THE GIST of Editorial for UPSC Exams : 23 October 2019 (Leaving the door open to a border settlement (The Hindu))

Leaving the door open to a border settlement (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2: International Relations
Prelims level: McMahon Line
Mains level: Border Management and policies

Context

• The second informal summit between India and China at Mamallapuram, off Chennai (October 11-12, 2019), China’s President Xi Jinping had told Prime Minister Narendra Modi: “In accordance with the agreement on political guiding principles, we will seek a fair and reasonable solution to the border issue that is acceptable to both sides.”
• But a look at the past will show that the 2005 “Political Parameters and Guiding Principles for the Settlement of the India-China Boundary Question” agreement was a ray of light in an otherwise dim process of talks that began in 1981.

At the northern border

• It is now accepted that the frontier politics of British India had failed to produce a single integrated and well-defined northern boundary separating the Indian subcontinent from Xinjiang and Tibet.
• In the eastern sector, the British had largely attained an ethnically and strategically viable alignment via the 1914 Simla conference of British India, China and Tibet, even though the Chinese repudiated the agreement itself.

On the western sector

• This sector, the crux of the dispute, was never formally delineated nor successfully resolved by British India.
• The fluid British approach in this sector was shaped by the geopolitical goals of the Empire, and was never envisaged to meet the basic requirements of a sovereign nation state.
• There were almost a dozen British attempts to arrive at a suitable boundary.
• Most, however, were exploratory surveys by frontier agents reflecting British expansion in the north-west frontiers rather than a concerted pursuit of an international border.
• And they varied with British geopolitical objectives vis-à-vis a perceived Russian threat.
• For instance, when Russian influence reached Xinjiang, some British strategists advocated an extreme northern Kashmiri border to keep Britain’s main adversary at bay.
• At other times, a relatively moderate border was favoured, with reliance even being placed on Chinese control of Xinjiang as a buffer against Russia.

Background

• The net result was that in 1947, no definite boundary line to the east of the Karakoram Pass existed.
• On the official 1950 map of India, the boundary of Jammu and Kashmir east of this pass was expressed as “Boundary Undefined”, while the 1914 McMahon Line, the de facto border between Arunachal Pradesh and China today, was depicted as the boundary in the eastern sector.
• Hence, in effect, India and China were faced with a “no man’s land” in eastern Ladakh, where the contentious Aksai Chin lay.
• Between 1954 and 1956, Jawaharlal Nehru engaged in several long exchanges with Premier Zhou Enlai in Delhi and Beijing but the border issue was mostly excluded from their conversations. New Delhi’s underlying assumption was that highlighting the border issue would re-open the whole question and provide the Chinese with an opportunity to make all kinds of claims.
• For Nehru, the 1954 Agreement that affirmed Chinese sovereignty over Tibet (but made no reference to the border) was seen as having “dealt with all outstanding matters and nothing remained...”

The swap principle

• It is only in December 1956 that the eastern section of the border was raised in the context of the Sino-Burmese border.
• Zhou Enlai had then remarked that the McMahon Line was an “accomplished fact” and both agreed that the “minor” border problems with India should be settled soon. In early 1957, India invited the Chinese for talks to resolve those “minor” disputes.
• But that never materialised and was quickly overshadowed by an escalating crisis in Tibet.
• And China’s attempt to restore its authority in Tibet became inextricably linked with its attitude on the frontier with India.
• India’s fateful decision of March 1959 to provide asylum to the Dalai Lama dramatically transformed India-China relations. That year would also witness two bloody skirmishes on the border.
• Both sides would henceforth perceive each other with deep suspicion and mistrust: India for China’s prevarication on the border, and China for India’s open interference in its domestic affairs. Despite the dramatic setback to the relationship, there was an opportunity to settle the border question on reasonable acceptable terms.

Conclusion

• It was at this crucial juncture of the crisis where Nehru along with most of the Indian leadership erred.
• In retrospect, the inability of the Indian side to countenance the swap principle was a missed opportunity that could have eventually settled the dispute and contained the escalating conflict in the ensuing years.

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Prelims Questions:

Q.1) Which of the following regions proposed extradition bill which, if passed, would have allowed the city government to extradite any suspect to places with which it does not have extradition accords?
a) Republic of Korea
b) State of Palestine
c) Hong Kong
d) State of Israel

Ans: C
Mains Questions:
Q.1) In finding solutions India and China must learn from the past; the legacy of 1962 was one of missed opportunity. Critically examine the statement.