Lanak La () or Lanak Pass (; hi, लानक दर्रा) is a mountain pass in the disputed

Aksai Chin Aksai Chin is a region administered by China as part of Hotan County, Hotan Prefecture, Xinjiang and Rutog County, Ngari Prefecture, Tibet. It is claimed by India to be a part of its Leh District, Ladakh Union Territory. It is a part of t ...

region, administered by China as part of the

Tibet Autonomous Region The Tibet Autonomous Region or Xizang Autonomous Region, often shortened to Tibet or Xizang, is a province-level autonomous region of the People's Republic of China in Southwest China. It was overlayed on the traditional Tibetan regions of � ...

. It is claimed by India as its border pass.

History

Lanak La had been a well-established frontier point between Ladakh and Tibet, as confirmed by travellers from William Moorcroft in 1820 onwards. Several travellers wrote in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that the traditional boundary between India and Tibet was at Lanak La. They also state that the border was accepted by both sides. There are substantial Kashmiri Government records for the area of the Chang Chenmo valley up to the Lanak pass. In addition to the revenue records, 1908 Ladakh Settlement Report, reports of several survey teams, the Jammu and Kashmir Game Preservation Act of 1951, there are Kashmiri documents relating to the construction and maintenance of trade routes, rest houses, and storehouses in the Chang Chenmo valley. All of them placed the entire valley up to the Lanak Pass within Ladakh.

Chinese claims

Chinese claim lines in Ladakh - map by CIA

Chinese maps also recognised Lanak La as the boundary till 1951. In 1956, 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 ...

published what appears to be its first self-defined map, in which Kongka Pass was marked as the boundary. There was no Chinese presence in the area of Lanak La till June 1958, when an Indian patrol party had gone up to it along the Changchenmo Valley. There was an Indian flag planted there until 1956. In the following year, Chinese troops had infiltrated into the Changchenmo Valley. In October 1959, as an Indian border patrol party was attempting to set up posts in the vicinity of the Kongka Pass, they were ambushed by Chinese troops, killing some of them and taking others prisoner. Some western scholars such as

Larry Wortzel Larry M. Wortzel (born 1947) served nine terms as a commissioner on the United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission of the United States Congress. A 32-year military veteran, he was a U.S. Army colonel, director of the Strategic St ...

and Allen S. Whiting appear to endorse the Chinese claim that Kongka Pass was the "traditional" boundary of Tibet. Other scholars however point out the Chinese inconsistencies.

Historical maps

File:The great plateau; being an account of exploration in Central Tibet, 1903, and of the Gartok expedition, 1904-1905 (1905) (14776461552).jpg, Map by

Cecil Rawling Brigadier-General Cecil Godfrey Rawling, (16 February 1870 – 28 October 1917) was a British soldier, explorer and author whose expeditions to Tibet and Dutch New Guinea brought acclaim from the Royal Geographical Society and awards from the ...

, showing Lanak La on the boundary in inset map (1905) File:STANFORD(1917) p61 PLATE19. SINKIANG (14597194848).jpg, Map including Lanak La ( Stanford, 1917) File:NI-44-06 Lungmu Co, China.jpg, Map including Lanak La ( DMA, 1989) File:Aksai detail.png, Map including Lanak La (labeled as ''La-na-k'o Shan-k'ou'',

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

, 2013)

References

Bibliography

External links