Jammu and Kashmir in 1888 Survey of India map

Aksai Chin is a region administered by

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

as part of

Hotan County Hotan County (also known as Gosthana, Gaustana, Godana, Godaniya, Khotan, Hetian, Hotien) is a county in the southwest of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and is under the administration of the Hotan Prefecture. Almost all the residents of t ...

Hotan Prefecture Hotan PrefectureThe official spelling is "Hotan" according to (also known as Gosthana, Gaustana, Godana, Godaniya, Khotan, Hetian, Hotien) is located in the Tarim Basin region of southwestern Xinjiang, China, bordering the Tibet Autonomous Region ...

Xinjiang Xinjiang, SASM/GNC: ''Xinjang''; zh, c=, p=Xīnjiāng; formerly romanized as Sinkiang (, ), officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China (PRC), located in the northwest ...

and

Rutog County Rutog County (), (in ) is a county in Ngari Prefecture, Tibet Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China. The county seat is the new Rutog Town, located some or 700 miles west-northwest of the Tibetan capital, Lhasa. Rutog County sh ...

Ngari Prefecture Ngari Prefecture () or Ali Prefecture () is a prefecture of China's Tibet Autonomous Region covering Western Tibet, whose traditional name is Ngari Khorsum. Its administrative centre and largest settlement is the town of Shiquanhe. History Ngar ...

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa people, ...

. It is claimed by

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

to be a part of its

Leh District Leh district is a district in the union territory of Ladakh, India. With an area of 45,110 ''km'2'', it is the second largest district in the country smaller only to Kutch. It is bounded on the north by Gilgit-Baltistan's Kharmang and G ...

Ladakh Ladakh () is a region administered by India as a union territory which constitutes a part of the larger Kashmir region and has been the subject of dispute between India, Pakistan, and China since 1947. (subscription required) Quote: "Jammu and ...

Union Territory. It is a part of the eastern portion of the

Kashmir Kashmir () is the northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term "Kashmir" denoted only the Kashmir Valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal Range. Today, the term encompas ...

region and has been a subject of dispute between India and China since the late 1950s.The application of the term "administered" to the various regions of

and a mention of the Kashmir dispute is supported by the

tertiary sources A tertiary source is an index or textual consolidation of already published Primary source, primary and secondary sourcesdue weight in the coverage:
(a) (subscription required) Quote: "Kashmir, region of the northwestern Indian subcontinent ... has been the subject of dispute between India and Pakistan since the partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947. The northern and western portions are administered by Pakistan and comprise three areas: Azad Kashmir, Gilgit, and Baltistan, the last two being part of a territory called the Northern Areas. Administered by India are the southern and southeastern portions, which constitute the state of Jammu and Kashmir but are slated to be split into two union territories. China became active in the eastern area of Kashmir in the 1950s and has controlled the northeastern part of Ladakh (the easternmost portion of the region) since 1962.";
(b) C. E Bosworth, University of Manchester Quote: "Kashmir, kash'mer, the northernmost region of the Indian subcontinent, administered partlv by India, partly by Pakistan, and partly by China. The region has been the subject of a bitter dispute between India and Pakistan since they became independent in 1947";

Name

Aksai Chin is first mentioned by Muhammad Amin, the Yarkandi guide of the Schlagintweit brothers. He explained its meaning as "the great white sand desert". Linguist

George van Driem George "Sjors" van Driem (born 1957) is a Dutch linguist associated with the University of Bern, where he is the chair of Historical Linguistics and directs the Linguistics Institute. Education * Leiden University, 1983–1987 (PhD, ''A Gramma ...

states that the name intended by Amin is ''Aqsai Chöl'' ( ug, ﺋﺎﻗﺴﺎﻱ چۆل; cyrl, ақсай чөл) which could mean "white ravine desert" or "white coomb desert". The word '' chöl'' for desert seems to have gotten corrupted in English transliteration into "chin". Some sources have interpreted ''Aksai'' to have Uyghur meaning "white stone desert", including several British colonial, modern Western, Chinese, and Indian sources. Some modern sources interpret it to mean "white brook" instead. At least one source interprets ''Aksai'' to mean "eastern" in the Yarkandi Uyghur dialect. The meaning regarding the word "Chin" has been disputed. It is taken to mean "China" by some Chinese, Western, and Indian sources. At least one source takes it to mean "pass". Other sources omit "Chin" in their interpretations. Van Driem states that there is no Uyghur word resembling "chin" for China. Amin's Aksai Chin was not a defined region, stretching indefinitely east into Tibet south of the

Kunlun Mountains The Kunlun Mountains ( zh, s=昆仑山, t=崑崙山, p=Kūnlún Shān, ; ug, كۇئېنلۇن تاغ تىزمىسى / قۇرۇم تاغ تىزمىسى ) constitute one of the longest mountain chains in Asia, extending for more than . In the bro ...

. In 1895, the British envoy to Kashgar told the Chinese Taotai that Aksai Chin was a "loose name for an ill-defined, elevated tableland", part of which lay in Indian and part in Chinese territory. Its current localised meaning for the area under dispute between India and China is a post-colonial development through repeated usage.

History

Because of its elevation, the desolation of Aksai Chin meant that it had no human importance. For military campaigns, the region held great importance, as it was on the only route from the

Tarim Basin The Tarim Basin is an endorheic basin in Northwest China occupying an area of about and one of the largest basins in Northwest China.Chen, Yaning, et al. "Regional climate change and its effects on river runoff in the Tarim Basin, China." Hydr ...

to Tibet that was passable all year round.

was conquered in 1842 by the armies of Raja

Gulab Singh Gulab Singh Jamwal (1792–1857) was the founder of Dogra dynasty and the first Maharaja of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, the largest princely state under the British Raj, which was created after the defeat of the Sikh Empire in ...

(Dogra) under the suzerainty of the

Sikh Empire The Sikh Empire was a state originating in the Indian subcontinent, formed under the leadership of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, who established an empire based in the Punjab. The empire existed from 1799, when Maharaja Ranjit Singh captured Lahor ...

.The Sino-Indian Border Disputes, by Alfred P. Rubin, The International and Comparative Law Quarterly, Vol. 9, No. 1. (Jan. 1960), pp. 96–125, . The British defeat of the Sikhs in 1846 resulted in the transfer of the Jammu and Kashmir region including Ladakh to the British, who then installed Gulab Singh as the Maharaja under their suzerainty. The British appointed a boundary commission headed by Alexander Cunningham to determine the boundaries of the state. Chinese and Tibetan officials were invited to jointly demarcate the border, but they did not show any interest. The British boundary commissioners fixed the southern part of the boundary up to the

Chang Chenmo Valley Chang Chenmo River or Changchenmo River is a tributary of the Shyok River, part of the Indus River system. It is at the southern edge of the disputed Aksai Chin region and north of the Pangong Lake basin. The source of Chang Chenmo is near th ...

, but regarded the area north of it as ''terra incognita''.

The Johnson Line

William Johnson, a civil servant with the

Survey of India The Survey of India is India's central engineering agency in charge of Cartography, mapping and surveying.

proposed the "Johnson Line" in 1865, which put Aksai Chin in Kashmir.Mohan Guruswamy, Mohan
"The Great India-China Game"
,

Rediff Rediff.com (stylized as ''rediff.com'') is an Indian news, information, entertainment and shopping web portal. It was founded in 1996. It is headquartered in Mumbai, with offices in Bangalore, New Delhi and New York City. , it had more than 300 e ...

, 23 June 2003. This was the time of the Dungan revolt, when China did not control most of

, so this line was never presented to the Chinese. Johnson presented this line to the Maharaja of Kashmir, who then claimed the 18,000 square kilometres contained within, and by some accounts territory further north as far as the

Sanju Pass The Sanju, or Sanju-la (), with an elevation of , is a historical mountain pass in the Kun Lun Mountains in Pishan County, Hotan Prefecture, Xinjiang, China. During ancient times, it was the last on a series of difficult passes on the most com ...

in the Kun Lun Mountains. The Maharajah of Kashmir constructed a fort at Shahidulla (modern-day

Xaidulla Shahidulla, also spelt Xaidulla from Mandarin Chinese, (altitude ca. 3,646 m or 11,962 ft), was a nomad camping ground and historical caravan halting place in the Karakash River valley, close to Khotan, in the southwestern part of Xinjiang Au ...

), and had troops stationed there for some years to protect caravans. Eventually, most sources placed Shahidulla and the upper

Karakash River The Karakash or Black Jade River, also spelled ''Karakax'' (, , Қарақаш Дәряси), is a river in the Xinjiang autonomous region of the People's Republic of China that originates in the disputed Aksai Chin region administered by China. I ...

firmly within the territory of Xinjiang (see accompanying map). According to

Francis Younghusband Lieutenant Colonel Sir Francis Edward Younghusband, (31 May 1863 – 31 July 1942) was a British Army officer, explorer, and spiritual writer. He is remembered for his travels in the Far East and Central Asia; especially the 1904 British ...

, who explored the region in the late 1880s, there was only an abandoned fort and not one inhabited house at Shahidulla when he was there – it was just a convenient staging post and a convenient headquarters for the nomadic Kirghiz. The abandoned fort had apparently been built a few years earlier by the Kashmiris. In 1878 the Chinese had reconquered Xinjiang, and by 1890 they already had Shahidulla before the issue was decided. By 1892, China had erected boundary markers at

Karakoram Pass The Karakoram Pass () is a mountain pass between India and China in the Karakoram Range. It is the highest pass on the ancient caravan route between Leh in Ladakh and Yarkand in the Tarim Basin. 'Karakoram' literally means 'Black Gravel' ...

. In 1897 a British military officer, Sir John Ardagh, proposed a boundary line along the crest of the Kun Lun Mountains north of the

Yarkand River The Yarkand River (or Yarkent River, Yeh-erh-ch'iang Ho) is a river in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of western China. It originates in the Siachen Muztagh in a part of the Karakoram range and flows into the Tarim River or Neinejoung R ...

. At the time Britain was concerned at the danger of Russian expansion as China weakened, and Ardagh argued that his line was more defensible. The Ardagh line was effectively a modification of the Johnson line, and became known as the "Johnson-Ardagh Line".

The Macartney–Macdonald Line

In 1893, Hung Ta-chen, a senior Chinese official at

St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

, gave maps of the region to George Macartney, the British consul general at Kashgar, which coincided in broad details. In 1899, Britain proposed a revised boundary, initially suggested by Macartney and developed by the Governor General of India

Lord Elgin Earl of Elgin is a title in the Peerage of Scotland, created in 1633 for Thomas Bruce, 3rd Lord Kinloss. He was later created Baron Bruce, of Whorlton in the County of York, in the Peerage of England on 30 July 1641. The Earl of Elgin is the ...

. This boundary placed the Lingzi Tang plains, which are south of the Laktsang range, in India, and Aksai Chin proper, which is north of the Laktsang range, in China. This border, along the Karakoram Mountains, was proposed and supported by British officials for a number of reasons. The Karakoram Mountains formed a natural boundary, which would set the British borders up to the

Indus River The Indus ( ) is a transboundary river of Asia and a trans-Himalayan river of South and Central Asia. The river rises in mountain springs northeast of Mount Kailash in Western Tibet, flows northwest through the disputed region of Kashmir, ...

watershed while leaving the

Tarim River The Tarim River ( zh, p=Tǎlǐmù Hé, c=塔里木河; ug, تارىم دەرياسى, Tarim deryasi), known in Sanskrit as the Śītā, is an endorheic river in Xinjiang, China. It is the principal river of the Tarim Basin, a desert region of C ...

watershed in Chinese control, and Chinese control of this tract would present a further obstacle to Russian advance in Central Asia. The British presented this line, known as the

Macartney–MacDonald Line The Macartney–MacDonald Line is a proposed boundary in the disputed area of Aksai Chin. It was proposed by British Indian Government to China in 1899 via its envoy to China, Sir Claude MacDonald. The Chinese Government never gave any respon ...

, to the Chinese in 1899 in a note by Sir

Claude MacDonald Colonel Sir Claude Maxwell MacDonald, (12 June 1852 – 10 September 1915) was a British soldier and diplomat, best known for his service in China and Japan. Early life MacDonald was born the son of Mary Ellen MacDonald (''nee'' Dougan) and ...

. The Qing government did not respond to the note. According to some commentators, China believed that this had been the accepted boundary.

1899 to 1947

Both the Johnson-Ardagh and the Macartney-MacDonald lines were used on British maps of India. Until at least 1908, the British took the Macdonald line to be the boundary, but in 1911, the

Xinhai Revolution The 1911 Revolution, also known as the Xinhai Revolution or Hsinhai Revolution, ended China's last imperial dynasty, the Manchu-led Qing dynasty, and led to the establishment of the Republic of China. The revolution was the culmination of a d ...

resulted in the collapse of central power in China, and by the end of

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, the British officially used the Johnson Line. However they took no steps to establish outposts or assert actual control on the ground. In 1927, the line was adjusted again as the government of British India abandoned the Johnson line in favor of a line along the Karakoram range further south. However, the maps were not updated and still showed the Johnson Line. Postal Map of China ,1917

From 1917 to 1933, the ''Postal Atlas of China'', published by the Government of China in Peking had shown the boundary in Aksai Chin as per the Johnson line, which runs along the

Kunlun mountains The Kunlun Mountains ( zh, s=昆仑山, t=崑崙山, p=Kūnlún Shān, ; ug, كۇئېنلۇن تاغ تىزمىسى / قۇرۇم تاغ تىزمىسى ) constitute one of the longest mountain chains in Asia, extending for more than . In the bro ...

. The ''Peking University Atlas'', published in 1925, also put the Aksai Chin in India. When British officials learned of Soviet officials surveying the Aksai Chin for

Sheng Shicai Sheng Shicai (; 3 December 189513 July 1970) was a Chinese warlord who ruled Xinjiang from 1933 to 1944. Sheng's rise to power started with a coup d'état in 1933 when he was appointed the ''duban'' or Military Governor of Xinjiang. His rule o ...

, warlord of

in 1940–1941, they again advocated the Johnson Line. At this point the British had still made no attempts to establish outposts or control over the Aksai Chin, nor was the issue ever discussed with the governments of China or Tibet, and the boundary remained undemarcated at India's independence.

Since 1947

Upon independence in 1947, the government of India used the Johnson Line as the basis for its official boundary in the west, which included the Aksai Chin. From the Karakoram Pass (which is not under dispute), the Indian claim line extends northeast of the Karakoram Mountains through the salt flats of the Aksai Chin, to set a boundary at the

, and incorporating part of the

and

watersheds. From there, it runs east along the Kunlun Mountains, before turning southwest through the Aksai Chin salt flats, through the Karakoram Mountains, and then to

Panggong Lake Pangong Tso or Pangong Lake (; ; hi, text=पैंगोंग झील) is an endorheic lake spanning eastern Ladakh and West Tibet situated at an elevation of . It is long and divided into five sublakes, called ''Pangong Tso'', ''Tso ...

. On 1 July 1954, Prime Minister

Jawaharlal Nehru Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru (; ; ; 14 November 1889 – 27 May 1964) was an Indian anti-colonial nationalist, secular humanist, social democrat— * * * * and author who was a central figure in India during the middle of the 20t ...

wrote a memo directing that the maps of India be revised to show definite boundaries on all frontiers. Up to this point, the boundary in the Aksai Chin sector, based on the Johnson Line, had been described as "undemarcated." Despite this region being nearly uninhabitable and having no resources, it remains strategically important for China as it connects Tibet and Xinjiang. During the 1950s, the

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

built a 1,200 km (750 mi) road connecting Xinjiang and western

, of which 179 km (112 mi) ran south of the Johnson Line through the Aksai Chin region claimed by India. Aksai Chin was easily accessible to the Chinese, but was more difficult for the Indians on the other side of the Karakorams to reach. The Indians did not learn of the existence of the road until 1957, which was confirmed when the road was shown in Chinese maps published in 1958.China's Decision for War with India in 1962 by John W. Garver
The construction of this highway was one of the triggers for the

Sino-Indian War The Sino-Indian War took place between China and India from October to November 1962, as a major flare-up of the Sino-Indian border dispute. There had been a series of violent border skirmishes between the two countries after the 1959 Tib ...

of 1962. The Indian position, as stated by Prime Minister Nehru, was that the Aksai Chin was "part of the Ladakh region of India for centuries" and that this northern border was a "firm and definite one which was not open to discussion with anybody". The Chinese premier

Zhou Enlai Zhou Enlai (; 5 March 1898 – 8 January 1976) was a Chinese statesman and military officer who served as the first Premier of the People's Republic of China, premier of the People's Republic of China from 1 October 1949 until his death on 8 J ...

argued that the western border had never been delimited, that the Macartney-MacDonald Line, which left the Aksai Chin within Chinese borders was the only line ever proposed to a Chinese government, and that the Aksai Chin was already under Chinese jurisdiction, and that negotiations should take into account the status quo. In June 2006, satellite imagery on the

Google Earth Google Earth is a computer program that renders a 3D computer graphics, 3D representation of Earth based primarily on satellite imagery. The program maps the Earth by superimposition, superimposing satellite images, aerial photography, and geog ...

service revealed a 1:500 scale terrain model of eastern Aksai Chin and adjacent

, built near the town of Huangyangtan, about southwest of

Yinchuan Yinchuan (, ; ) is the capital of the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, China, and was the capital of the Tangut-led Western Xia dynasty. It has an area of and a total population of 2,859,074 according to the 2020 Chinese census, and its built- ...

, the capital of the autonomous region of

Ningxia Ningxia (,; , ; alternately romanized as Ninghsia), officially the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region (NHAR), is an autonomous region in the northwest of the People's Republic of China. Formerly a province, Ningxia was incorporated into Gansu in ...

in China. A visual side-by-side comparison shows a very detailed duplication of Aksai Chin in the camp. The model was surrounded by a substantial facility, with rows of red-roofed buildings, scores of olive-coloured trucks and a large compound with elevated lookout posts and a large communications tower. Such terrain models are known to be used in military training and simulation, although usually on a much smaller scale. Local authorities in

claim that their model of Aksai Chin is part of a tank training ground, built in 1998 or 1999. In August 2017, Indian and Chinese forces near

Pangong Tso Pangong Tso or Pangong Lake (; ; hi, text=पैंगोंग झील) is an endorheic lake spanning eastern Ladakh and West Tibet situated at an elevation of . It is long and divided into five sublakes, called ''Pangong Tso'', ''Tso N ...

threw rocks at each other. On September 11, 2019,

People's Liberation Army The People's Liberation Army (PLA) is the principal military force of the People's Republic of China and the armed wing of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The PLA consists of five service branches: the Ground Force, Navy, Air Force, ...

troops confronted Indian troops on the northern bank of

Pangong Lake Pangong Tso or Pangong Lake (; ; hi, text=पैंगोंग झील) is an endorheic lake spanning eastern Ladakh and West Tibet situated at an elevation of . It is long and divided into five sublakes, called ''Pangong Tso'', ''Tso N ...

. A continued face-off in the 2020 China–India skirmishes of May and June 2020 between Indian and Chinese troops near Pangong Tso Lake culminated in a violent clash on 16 June 2020, with at least 20 deaths from the Indian side and no official reported deaths from the Chinese side. In 2021, Chinese state media reported 4 Chinese deaths. Both sides claimed provocation from the other.

Geography

Northern Aksai Chin looking towards Qitai Daban

Aksai Chin is one of the two large disputed border areas between India and China. India claims Aksai Chin as the easternmost part of the union territory of

. China claims that Aksai Chin is part of the

Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region Xinjiang, SASM/GNC: ''Xinjang''; zh, c=, p=Xīnjiāng; formerly romanized as Sinkiang (, ), officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China (PRC), located in the northwest ...

and

Tibet Autonomous Region The Tibet Autonomous Region or Xizang Autonomous Region, often shortened to Tibet or Xizang, is a Provinces of China, province-level Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of the China, People's Republic of China in Southwest China. I ...

. The line that separates Indian-administered areas of

from Aksai Chin is known as the

Line of Actual Control The Line of Actual Control (LAC), in the context of the Sino-Indian border dispute, is a notional demarcation lineAnanth KrishnanLine of Actual Control , India-China: the line of actual contest, 13 June 2020: "In contrast, the alignment o ...

(LAC) and is concurrent with the Chinese Aksai Chin claim line. Aksai Chin covers an area of approximately . The area is largely a vast high-altitude

desert A desert is a barren area of landscape where little precipitation occurs and, consequently, living conditions are hostile for plant and animal life. The lack of vegetation exposes the unprotected surface of the ground to denudation. About on ...

with a low point (on the ''

'') at about above sea level. In the southwest, mountains up to extending southeast from the

Depsang Plains The Depsang Plains represent a high-altitude gravelly plain at the northwest portion of the disputed Aksai Chin region of Kashmir, divided into Indian and Chinese administered portions across a Line of Actual Control. India controls the we ...

form the ''de facto'' border (Line of Actual Control) between Aksai Chin and Indian-controlled Kashmir. In the north, the

Kunlun Range The Kunlun Mountains ( zh, s=昆仑山, t=崑崙山, p=Kūnlún Shān, ; ug, كۇئېنلۇن تاغ تىزمىسى / قۇرۇم تاغ تىزمىسى ) constitute one of the longest mountain chains in Asia, extending for more than . In the bro ...

separates Aksai Chin from the

, where the rest of Hotan County is situated. According to a recent detailed Chinese map, no roads cross the Kunlun Range within Hotan Prefecture, and only one track does so, over the

Hindutash Hindu-tagh Pass, also known as Hindutash, is a historical mountain pass in the western Xinjiang, China. The pass cuts through the Kunlun Mountains connecting the now-deserted town of Kangxiwar in the Karakash River valley to the town of Pu ...

Pass.Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region Road Atlas (中国分省公路丛书：新疆维吾尔自治区), published by 星球地图出版社 ''Xingqiu Ditu Chubanshe'', 2008, . Map of Hotan Prefecture, pp. 18–19. Aksai Chin area has number of

endorheic basin An endorheic basin (; also spelled endoreic basin or endorreic basin) is a drainage basin that normally retains water and allows no outflow to other external bodies of water, such as rivers or oceans, but drainage converges instead into lakes ...

s with many salt or

soda lake A soda lake or alkaline lake is a lake on the strongly alkaline side of neutrality, typically with a pH value between 9 and 12. They are characterized by high concentrations of carbonate salts, typically sodium carbonate (and related salt complex ...

s. The major salt lakes are Surigh Yilganing Kol, Tso Tang,

Aksai Chin Lake Aksai Chin Lake or Aksayqin Lake, () is an endorheic lake in the disputed region of Aksai Chin. The plateau is administered by China but also claimed by India. Its Tibetan/Ladakhi name is Amtogor Lake which means "encounter with a round object". ...

, Hongshan Lake, etc. Much of the northern part of Aksai Chin is referred to as the Soda Plains, located near Aksai Chin's largest river, the Karakash, which receives meltwater from a number of glaciers, crosses the Kunlun farther northwest, in

Pishan County Pishan County ( zh, s=皮山县) as the official romanized name, also transliterated from Uyghur as Guma County ( ug, گۇما ناھىيىسى; zh, s=固玛县), is a county within the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and is under the administ ...

and enters the Tarim Basin, where it serves as one of the main sources of water for Karakax and Hotan Counties. The western part of Aksai Chin region is drained by the Tarim River. The eastern part of the region contains several small

endorheic An endorheic basin (; also spelled endoreic basin or endorreic basin) is a drainage basin that normally retains water and allows no outflow to other external bodies of water, such as rivers or oceans, but drainage converges instead into lakes ...

basins. The largest of them is that of the

, which is fed by the river of the same name. The region as a whole receives little precipitation as the

Himalayas The Himalayas, or Himalaya (; ; ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the planet's highest peaks, including the very highest, Mount Everest. Over 100 ...

and the

Karakoram The Karakoram is a mountain range in Kashmir region spanning the borders of Pakistan, China, and India, with the northwest extremity of the range extending to Afghanistan and Tajikistan. Most of the Karakoram mountain range falls under the ...

block the rains from the Indian

monsoon A monsoon () is traditionally a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by corresponding changes in precipitation but is now used to describe seasonal changes in atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with annual latitudinal oscil ...

. The nearby

Trans-Karakoram Tract The Trans-Karakoram Tract (), also known as the Shaksgam Tract ( ur, , translit=Shaksgām), is an area of approximately north of the Karakoram watershed, including the Shaksgam valley. The tract is administered by China as part of its Taxkorgan ...

is also the subject of ongoing dispute between China and India in the

Kashmir dispute The Kashmir conflict is a territorial conflict over the Kashmir region, primarily between India and Pakistan, with China playing a third-party role. The conflict started after the partition of India in 1947 as both India and Pakistan claimed ...

Demographics and economics

Prior to the 1940s, the inhabitants of Aksai Chin were, for the most part, the occasional explorers, hunters, and nomads from India who passed through the area. Prior to European exploration in the 1860s, there were some jade mining operations on the Xinjiang side of Aksai Chin. They were abandoned by the time European explorers reached the area. In the 1860s to 1870s, in order to facilitate trade between the

Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a list of the physiographic regions of the world, physiographical region in United Nations geoscheme for Asia#Southern Asia, Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian O ...

and

, the British attempted to promote a caravan route via the western side of Aksai Chin as an alternative to the difficult and tariffed

. The route, referred to as the Chang Chenmo line after the starting point in

Chang Chenmo River Chang Chenmo River or Changchenmo River is a tributary of the Shyok River, part of the Indus River system. It is at the southern edge of the disputed Aksai Chin region and north of the Pangong Lake basin. The source of Chang Chenmo is near th ...

valley, was discussed in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...

in 1874. Unfortunately, in addition of being longer and higher elevation than Karakoram Pass, it also goes through the desolate desert of Aksai Chin. By 1890s, traders had mostly given up on this route. In the 1950s, India collected salt from various lakes in Aksai Chin to study the economic feasibility of

salt mining Salt mining extracts natural salt deposits from underground. The mined salt is usually in the form of halite (commonly known as rock salt), and extracted from evaporite formations. History Before the advent of the modern internal combustio ...

operations in the area. By the end of the 1950s, in addition to having constructed a road, numerous

PLA Ground Force The People's Liberation Army Ground Force (PLAGF; ) is the land-based service branch of the People's Liberation Army and the largest and oldest branch of the entire Chinese armed forces. The PLAGF can trace its lineage from 1927 as the Chine ...

outposts were constructed in a few locations, including at

Tianwendian Tianwendian () is the name of a border outpost and a military defence area of China in the northern Aksai Chin region under its administration (as part of Xinjiang). The region is roughly equivalent to the portion of Depsang Plains under Chinese ...

Kongka Pass The Kongka Pass or Kongka La () is a low mountain pass on the Line of Actual Control between India and China in eastern Ladakh. It lies on a spur of the Karakoram range that intrudes into the Chang Chenmo Valley adjacent to the disputed Aksa ...

Heweitan Heweitan () is the location of a Chinese border outpost in the region of Aksai Chin that is controlled by China (as part of Hotan County, Hotan Prefecture, Xinjiang) but disputed by India. According to the Chinese Ministry of National Defense, it ...

and

Tianshuihai Tianshuihai (), alternately spelled Tien Shui Hai, is a salt water lake in the disputed Aksai Chin region administered by China as part of the Xinjiang Autonomous Region (Hotan County, Hotan Prefecture), which is also claimed by India. The l ...

. The road was later upgraded to the

China National Highway 219 China National Highway 219 (G219; Chinese: '' Guódào219'') is a highway which runs along the entire western and southern border of the People's Republic of China, from Kom-Kanas Mongolian ethnic township in Xinjiang to Dongxing in Guangxi. ...

. In the modern day, there are a few businesses along the highway serving motorists. In the 2010s, geological surveys were conducted in the Western Kunlun region, which Aksai Chin is part of. Huoshaoyun, a major lead-zinc deposit, and numerous smaller deposits were discovered in the region. Huoshaoyun is a mountain located in Aksai Chin near the Tibetan border. The mining development for Huoshaoyun started in 2017.

Transportation

runs through Aksai Chin connecting

Lhatse County Lhatse County (also rendered as Liza County) is a county of Xigazê in the Tibet Autonomous Region. It was established in 1959, with Lhatse Town as the county seat. In 1968, Quxia Town became the county seat. Lhatse County, has a population of ...

(Lhazê, Lazi) and

in the

References

Bibliography

* * * * Sino-Indian Border Defenses Chushul Area (CIA, 1963)

External links

China and Kashmir
by Jabin T. Jacob, published i

special issue of ACDIS Swords and Ploughshares, Program in Arms Control, Disarmament, and International Security, University of Illinois, winter 2007–8.

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

Library Bibliographies and Web-Bibliographies list
Two maps of Kashmir
maps showing the Indian and Pakistani positions on the border. {{Regions and administrative territories of Kashmir China–India relations China–Pakistan relations Geography of Ladakh Geography of Tibet Geography of Xinjiang History of Ladakh History of the Republic of India Hotan Prefecture Ladakh Territorial disputes of China Territorial disputes of India China–India border