposition commented favorably on the possibility of a common defense arrangement with Pakistan, Nehru pointed to a recent statement by President Ayub, refusing to accept any Indian proposals affecting Ladakh's status, as an example of the difficulties involved in suggestions for common defense. As a result, by 28 November most of the press and Parliament appeared to be temporarily satisfied that Nehru's attitude toward Peiping had hardened and that his line would be firm and unyielding. [7]
A sign of Nehru's changed attitude toward the Chinese was his new view on the need to obtain better intelligence on the border areas. On 19 November he told Parliament that he could not confirm a report that the Chinese had built an airstrip in the Aksai Plain, but that he could not deny it either. He pointed out that inasmuch as the Chinese held the area it was difficult for Indian intelligence to obtain definite information, the only possible way being for Indian aircraft to conduct photo missions, which was a matter for the Indian military to consider. His attitude in November thus differed from his view prior to the October clash. When the question of aerial reconnaissance arose in connection with the existence of Chinese roads, Nehru had told Parliament on 12 September that India believed that photographing the areas was not feasible and he pointed to the danger to the aircraft from mountainous terrain and from being shot down.
Chou En-lai, replying on 17 December to Nehru's counterproposals of 16 November, reiterated Peiping's claim to the Aksai Plain more strongly than before. Chou went right to the point of realpolitik, arguing from actual possession. He first noted that the Indian press itself had viewed Nehru's 16 November proposal for a mutual withdrawal in Ladakh as only a "theoretical" concession because India had no personnel there to withdraw while China would have to withdraw from a territory of about 33,000 square-kilometers, "which has belonged to it, its military personnel guarding its frontier" as were its civil personnel. Chou then insisted that the area is of "great importance" to China and claimed that since the Ching Dynasty, "this area has been the traffic artery linking up the vast regions of Sinkiang and Tibet." After thus indicating the strategic importance of the Aksai Plain road to China, Chou described PLA use of the area to make "regular" supply runs into Tibet from Sinkiang since 1950 and the roadbuilding activity since March 1956. That New Delhi was "utterly unaware" of this activity until September 1958 was, Chou said, "eloquent proof that this area has indeed always been under Chinese jurisdiction and not under Indian jurisdiction." [8]
Chou made two proposals which the Indians apparently had not anticipated. (1) He agreed to the evacuation of Longju (occupied in August 1959) in the east, but only on condition that the Indians withdraw also from 10 other disputed outposts, most of which are in the west (occupied since 1964-55). (2) He made his proposal for a meeting with Nehru appear more urgent than before by naming a specific time — 26 December — and place — either in China or in Rangoon — insisting that unless "some agreements on principles" were reached by the premiers, lower level talks on detailed border matters "may bog down in endless and fruitless debates." The Indians probably were prepared, however, for his statement that the Chinese had stopped sending out patrols from their posts. Chou added that this step had been taken immediately following the late October 1959 clash, pointing up the Chinese leaders' desire to try to prepare an atmosphere for negotiations.
Regarding the apparent Chinese willingness to exchange their claim to the NEFA for ownership of the Aksai Plain, Chou rejected as "unfair" Nehru's proposal for a mutual withdrawal in Ladakh. He pointed out that the Chinese had made no corresponding demand on New Delhi to withdraw its forces from the Chinese-claimed area south of the McMahon line. Chou hinted more strongly than before that Peiping was willing to waive its claim to this area if New Delhi would do the same regarding the Aksai Plain. Thus regarding the McMahon line, Chou stated:
Your Excellency is aware that the so-called McMahon line... has never been recognized by past Chinese governments nor by the government of the People's Republic of China [PRC], yet the government of the PRC has strictly abided by its statement of absolutely not allowing its armed personnel to cross this line in waiting for a friendly settlement of the boundary question. [emphasis supplied]
In sum, the Chinese were anxious to begin negotiations on the ministerial level and to move step by step toward an overall settlement, but remained adamant on retaining the Aksai Plain. This left the dispute deadlocked.
The deadlock was affirmed by Nehru in his flat rejection on 21 December of Chou's claim to the Aksai Plain and of Chou's two proposals regarding Indian withdrawals from 10 outposts and a ministerial meeting on 26 December. Nehru advanced no new proposals, noting that Chou had found his "practical" suggestions unacceptable and had merely reiterated Peiping' s claims, which were based on "recent [post-1956] intrusions by Chinese personnel." He said he was willing to meet with Chou anywhere and anytime, [9] but saw no point in engaging in such high-level discussions of principles when the two sides had not yet agreed on the facts. Presumably, low-level talks, too, could not begin until the Chinese showed a willingness at least to withdraw from Longju.
Nehru's uncompromising official position had been reached in large part as a result of cabinet, Opposition, and public pressure, and it apparently was difficult for him to abandon this stand and simultaneously satisfy public opinion. He nevertheless ruled out military action and left the door open for future negotiations. When chided by an opponent in Parliament on 21 December regarding the desirability of any negotiations with the Chinese, Nehru angrily replied that there were only two choices, "war or negotiation." "I will always negotiate, negotiate, negotiate, right to the bitter end." On 22 December, he expressed surprise in Parliament at the idea of "police action," which, he insisted, is possible only against a very weak adversary. "Little wars," Nehru continued, do not take place between two great countries and any kind of warlike development would mean "indefinite" war because neither India nor China would ever give in and neither could conquer the other.
During the deadlock, the Chinese continually tried to draw Nehru into a meeting with Chou. They seemed to believe that if such a meeting could be arranged without delay and Nehru were to agree (1) to the "principle" that the border was not delimited and (2) afterward, to subcommittee meetings of experts, the hard details of contradictory border claims could be argued over in the privacy of the conference room. In his letter of 17 December, Chou had left unanswered questions on details of border claims which the Indians had raised in Nehru's 26 September letter and New Delhi's 4 November note. The Indians persisted, asking for a Chinese answer on the matter of substantive claims. It was in response to these repeated requests that the Chinese Foreign Ministry sent its note of 26 December, declaring the Peiping "feels sorry" that it must go into detail, but it appears that "some arguing cannot be helped." The 26 December note referred to "the forthcoming meeting" between Chou and Nehru almost as though the Indians had already agreed to it. It suggested that the Chinese concern with first of all having the prime ministers meet reflected their aim of first obtaining the "necessary" acknowledgment in principle that the border had not been delimited, and that it is therefore "yet to be settled through negotiations."
In tone, the Chinese note was moderate. A special effort was made to allay the fears of all neighbor countries about alleged Chinese expansionism. It is "impossible, improper, and unnecessary" for China to aggress against countries on its borders. The note pointed to Chinese domestic problems and to Peiping's need for peace to obtain goals, of "peaceful construction." It then pointed to Peiping's record of trying to avoid provocation and border incidents with India, placing the blame for the August and October 1959 clashes entirely on New Delhi. Finally, it linked Indian territorial claims to the British policy of "aggression and expansion," making the Indian argument seem in effect a continuation of British imperialism in Tibet.
The note then touched on Bhutan and Sikkim. Regarding Bhutan, it made the first formal Chinese statement regarding this sector of the border, claiming that there is "a certain discrepancy between the delineations on the maps of the two sides in the sector south of the so-called McMahon line," but the China-Bhutan border "has always been tranquil." Regarding Sikkim, the boundary "has long been formally delimited and there is neither any discrepancy between the maps nor any disputes in practice." Allegations, therefore, that China wants to "encroach on" Bhutan and Sikkim are "sheer nonsense." In this way, the Chinese sought to contradict persistent reports about Chinese subversive aims in these border states.
The Chinese note was hard on matters of substance. It gave a detailed legal and historical justification for Peiping's border claims, creating a massive case on the matters of (1) whether the border had ever been formally delimited and (2) where the "traditional customary" boundary line actually is. Regarding the Aksai Plain, it is the "only traffic artery linking Sinkiang and western Tibet." As for the McMahon line, Chinese Communist military and civil personnel were under orders "not to cross it," but Chou's references to it in his talks with Nehru in late 1956 "can by no means be interpreted as recognition of this line" by Peiping. The note then emphasized that the prerequisites for an overall settlement were recognition of the undelimited status of the border and a mutual withdrawal of 12-1/2 miles or any distance jointly agreed on.
In sum, the note's early portions contained a clever refutation of Indian claims and its final portions sounded almost aggrieved that Nehru had so misjudged Chinese intentions. The massive case it presented on the matter of border delimitation and on the "traditional customary" boundary line constituted a direct contradiction of Nehru's official position that adjustments on small sectors along the border were negotiable but on the entire border line were not. [10]
Peiping's 26 December note thus confronted Nehru with several immediate courses of action: to begin substantive negotiations on the basis that the entire border remained to be delimited, to take no action allowing the Chinese to consolidate their holdings, or, as the note put it, to continue "arguing like this without end." Still under Opposition and public pressure, Nehru decided on the last alternative — i.e. to keep the Sino-Indian argument going on paper.
Nehru was aware [DELETE] that the long-range Chinese goal was to accept the McMahon line in return for Indian acceptance of Peiping's claims in Ladakh. At the Cabinet's Foreign Affairs subcommittee meeting in the first week of January 1960, Nehru indicated that he nevertheless wanted explicit Chinese acceptance of the McMahon line — subject only to minor demarcation adjustments — as the price for starting negotiations "at any level." The Chinese note of 26 December had rejected his earlier contention that Chou's 1956 statements constituted recognition of the line. Nehru centered his attention on this rejection, virtually ignoring the hint — by then standard with Peiping — that Chinese troops were under orders not to cross the McMahon line. At the early January meeting, Nehru indicated that the only possible Indian concession was a "pre-negotiation" agreement on continued "non-military" Chinese occupation of part of Ladakh, including the Aksai Plain road, but only if the McMahon line were first explicitly accepted as the eastern border.
Nehru's first public response to the Chinese note was made at a press conference on 8 January. He reaffirmed his willingness to meet and negotiate, but stated that the time of the meeting depended on "conditions" being such that good results would be produced. That he did not see conditions as favorable was implied in his remark that there was "a very big gap" between the Indian and Chinese positions and "there does not appear to be any meeting ground." Nehru characterized the Chinese note as "argumentative" and stated that a reply would be sent in due time. Nehru and his advisers apparently needed time to draft India's formal reply. The Indian ambassadors to Peiping and Moscow were summoned to New Delhi for consultations and Ministry of External Affairs officials were reported on 12 January to be marshalling evidence to refute the massive Chinese case.