Charting the Tibet Issue in the Sino-Indian Border Dispute

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2011 47: 115China ReportTsering Topgyal

Indian Border Dispute−Charting the Tibet Issue in the Sino

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Charting the Tibet Issue 115

China Report 47, 2 (2011): 115–131

CHINA REPORT 47 : 2 (2011): 115–131SAGE Publications Los Angeles/London/New Delhi/Singapore/Washington DCDOI: 10.1177/000944551104700205

Charting the Tibet Issue in the Sino–Indian Border Dispute

Tsering TopgyalLondon School of Economics and Political Science, UK

In offi cial quarters in Beijing and New Delhi, the Tibet issue fi gures only as a bargaining chip to ‘regulate’ their bilateral relations, not as an issue that has an independent bearing on the intractability or resolution of the Sino–Indian border dispute. Scholars of the Sino–Indian border dispute either dismiss the relevance of the Tibet issue or treat it as only a prop in their framing of the dispute in terms of security, nationalism and great power rivalry. This article argues that the Tibet issue is more central to the border dispute than offi cial and scholarly circles have recognised so far. The article demonstrates this through an examination of the historical roots of the border row, the centrality of Tibet and Tibetans in the boundary claims of both Beijing and New Delhi and the revelation of concurrent historical developments in the border dispute and the Sino–Tibetan confl ict. On the place of Tibet in broader Sino–Indian relations, the article posits that while Tibet was a victim of India’s moralistic–idealist policies toward China in the 1950s, it has now become a victim of the new realism pervading India’s policy of engaging and emulating China in the post-Cold War era.

The continuing border-dispute between China and India is a puzzle for many. Despite six decades of attempts at resolution, the dispute persists in the face of offi cial bonhomie and booming trade relations between the two rising giants. It is even more puzzling considering that China has managed to resolve its land–border disputes with countries as disparate as North Korea, Mongolia, Nepal, Afghanistan, Burma, Kazhakstan, Kyrgystan, Pakistan and Russia, often at disadvantageous terms (Kang 2008: 89–90; Ramachandran 2008). The Indians are especially exercised by their observation that while China has long ago settled its territorial dispute with Burma along the McMahon Line, it has consistently refused to entertain Indian suggestions for a similar settlement of their dispute in the Eastern sector (Chellaney 2006: 176). Scholars and observers have put forward various explanations for the protracted dispute ranging from mutual accusations of territorial greed and expansionism and lack of sincerity and political will to more complex rationales of nationalism, security and great power rivalry. In these accounts, Tibet invariably gets mention, but only as a



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prop in the framing of the dispute in the terms mentioned above, rarely as having any signifi cant and independent bearing on its intractability and resolution. Accordingly, both New Delhi and Beijing have used the Tibet issue only to ‘regulate’ their broader bilateral relations, including on the border issue, rather than actively pushing for the resolution of the Sino–Tibetan confl ict.

In fact, as C. Raja Mohan noticed, ‘Just when the Tibetan cause seemed to acquire greater international legitimacy and the world leaders toasted the Tibetan leader, the Dalai Lama, India seemed to go mute’ (Mohan 2003: 168). The Indian American scholar Sumit Ganguly excoriated the Indian government for appeasing and genufl ecting before Beijing when the Chinese cracked down on peaceful Tibetan protesters in March 2008, arguing that such ‘humiliating deference’ does not behove a state of India’s capabilities and great power ambitions and goes against Indian national interests (Ganguly 2008). The Dalai Lama often characterises India’s approach to the Tibet issue as ‘too cautious’. Beijing’s reluctance to resolve the Tibetan problem needs no detailing here, but India’s lethargic support for the resolution of the Tibetan issue raises questions not just about Indian fears of Chinese approach towards separatist groups in India’s north-east and Kashmir, but also about India’s calculations on what a Sino–Tibetan reconciliation would mean for its unresolved border dispute. We will return to this specifi c question subsequently, but this leads to my central argument that the Sino–Tibetan confl ict has deeper relevance to the India–China border dispute than is recognised in offi cial and scholarly quarters. This association is clear from the historical roots of the border row, concurrent historical developments on both fronts, and the centrality of Tibet and Tibetans in the boundary claims of both Beijing and New Delhi.

Of course, the situation in Tibet also feeds the broader nationalistic, security and great power competitive compulsions of China and India. That is why this paper fi rst considers how the transnational Tibetan struggle impinges on the broader bilateral relations between India and China.

TIBET IN INDIA’S CHINA POLICY: HOSTAGE OF MORALISTIC IDEALISM AND NEW REALISM

Tibet impinges on Sino–Indian relations more than any of China’s other bilateral relations. As the late Dawa Norbu observed: ‘The crux of the Sino–Indian strategic rivalry is this: if the Chinese power elite consider Tibet to be strategically important to China, the Indian counterparts think it is equally vital to Indian national security’ (Norbu 2001: 297). Independent India’s Tibet policy was defi ned by Nehru’s dreams of a Sino–Indian anti-imperialist and non-aligned alternative to the hegemonic Soviet and American superpowers. The 1962 border war with China changed India’s practice, if not its policy, towards the Tibetan refugees. Rajiv Gandhi’s visit to Beijing in 1989




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brought about a thaw in relations and a return to India’s pre-1962 policy statements on Tibet, although there have been no discernible practical fall-outs on the Tibetan exiles. This is, perhaps, in keeping with the new realism in post-Cold War India’s foreign policy, tempering the ‘idealism in its foreign policy with a strong dose of realism’ (Chellaney 2006: 159–62; Mohan 2003: xiv–xv). Mohan writes, ‘Facing its own acute vulnerabilities in Kashmir, Punjab and the North-East, [India] was unwilling to confront China on the [Tibet] issue. At the same time, India refused to bend by reducing or suspending its support to the Tibetan exiles and the Dalai Lama in India’ (Mohan 2003: 169). Eventually though, as one Indian analyst counselled, India will need ‘a more sophisticated policy that goes beyond simply curbing the Dalai Lama’s activities’, remaining in a state of denial, or regurgitating its acceptance of Tibet as a part of China (Stobdan 2009). This is because at some point Beijing will demand that India should dissolve the Tibetan government-in-exile. The up-shot is that Tibet remains a key irritant in India–China relations.

There are four major issues that feed the Sino–Indian geo-strategic rivalry that have to do with Tibet: the status of Tibet, Chinese unease with the activities of Tibetan refugees, including the Dalai Lama, Indian fears over Chinese military presence on the Tibetan plateau and the long-standing border dispute (Chellaney 2006: 159–62, 189–94; Mohan 2003: 168–71; Norbu 2001: 283–97).

First, India’s position on the status of Tibet has changed from the British policy of recognising the de facto independence of Tibet—‘completely Autonomous State’—under a vague form of Chinese suzerainty (1947–1951) (Foreign Offi ce 1943; Goldstein 1989: 634) to accepting Tibet as a part of China in 1954 (Shakya 1999: 119). On April 29, 1954, India relented to the Chinese insistence on referring to Tibet as ‘Tibet Region of China’ Jain 1981f: 61–67, 77–80). After the 1962 border war, India often merely used ‘Tibet’ until the 1988 visit of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi when the ‘Sino–Indian Joint Press Communique’ referred to Tibet as ‘an autonomous region of China’ (‘Sino–Indian Joint Press Communique’, 23 December 1988). In 2003, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee signed a declaration which recognised ‘that the Tibet Autonomous Region is part of the territory of the People’s Republic of China’ (‘Declaration on Principles for Relations and Comprehensive Cooperation between the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of India’, 25 June 2003). This position was reiterated in the Joint Statement during the visit of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao to India in 2005 (‘Joint Statement of the Republic of India and the People’s Republic of China’, 11 April 2005). These formulations led an Indian scholar to observe that India’s acceptance of Tibet as a part of China is conditional upon Tibet’s enjoyment of autonomy (Interview with Karnad, 10 August, 2007). China, therefore, demands stronger and more unambiguous statements from New Delhi on China’s sovereignty over Tibet, which India has resisted so far (Mohan 2003: 168).

Second, India’s consistent offi cial policy has been to disallow anti-Chinese activities by Tibetan refugees on Indian soil. In practice, India has allowed the Tibetans to run a government-in-exile, the Central Tibetan Administration, given material assistance



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for the running of various projects under its aegis, and facilitated the international political activities of the Dalai Lama. India refuses to bend to Chinese pressure by ‘reducing or suspending its support to Tibetan exiles and the Dalai Lama in India’ (Mohan 2003: 169). A relevant question is whether India will revise this policy after the demise of the current Dalai Lama. One Indian scholar argues that India will continue to support Tibetan exiles because it is in India’s national interest (Interview with Chellaney, 10 August 2007). Another proposes that India should take upon itself the responsibility to nurture Tibetan language and culture as it faces ‘cultural genocide’ in Tibet (Subrahmanyam 2005: 189). For the foreseeable future, India’s material assistance and facilitating role for the Tibetan struggle will continue. This is a sore point for China (Cohen 2001: 259).

The Chinese complain that ‘such open encouragement and support given by the Indian government to the Tibetan rebel bandits in their traitorous activities constitute an interference in China’s internal affairs and harms the progress of Sino–Indian relations (Jain 1981c: 473–74). The Indologist Cohen argues that in the minds of the Chinese elite, ‘India’s gravest threat to China resides in Tibet’ because of the sanctuary that India provides to over 100,000 Tibetans and the goal of some Indian elite to resurrect Tibet as a buffer zone between China and India (Cohen 2001: 259). The Chinese scholar Wu Xinbo concurs, ‘So long as the exiled community exists, Tibetan separatism will remain a major concern for PRC leaders’ (Wu 1998: 130). Fears of Indian entanglement in Tibet and loss of strategic advantage to India are long-standing (Whiting 1996: 614). Even when there were very few Indians in Tibet, Mao told Khrushchev in 1959: ‘The Hindus [Indians] acted in Tibet as if it belonged to them’ (Mao Zedong 1959). Although, successive Indian governments have been extremely wary of rattling the Chinese on Tibet and despite the overall improvement in Sino–Indian relations, Beijing continues to suspect India of bad intentions in Tibet. The best measure of Chinese vulnerabilities in Tibet vis-à-vis India, perhaps, is contained in an essay written by Wang Lixiong who is one of the most liberal Chinese intellectuals. He wrote in 1999:

As it involves Chinese–Indian relations, Tibet becomes an extremely important factor.... Since its geopolitical position has wedged it between two great powers, it has to be dependent on either China or India, having no other choice.... Tibet has always had a high degree of spiritual identifi cation with India...

As stated above, when the Tibetan exiles demand Tibetan independence, or the Dalai Lama calls for a high degree of self-rule for Tibet, the scope they are referring to is ‘greater Tibet’. But if the 2.5 million sq. km. [sic] of ‘greater Tibet’ were separated from China, China’s western border would shrink towards the interior by up to a thousand km. If we drew two diagonal lines on the Chinese map, they would converge in central China at Tianshui, Gansu. If ‘greater Tibet’ was independent, Tianshui would be only a little over 100 km from the ‘new border’, which would




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make the current centre of China our border. In past Chinese national crises, inland Sichuan was often seen as our ‘greater rear area’, for either ‘partial sovereignty’ or as our ‘provisional capital’. But Sichuan’s capital of Chengdu would be only a little over 100 km from the ‘new border’, making it a front-line border defence post. So once Tibet became independent and was forced to ally itself with India, India would advance thousands of km without fi ring a shot, with its armed forces marching into central China, and its missiles being able to hit all of China from the Tibetan Plateau. Without the natural Tibetan barrier and the time it would take to cross the Tibetan Plateau, war would be fought in central China, at a certainly high cost to life and property. So it is obvious that for China to lose such a vast barrier, which would expose our fatal ‘underbelly’, would be unacceptable from a national security perspective. Preparing for a possible future confl ict with India is the bottom line as to why the Central Government cannot allow Tibetan independence. The Central Government cannot retreat or compromise on the demands for Tibetan independence or covert independence. (Wang 1999. Emphasis mine)1

As pervasive as such calculations are in Chinese offi cialdom today, it predates the PRC. Republican Chinese offi cials in the 1910s expressing similar assessments: ‘Tibet is a buttress on our national frontiers—the hand, as it were, which protects the face—and its prosperity or otherwise is of the most vital importance to China’ (Quoted in Tuttle 2005: 44). The security concerns in Beijing are as strong as they were then.

Third, Indians have their reciprocal fears arising from Chinese military presence on the Tibetan plateau, history and future uncertainties. The true extent of China’s military presence in Tibet cannot be gauged, given the extreme secrecy surrounding information about the PLA, but rough yet differing estimates are available (Margolis 2002: 266; Norbu 2001: 228–59). Margolis notes that in the early 1990s, China had deployed around 500,000 troops on the Tibetan plateau with some of the best weaponry (Margolis 2002: 266). Norbu estimates, however, that the likely size of the PLA in Tibet is around 150,000 in Eastern Tibet and 40,000 in the border between India and the Tibet Autonomous Region (Norbu 2001: 239).2 The presence of Chinese strategic forces on the Tibetan plateau adds another dimension to India’s China threat perception ( Margolis 2002: 267–68; Norbu 2001: 242–46; Subrahmanyam 2005: 223–24). Not lost on the Indian elite are the several airbases and tactical airstrips and the network of roads that China has built, criss-crossing the Tibetan plateau right up to the Indian, Nepalese and Pakistani borders with Tibet and Xinjiang, and the expanding railway

1 Wang has moved on from such worst-case and zero-sum thinking, but much of the Chinese offi cial-dom is stuck in this hyper-realist worldview.

2 Norbu’s lower fi gure takes into account the disengagement that took place in October–November, 1995 following an agreement during the eighth session of the Joint Working Group (consisting of Indian and Chinese representatives tasked to fi nd a resolution to the border dispute) in August, 1995.



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network (Margolis 2002: 266–67; Norbu 2001: 231–38). China’s management of water resources emanating from Tibet, which feed the Indian subcontinent, also feature in Indian security conceptions (Chellaney 2006: 38). The ‘ghosts of 1962’—as one Indian strategic analyst put it to refer to the complex of historical memory and sense of betrayal and humiliation on account of the 1962 war that continues to lacerate the Indian psyche—casts a long shadow over Indian perceptions of China today (Ganguly 2008; Subrahmanyam 2005: 319–27). In essence, the complex of security concerns germane to Tibet reinforces the larger strategic rivalry between these two Asian giants. Consequently, the Chinese and Indians have reciprocal security concerns that are germane to Tibet.

Finally, the border dispute continues to elude a resolution ever since they acquired a common border when the PRC occupied the Tibetan plateau in 1949–1950 (Chellaney 2006: 169–86; Malik 2007; Norbu 2001: 285–92, 295–6; Subrahmanyam 2005: 216–28). The next section examines the historical and contemporary aspects of the border dispute in relation to Tibet.

THE INDIA–CHINA BORDER DISPUTE AND TIBET

The historical roots of the Sino–Indian border dispute can be traced to the imperial era Great Game between British India, Czarist Russia and Qing China over Tibet and Central Asia. Empires thrived on fuzzy borders—frontiers were more preferable to imperial powers—as clearly demarcated borders constrained their own ambitions and strategic fl exibility. In addition, the inhospitable terrain of the high Himalayas, the absence of sophisticated surveying technologies and existence of a functioning Tibetan state made the delimitation of India’s northern border either unnecessary or diffi cult (Hoffman 1990; Lamb 1991: 9–30). However, in the mid-20th century, when two equally nationalistic and territorial states gained control over the Indian and Chinese empires, some parts of which were only tenuously linked to the imperial centres, ambiguous borders made for a combustible recipe for confl ict.

In 1950, China and India came to share 4057 kilometres of border which has never been comprehensively delimited by a treaty, let alone between the post-colonial regimes of the Republic of India and the People’s Republic of China. Specifi cally, India claims that China is occupying 38,000 square kilometres in Aksai Chin in the North-Eastern corner of Jammu and Kashmir. India also claims that Beijing is holding 5180 square kilometres of land in Kashmir ceded to it by Pakistan in 1963. For their part, the Chinese claim 90,000 square kilometres in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, which they call Southern Tibet (Malik 2007). Six decades after India’s independence and the founding of the PRC, the border row remains a major obstacle for Sino–Indian relations (Garver 1996: 337). What has happened in the course of these 60 years in terms of efforts to reconcile their confl icting claims? What setbacks have thwarted




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these reconciliation attempts? The following overview traces the historical roots of the border row to Tibet’s relations with British India and previous Himalayan kingdoms, the centrality of Tibet and Tibetans in the boundary claims of both Beijing and New Delhi, and reveals the coincidence of key events in the India–China border dispute and the Sino–Tibetan confl ict.

When India became independent in 1947, followed by the founding of the PRC in 1949, which announced the ‘liberation of Tibet’ as an immediate goal, New Delhi turned its gaze towards the security of its northern borders. However, the dominant Indian thinking on the border as represented by Jawaharlal Nehru was shaped by two strands of thought. First, the Indian leaders assumed that because they believed that its northern border has already been settled through agreements between their British predecessors and the Tibetan government and demarcated by ‘well-defi ned’ geographical features, Beijing would respect those agreements (Jain 1981o: 110–12). Especially after the signing of the ‘India–China Agreement on Trade and Intercourse between Tibet Region of China and India’ (April 29, 1954) in which India for the fi rst time accepted Tibet as a part of China, Nehru and his associates thought that the boundary was no longer an issue, that the Chinese accepted the historical status quo. Nehru wrote of this to Zhou Enlai in 1958 as the border issue heated up:

When the Sino–Indian Agreement in regard to the Tibet region of China was concluded, various outstanding problems, including some relating to our border trade, were considered.... No border questions were raised at that time and we were under the impression that there were no border disputes between our respective countries. In fact we thought that the Sino–Indian Agreement, which was happily concluded in 1954, had settled all outstanding problems between our countries. (Jain 1981n: 103)

He expressed shock at seeing maps printed in China showing certain ‘Indian’ areas to be parts of China.

Second, friendship with China was of over-riding importance; the border issue was less important and the status of Tibet expendable (Garver 2001: 89–90; Norbu 2001: 284). As Susan Shirk writes, ‘Anti-imperialism bound the new Chinese and Indian governments together during their fi rst decade of existence in the 1950s’ (Shirk 2004: 76.). This search for Sino–Indian friendship, whether out of a common anti-imperialist agenda or Asian solidarity, pervaded all aspects of Indian policy towards China, exhibiting a mind-boggling degree of naiveté or a rare act of selfl essness in international politics. Indeed, India worked assiduously to not just befriend China but also to promote its membership in the United Nations, even as the boundary dispute worsened—this becomes clear from several letters sent by Indian Permanent Representative, Arthur S. Lall, to the UN Secretary General regarding China’s repre-sentation in the UN (see Jain 1981h; 1981i; 1981j; 1981k).



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Even after the violent suppression of the Tibetan uprising on March 10, 1959 and the escape of the Dalai Lama, the Indian Ambassador to the United Nations wrote to the Secretary General, ‘The Government of India hopes that the forthcoming session of the General Assembly will remove this shortcoming [of Chinese absence] and agree to China being properly represented in the United Nations by the representatives of the People’s Government of China’ (Jain 1981k: 137–38). Nehru himself told the UN General Assembly that despite the ongoing border dispute, India saw China’s membership in the UN as ‘essential’: ‘It appears most extra-ordinary that any argument should be advanced to keep out China and to give the seat meant for China to those who certainly do not and cannot represent China’ (Jain 1981p: 176–77). Both Nehru and the Indian Representative to the UN made it clear that the border ‘controversies and confl icts....however painful and however much it may be a violation of the principles of coexistence’ would not dissuade India from her ‘fundamental’ goal to promote China’s entry into the UN and as a permanent member of the Security Council (Jain 1981p: 176–77; 1981q: 177–78). As Chellaney writes, ‘Nehru was such an unabashed panda-hugger that he even rejected the notion of India taking China’s place in the United Nation’s Security Council’ (Chellaney 2007: 160). The point is that the urge for friendship induced the Indian leaders to indulge in the illusion that the McMahon Line that was agreed between British India and the Tibetan government in 1914 formed the border until contrary Chinese assertions disabused them off this fantasy.

Moreover, as Norbu pointed out, for sacrifi cing Tibet in the above-mentioned 1954 Sino–Indian agreement on Tibet, Nehru expected a quid pro quo from China in the form of respecting Indian claims in the Himalayas (Norbu 2001: 285). The problem was that in the agreement, while the concessions that Beijing demanded, principally recognition of Chinese sovereignty over Tibet, were clearly spelt out, India’s were not (Norbu 2001: 285–86). As Henry Kissinger warned in Diplomacy, diplomatic goods that are already delivered are rarely compensated, and China consistently frustrated Nehru’s imagined trade-off between Tibet and the border.

The Chinese argued that the common border had never been delimited through an agreement between China and regimes that ruled India (Jain 1981d; 1981e: 142–43). For the Chinese, Tibet was even more central to their boundary claims. With regard to the Western sector of the disputed border (Aksai Chin), Garver writes, ‘Control of Aksai Chin was essential to Chinese control of western Tibet and very important to its control over all of Tibet’ (Garver 2001: 83). The Chinese construction of a road connecting Xinjiang and Tibet through Aksai Chin, which Indians assumed belonged to them, led to the Sino–Indian war in 1962. The Chinese claim in the Eastern Sector (Arunachal Pradesh or Southern Tibet) was based on the argument that the Tibetan government ruled over this region until the British imperialists incorporated it into their empire through an unequal treaty. As Norbu found, this was true of both Aksai Chin and Arunachal Pradesh:




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China’s claims are primarily based on Tibetan—not Chinese—documents, which would be valid only if India recognised Tibet as a part of China. Zhou Enlai himself acknowledged this in a letter dated 5 November 1962, sent to Asian and African leaders concerning the boundary dispute, in which he cited only Tibetan evidence to support PRC claims. In this letter he concedes that the names of rivers, passes, and other places in the eastern sector (NEFA/Arunachal Pradesh) are in the Tibetan language. Also the inhabitants of the middle sector ‘are nearly all Tibetans’ and Tibetan archival documents indicate that the ‘local government’ had consistently exercised its jurisdiction over the Tibet–Sikkim border area. Zhou bases China’s claims over the Aksai Chin by declaring that it was once a part of Tibet’s Zinjiang and Ngari District. (Norbu 2001: 287)

Jagat Mehta, a protagonist in the border negotiations on the Indian side recalled that most of the 245 pieces of evidence produced by the Chinese were offi cial Tibetan documents (Cited in Norbu 2001).

Moreover, China’s strategy on the border dispute in the early years of its occupation of Tibet was to get India’s acceptance of its sovereignty over Tibet, for without Indian acquiescence to that, Beijing’s boundary claims would have limited legitimacy. As Norbu wrote, ‘Once this occurred [in the form of the 1954 agreement on Tibet], China then began offi cially to claim territory along the Indo-Tibetan border, using the provisions of the 1954 treaty as its rationale’ (Norbu 2001: 286). Indeed, only three months after signing this agreement, China fi red its fi rst salvo, accusing Indian soldiers of trespassing into Wu-Je (Ngari, Tibet) and violating the principles of non-aggression and coexistence and the recently issued Joint Communiqué (Jain 1981b: 75). India responded with a denial and a reciprocal charge of Chinese incursions into Hoti Plain (Uttar Pradesh) (Jain 1981g: 76). The border dispute had begun in earnest.

There is also evidence that the instabilities inside Tibet and the activities of Tibetan exiles in India added to the temperature of Sino–Indian relations generally and directly sparked skirmishes along the border. After the Chinese occupation of Central Tibet in 1950, many Tibetan offi cials and merchants had left Tibet and settled in Kalimpong, a town in West Bengal. On July 10, 1958, China complained to the Indian government that Americans and Nationalists from Taiwan were conspiring with émigré Tibetans to organise resistance against China in Tibet (Jain 1981a: 97–98). The Indian government expressed surprise at ‘this complete misunderstanding of facts,’ denied any evidence of American and Taiwanese activities in Kalimpong and vowed not to allow foreign countries to do so (Jain 1981g: 99). The Indian Ministry of External Affairs reported how the disturbances in Tibet and the exile of the Dalai Lama and thousands of other Tibetans adversely affected various aspects of the Sino–Indian relations ranging from the mistreatment of Indian citizens and representatives in Tibet, trade restrictions, cancellations of student exchange programmes and offi cial delegations (Jain 1981l: 167–68). Most pertinently, the massive deployment of



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Chinese soldiers along the border to check the fl ow of Tibetan refugees or to pursue Tibetan guerrillas also clashed with Indian border patrols on a number of occasions in various locations, which eventually escalated into the 1962 war (Jain 1981l: 168). As the recriminations and denials of the use of Kalimpong by émigré Tibetans and America confi rm, the rising temperature of the border dispute in the mid–late 1950s coincided with the spread of the violent uprising taking place in Eastern Tibet since the mid-1950s. Indeed, as subsequent scholarship would reveal and Indian protestations notwithstanding, Kalimpong was a beehive of spies and the nerve-centre of Tibetan attempts to gain military and diplomatic support for the Tibetan cause and the rebellion inside Tibet (Knaus 1999). This sort of coincidence between key events in the Sino–Indian border and Sino–Tibetan confl ict has been a recurring pattern as will be subsequently shown.

The jury is still out as to who initiated the 1962 war, but beginning on October 20, 1962, China initiated simultaneous operations in Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh (Jain 1981m: 208). It infl icted an embarrassing defeat on Indian forces, invading deep into Indian-controlled territory and then sought to gain the moral high-ground by unilaterally withdrawing to its previous positions. While the Chinese referred to the war as teaching India a lesson, the Indians have never properly recovered from the shock and humiliation of that defeat (Ganguly 2004: 115). The defeat however impelled India to make some fundamental adjustments in foreign and defence policies, including some subtle shifts in its Tibet policy (Ganguly 2004: 115; Norbu 2001: 293–94). In 1963, a Special Frontier Force code-named 22 under the direct command of the Prime Minister, consisting of able-bodied Tibetan men was created with the aim of using them against China inside Tibet. In stark contrast to its stance on earlier UN Resolutions on Tibet, India supported the Resolution in 1965. More importantly, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri was to have legally recognised the Tibetan government-in-exile if he had not died during a summit in Tashkent (Norbu 2001: 293–94). China responded by supplying weapons to the separatist Nagas and Mizos in India’s North-East (Ganguly 2004: 119–20). ‘The Ghosts of 1962’ still haunts the psychology of the strategic and political elite of India (Subrahmanyam 2005: 319–27). Again, the point is that the occupation of Tibet by China, by virtue of which it gained a common border with India, and the rebellion inside Tibet on account of Chinese policies led to the 1962 war (Garver 2001: 60). The Chinese suspected Indian plans to resurrect Tibet as a buffer between China and India or in collusion with America to restore Tibet’s status before 1949–50 ( Garver 2001: 58–60). For the Chinese, more than just a border confl ict, it was a war to secure its occupation of Tibet. The 1962 war put Sino–Indian relations, including border negotiations, in deep-freeze without any diplomatic relations until 1976. India’s 1971 war of liberation of Bangladesh, the 1975 annexation of Sikkim and China’s invasion of Vietnam in 1979 to teach it a lesson as the Chinese declared, when the then Indian Foreign Minister Atal B. Vajpayee was in Beijing, vitiated any possibility of reconciliation (Ganguly 2004: 120–21).




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Serious border discussions resumed only in 1981 and eight rounds of dialogue took place between 1981 and 1988, which failed to produce any fundamental break-through. In 1987, India and China almost went to war in the North-Eastern frontier region of Sumdorung Chu, Arunachal Pradesh (Subrahmanyam 2005: 216–28). Subramanyam draws similarities between the 1962 war and the 1987 incident in terms of the political situations in India and China ( Subrahmanyam 2005: 216), but there also seemed to be a connection between developments on the boundary dispute and the Tibetan struggle just as there were in 1962.

First, the breakdown in Sino–Indian border negotiations in 1986 amidst mutual suspicions of troop-concentrations along the border coincided with the break-down of the Sino–Tibetan dialogue that has been going on since 1979. Second, in 1987 for the fi rst time India allowed the Dalai Lama to visit Western countries for the express mission of seeking political support for the Tibetan cause—internationalisation of the Tibet issue as it is understood in Tibetan studies circles (Goldstein 1997: 75–78; Norbu 2001: 272–73; Shakya 1999: 409–16). The Dalai Lama’s fi rst port of call in this strategy was appropriately Washington DC. As Shakya observed:

The Indian Government too seemed to have been aware that the visit was going to be different. In the past, whenever the Dalai Lama travelled abroad, an Indian government offi cial accompanied him. During this visit, however, the GOI withdrew their offi cial, so that they could not be implicated in the eyes of the Chinese. It also indicated that the Indians knew what was going to happen. (Shakya 1999: 414–15)

Close observers of Tibetan affairs will know that the Dalai Lama’s activities in Capitol Hill partly contributed to the series of pro-independence protests that rocked the Tibetan capital city, Lhasa, from September 1987 to 1993 (Schwartz 1994).

Although Rajiv Gandhi’s visit to Beijing in 1988 temporarily relieved tensions, not the least because of Indian acquiescence on Tibet, it did not accomplish much in terms of a resolution of the border dispute, save that of creating a Joint Working Group to seek a political solution. A number of Confi dence Building Measures agreed subsequently and more rounds of boundary talks fared no better. As one scholar notes, ‘[A] settlement of the border question still appears illusory’ (Ganguly 2004: 124). Prime Minister Vajpayee’s visit to Beijing in 2003 gave fresh impetus and expectation of a solution as Vajpayee’s declaration of the Tibet Autonomous Region as a part of China was reciprocated with what seemed to be Chinese acceptance of Sikkim as a part of India (Malik 2007). The sense of optimism increased after the signing of the ‘Agreement on the Political Parameters and Guiding Principles for the Settlement of the Boundary Question’ during Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao’s visit to India in April 2005, but the euphoria proved short-lived.

The prospects for a resolution quickly dimmed and the border issue became more contentious (Malik 2007). A week before Hu Jintao’s visit to India in 2006, the



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Chinese ambassador in New Delhi, Sun Yuxi, raised temperatures in India when he said, ‘In our position, the whole of the state of Arunachal Pradesh is Chinese territory. And Tawang is only one of the places in it. We are claiming all of that’ (Rediff India Abroad 2006). Tawang is important because it is the site of one of the biggest Tibetan Buddhist monasteries and the birthplace of the sixth Dalai Lama. In May 2007, China refused to give a visa to an Indian MP from Arunachal Pradesh to visit China, arguing that he did not require a visa in his own country. India responded by allowing then Taiwanese presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou to visit Delhi and hold talks with senior Indian offi cials in June 2007. Not long after that, Indian media reported border incursions by Chinese soldiers and the supply of small arms to separatist insurgents in India’s violence-torn North-East. Reports of Chinese military incursions into Sikkim in June 2008, despite the apparent Chinese recognition of India’s ownership of it back in 2003, reveal the volatility of the border issue (Indian Express 2008). Some of these incursions seem to arise from the fact that the two countries have not even managed to demarcate on the ground a mutually agreed-upon line of control, although offi cially they refer to it as the Line of Actual Control (LAC) (Chellaney 2007: 169). Interestingly enough, between May and June 2008, when the border issue was heat-ing up and the Tibetan plateau was convulsed in the biggest unrest since the 1950s, India allowed the 17th Karmapa to travel abroad (America) for the fi rst and only time (Arpi 2010; Sehgal 2010).3

Once again, it is noteworthy that while the relatively positive atmosphere on the Sino–Indian border discussions in the early 2000s was matched by the resumption of Sino–Tibetan dialogue in September 2002, the increasing temperatures on both sides of the border and downturn in the border talks was occasioned by growing unrest in Tibet, especially in Eastern Tibet (ICT 2006; 2007),4 and the international victories of sorts for the Tibetan exiles on account of the Dalai Lama’s meetings with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the awarding of the Congressional Gold Medal by the US President George W. Bush. The latest fl are-up in the Sino–Indian border took place in 2009 when the Indian media was fi lled with reports of Chinese incursions

3 The Karmapa is the head of the Karma Kagyu sub-sect of Tibetan Buddhism and regarded as the third highest lama in Tibet. After having been recognised by both the Dalai Lama and the Communist Party of China as the reincarnation of the 16th Karmapa and groomed by the Chinese government to be a ‘patriotic’ lama, he escaped under dramatic circumstances in 2000. The Indian government has so far kept the Karmapa on a tight leash when it comes to international travel in deference to Chinese sensitivities. After allowing the Karmapa to travel to America in 2008, the Indian government blocked his scheduled tours to Europe and America in 2010.

4 For instance, Tibetans inside Tibet responded immediately to the Dalai Lama’s advice against indulging in the traditional Tibetan custom of lining their dresses with the skin of animals such as tigers, leopard and otters, by a vigorous campaign of burning animal pelt in public. In 2007, during a popular traditional horse-racing festival in Eastern Tibet, a Tibetan man named Rungyal Adrak took to the stage and called for Tibetan unity and the return of the Dalai Lama right in front of the offi cials arrayed on the stage. His arrest led to a tense stand-off between Chinese paramilitary soldiers and the local Tibetans.




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and shooting at Indian border patrols and criticism of their government for hiding these incidents just as Nehru and his associates kept the Indian public in the dark about Chinese incursions and road-building on Indian soil prior to the clash in 1962 (Baruah 2009; Smith 2009). The Chinese media responded with counter-charges of military movements on the Indian side and warned the Indians to ‘consider whether or not it could afford the consequences of a potential confrontation with China’ (Global Times 2009). All of this happened only a year after China endured in 2008 the most widespread and violent Tibetan challenge to its rule (On the 2008 Tibetan uprising, see Smith 2010; Topgyal 2011; Wang and Shakya 2009. For a daily record of the uprising, see Woeser 2008).

I now return to the observation and question I posed in the introduction with regard to the apparent offi cial neglect of the Tibetan issue other than as a bargaining chip by both India and China. Specifi cally, while China’s need to ignore the Tibetan issue is well-documented, India’s deafening silence is more puzzling. While the dominant explanation is that India is worried about the likely Chinese response in India’s own separatist regions, there is another more realist or cynical rationale. Although there is no way of confi rming this, India could be concerned about the implications of the resolution of the Tibetan issue for the border dispute. If the Dalai Lama and the exile elite return to Tibet under an agreement, they will come under Beijing’s pressure to support its boundary claims. The Chinese have already required the Dalai Lama both through the dialogue process and state media that he should not support India’s position on the disputed territory of Arunachal Pradesh (China Daily 2008). With the Dalai Lama and other leading Tibetans behind them, the Chinese claims will gain more legitimacy. From India’s standpoint, therefore, it would be more advantageous if the order of resolution is the border dispute fi rst and the Sino–Tibetan confl ict next. The current Sino–Tibetan deadlock suits India fi ne in this sense as the Dalai Lama and the key fi gures in the Tibetan government in exile have lined up behind India’s position, whether voluntarily or due to gentle prodding from the Indian authorities (Times of India, 2008; Rediff News 2008; Asia Sentinel 2009). This probably explains the lack of activism in New Delhi for the resolution of the Tibetan issue. This also chimes well with the new realism that has characterised India’s China policy of engagement and emulation since the 1990s. Hence, the place of Tibet in India’s China policy could be summed in these words: Tibet was a victim of India’s moralistic idealism in the 1950s; in the post-Cold World War era, Tibet may become a victim of India’s new realism.

Yet, there are analysts in both China and India who counsel that a resolution of the Tibet issue one way or another other holds the key to not just solving the border row, but easing the larger strategic rivalry (Rabgey and Sharlho 2004: 29; Chellaney 2006: 263). Chellaney wrote, ‘A genuine China–India rapprochement fundamentally demands a resolution of the Tibet issue through a process of reconciliation and heal-ing initiated by Beijing with its Tibetan minority’ (Chellaney 2006: 263). Malik, meanwhile, opines that until Tibet has been totally ‘pacifi ed’ and ‘[s]inicised as Inner



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Mongolia’, China would prefer an undefi ned border as a bargaining chip because of its suspicions that India prefers an independent Tibet and aids Tibetan separatists (Malik 2007). Norbu argues that ‘Tibet has shaped the informal and invisible dynamics of Sino–Indian relations and politics from 1950 to the present.... Tibet is the legal foundation on which both India’s and China’s border claims rest’ (Norbu 2001: 296). For the reasons given above, India is reluctant to countenance Chellaney’s advice to condition any fi nal border delineation between China and India to an agreement between Beijing and the Dalai Lama. On the other hand, some Chinese scholars also advised Beijing in 2001 that resolving the Tibet issue with the Dalai Lama would ‘reduce China’s strategic risks in the volatile region of the Indian sub-continent’ (Rabgey and Sharlho 2004: 29). Hard-liners in China undercut their advice and nothing came of it as the current diffi culty in the Tibetan–Chinese dialogue process shows. Hence, the Sino–Tibetan confl ict is closely entwined with the Sino–Indian strategic rivalry and territorial dispute.

CONCLUSION

The persistence of the China–India boundary dispute is in contrast to the successful resolution of most of China’s other land–border disputes. Scholars have provided a range of explanations ranging from nationalism, security and great power rivalry. While agreeing with and indeed developing these rationalizations further, this paper’s main contribution is to reveal the more fundamental connections between the China–India border dispute and the Sino–Tibetan confl ict. Specifi cally, this paper examined the Tibetan roots of the border dispute, the centrality of Tibet in the boundary claims of both China and India and the coincidence of key historical developments on the boundary dispute and the Sino–Tibetan confl ict. As the paper sought to show towards the end, with regard to India’s approach to the Tibetan issue, the nexus between the two is more complex than might meet the eyes.

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Author’s address: 52 Whitehouse Avenue, Borehamwood, Hertfordshire WD6 1HD, United Kingdom. E-mail: [email protected]



Documents

Charting the Tibet Issue in the Sino-Indian Border Dispute