Indo-Chinese border war
India and China
| date | October 20 - November 21, 1962 |
|---|---|
| place | Aksai Chin and Arunachal Pradesh |
| output | Chinese victory but no significant changes |
| Peace treaty | Colombo conference |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
| Commander | |
|
Brij Mohan Kaul |
Zhang Guohua
|
The Indo-Chinese Border War was a war between India and the People's Republic of China from October 20 to November 20, 1962 . It ended with a victory for China, but without major territorial changes. It cannot be entirely ruled out that there have been minor territorial gains in China in the western sector (Aksai Chin). While India claims so, China denies that India effectively controlled these areas.
causes
India became a British colony in the second half of the 19th century . Around 1835 there were between Britain and Russia for so-called Great Game . It was about the supremacy in Central Asia . Russia tried to move its sphere of influence further south to India in order to be able to build an ice-free port, while Great Britain wanted to expand its colonies. On the British side, it was feared that Tibet could be occupied by Russia. After the Tibetan government refused to negotiate with Great Britain, a British military expedition under Francis Younghusband was sent to Tibet in 1903/04 . Younghusband reached Lhasa and the Dalai Lama fled to Mongolia . As a result, Tibet became a British protectorate . In 1912, however, China renewed its claim to Tibet, which it was unable to enforce against Great Britain. In 1914 the Shimla Conference took place between Great Britain, Tibet and China . Britain renounced claims in Tibet and declared the McMahon Line to be the border between India and China. However, the agreement was not ratified by China and thus the McMahon Line was not recognized as a border.
In 1947 India gained independence from Great Britain. In 1950, Chinese troops began to march into Tibet. The Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959, where he was granted asylum . Relations between China and India were friendly in the 1950s, but that changed as disputes over the border area increased. China was ready to accept the McMahon Line as a border if India in return accepted Chinese sovereignty over Aksai Chin ; However, India did not respond.
From 1959, both parties sent troops into the area, and there were repeated smaller firefights. The conflict continued to heat up until an open border war broke out.
The war and its consequences
On October 20, 1962, Chinese soldiers advanced into Indian territory in the eastern part of the border via the McMahon Line. When the Indian army focused on this advance, the Chinese army launched another attack in the western part and completely taken the Indian forces by surprise. China unilaterally proclaimed a ceasefire on November 21 , which India de facto accepted, ending the fighting. The war claimed about 2,000 lives.
At the Colombo Conference in December 1962, the negotiations on the armistice could only be conducted indirectly through six non-pact countries, as India and China refused to negotiate directly with one another. In 1963, China allied itself with Pakistan , which in a border agreement gave China a 4,500 km² area of Kashmir and thus provoked India (which claims all of Kashmir for itself). In 1965 there was finally a border conflict on the border of the Indian protectorate of Sikkim . In addition, the withdrawal of the Chinese soldiers behind the McMahon Line was slow. In the eastern part the withdrawal was quick, but in the western part this retreat lasted until January 15, 1969.
In return, India signed a friendship and assistance pact with the Soviet Union in 1971 and armed its army (1962: 500,000 soldiers, 1970: 825,000). Direct border negotiations between China and India only began in late 1981. In 2005, further talks took place in which China for the first time explicitly stated that it waived its claims to Sikkim.
On June 18, 2006, China and India agreed in Lhasa to open an old trade route in the Himalayas . The agreement marked a further rapprochement between the former war opponents. On July 6, 2006, the Nathu-La Pass was reopened for the first time since 1962 at an altitude of over 4,000 meters. The mountain path on the historic Silk Road connects southern Tibet with the Indian state of Sikkim.
On April 15, 2013, soldiers from the Chinese People's Liberation Army advanced 19 km into the Indian province of Ladakh as far as Daulat Beg Oldi. The Indian army took up a position 300 meters opposite. On May 6, shortly before a planned visit by Indian Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid to China, the crisis was resolved according to the Indian Foreign Ministry. The conditions under which the Chinese troops were withdrawn was not known. There appears to have been no fighting during the roughly three-week crisis.
In July 2016, India stationed two tank regiments in the region. A third regiment was supposed to follow by the end of 2016 “to catch up with the People's Liberation Army”.
In June 2020 border conflicts broke out again, with 20 Indian soldiers dying in a "battle with sticks and stones", according to the Indian army. Previously there had been verbal and fist attacks between the border guards for two weeks. The dispute took place in the Galwan Valley in the Ladakh region.
See also
literature
- Andreas Berding: The Indian-Chinese border war of 1962. In: Military history. Historical Education Journal. 4/2011 ISSN 0940-4163 , pp. 14-17.
- 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
- globalsecurity.org - The China-India Border War (English)
- bharat-rakshak.com - War in the Himalayas: 1962 Indo-Sino Conflict (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ India says China agrees retreat to de facto border in faceoff deal , Reuters, May 6, 2013.
- ↑ India deploys over 100 T-72 tanks along disputed border with China ( Memento from July 26, 2016 in the Internet Archive ), IHS Jane's Defense Weekly, July 26, 2016