Colombo conference

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The Colombo Conference took place in December 1962 in Colombo in Ceylon (today under the name Sri Lanka ) and was a peace conference that was supposed to end the Indo-Chinese border war in the sense that any border issues would be resolved. China emerged victorious from the war. Since the countries of India and the People's Republic of China refused to work together, the conference was chaired by six non-pact countries.

background

The Indo-Chinese War marked a challenge for the then Sinhalese Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike . Both China and India were close allies, based on friendly and historical relationships in terms of Asian solidarity and the rising importance of the South in Asia. With the Colombo Plan , measures were already set out to improve living conditions in these countries in southern Asia. When the border war between India and China began in 1962, a number of diplomats with experience of the Colombo plan rushed to assist Prime Minister Bandaranaike's mediation. On November 21, the armistice was signed and room for diplomatic negotiations was made.

Attendees

The reason for the participation of exclusively non-aligned states was that they should neither take sides in the dispute, but merely serve to mediate. Participants were:

Course and result of the negotiations

The conference proceeded slowly as both China and India tried little to reach agreement. The conference proposal stipulated that Chinese troops should withdraw 20 kilometers from the ceasefire line. Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike has repeatedly traveled to both countries to promote the negotiations, but met with little concession. In the end, the rapprochement policy failed, India drew more towards the Soviet Union in the next few years , while China allied itself with Pakistan and granted territorial claims in the Kashmir area, which led to the deliberate provocation of India.

literature

  • Andreas Berding: The Indian-Chinese border war of 1962. In: Military history. Historical Education Journal. 4/2011 ISSN  0940-4163 , pp. 14-17 ( PDF file; 3.3 MB ).
  • M. Taylor Fravel: Strong Borders, Secure Nation: Cooperation and Conflict in China's Territorial Disputes Princeton University Press, Princeton 2008 (very good description of the processes and perceptions on the Chinese side during the border war).
  • John W. Garver China's Decision for War with India in 1962 In: Alaistair Ian Johnston / Robert S. Ross New directions in the study of China's foreign policy Stanford University Press, Stanford 2008, pp. 86-130.
  • Steven A. Hoffmann: India and the China crisis University of California Press, Berkeley 1990.
  • Neville Maxwell: India's China War Cape, London 1971.
  • Yaacov Vertzberger: India's Border Conflict with China: A Perceptual Analysis In: Journal of Contemporary History , Volume 17, Issue 4 (October 1982), pp. 607-631.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The wars after the Second World War, 1945 to 1992: Dates and tendencies, Klaus Jürgen Gantzel, Torsten Schwinghamme