Historical aspect of tensions between India and China

Switching gears a bit, my thoughts go out to the steadily rising escalation between India and China. While India is rightfully expression anguish over its troops marching 10 kms inside its borders and not letting go of the Daulat Beg Oldi (DBO) area in Ladakh, China has stuck to its version that there has been no intrusion of Chinese troops within India’s boundaries. Following up with this intrusions, came the report of two Chinese helicopters flying hundreds of kilometers into Indian airspace at Chumar (to the southeast of Leh).

Historically, the two emerging superpowers have co-existed peacefully in their earliest days (India and China have two of the world’s oldest civilizations). Starting with the famed Silk Route, there has always been a positive tone of cooperation between the two nations as far as trade and economic ties are concerned. Even with the daunting Himalayan ranges bordering and separating the two countries, there has been no shortage of border-related disputes between India and China. Contemporary historical period is filled with three distinct periods of border related military clashes between the two nations:

1.       Sino-Indian war of 1962: Started with China’s infiltration of the 3000 km long Himalayan border, it involved coordinated offensives launched by Chinese army. The war reached an end with a declaring of ceasefire by China and the subsequent withdrawal of its troops from the disputed area

2.      Chola incident (1967): Triggered by the intrusion of People’s Liberation Army of China into Sikkim (at that time, a protectorate that was elf governed but its interests was protected by India). The day long conflict ended with the retreat of the PLA from Sikkim

3.      1987 Sino-Indian conflict: Following a ramp up of presence of India forces across the Line of Actual Control on the Indo-China border, there was severe deterioration of relations between the two countries. After India’s granting of statehood to Arunachal Pradesh, this led to a danger of a war between them. Finally both governments realized the need for de-escalating the conflict and phased out the heavy army presence on the border regions

In the current context there are two territories that are at the center of Indo-China disputes – Arunachal Pradesh (located near far-east India) and Aksai Chin (located at the north-west corner of India). Both China and India lay claim to the disputed regions without conceding it to the other. On the other end of the spectrum both countries acknowledge the need for a strong bilateral tie that was further strengthened by the recent meeting of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao with India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. A significant cornerstone of this meet is the signing of pact to increase bilateral trade to 100 billion dollars by 2015

Resource: website content writing services