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, ...

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...

Simla Convention The Simla Convention, officially the Convention Between Great Britain, China, and Tibet,

. The line delimited the respective spheres of influence of the two countries in the eastern Himalayan region along

northeast India , native_name_lang = mni , settlement_type = , image_skyline = , image_alt = , image_caption = , motto = , image_map = Northeast india.png , ...

and northern

Burma Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...

(Myanmar), which were earlier undefined. The

Republic of China Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast ...

was not a party to the McMahon Line agreement, but the line was part of the overall boundary of Tibet defined in the Simla Convention, initialled by all three parties and later repudiated by the government of China. The Indian part of the Line currently serves as the ''de facto'' boundary between China and India, although its legal status is disputed by 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 ...

. The Burmese part of the Line was renegotiated by the People's Republic of China and Myanmar. The line is named after

Henry McMahon Sir Arthur Henry McMahon (28 November 1862 – 29 December 1949) was a British Indian Army officer and diplomat who served as the High Commissioner in Egypt from 1915 to 1917. He was also an administrator in British India and served twice as ...

, foreign secretary of

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...

and the chief British negotiator of the conference at Simla. The bilateral agreement between Tibet and Britain was signed by McMahon on behalf of the British government and Lonchen Shatra on behalf of the Tibetan government. It spans from the corner of

Bhutan Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is situated in the Eastern Himalayas, between China in the north and India in the south. A mountainous ...

to the Isu Razi Pass on the Burma border, largely along the crest of the

Himalaya 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 ...

s. The outcomes of the Simla Conference remained ambiguous for several decades because China did not sign the overall Convention but the British were hopeful of persuading the Chinese. The Convention and the McMahon's agreement were omitted in the 1928 edition of Aitchison's ''Treaties''. It was revived in 1935 by

Olaf Caroe Sir Olaf Kirkpatrick Kruuse Caroe, (15 November 1892 – 23 November 1981) was an administrator in British India, working for the Indian Civil Service and the Indian Political Service. He served as the Foreign Secretary to the Government of India ...

, then deputy foreign secretary of British India, who obtained London's permission to implement it as well as to publish a revised version of the 1928 Aitchison's ''Treaties''. India regards its interpretation of the McMahon Line as the legal national border, but China rejects the Simla Accord and the McMahon Line, contending that Tibet was not a sovereign state and therefore did not have the power to conclude treaties. Chinese maps show some of the territory south of the line as part of the

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 ...

, known as

South Tibet South Tibet is a claimed area by China with the literal translation of the Chinese term '' (), which may refer to different geographic areas: * The southern part of Tibet, covering the middle reaches of the Yarlung Tsangpo River Valley between ...

in China. Chinese forces briefly occupied this area during 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 and later withdrew. China does recognise a

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 ...

which closely approximates the McMahon Line in this part of its border with

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 ...

, according to a 1959 diplomatic note by Prime Minister

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 ...

. The

14th Dalai Lama The 14th Dalai Lama (spiritual name Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso, known as Tenzin Gyatso (Tibetan: བསྟན་འཛིན་རྒྱ་མཚོ་, Wylie: ''bsTan-'dzin rgya-mtsho''); né Lhamo Thondup), known as ...

did not originally recognise India's sovereignty over Arunachal Pradesh. As late as 2003, he said that "Arunachal Pradesh was actually part of Tibet". In January 2007, however, he said that both the Tibetan government and Britain recognized the McMahon Line in 1914. In June 2008, he explicitly recognized for the first time that "Arunachal Pradesh was a part of India under the agreement signed by Tibetan and British representatives".

Background

British Indian Empire 1909 Imperial Gazetteer of India

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...

expanded east of Bhutan in the early 19th century with the

First Anglo-Burmese War The First Anglo-Burmese War ( my, ပထမ အင်္ဂလိပ်-မြန်မာ စစ်; ; 5 March 1824 – 24 February 1826), also known as the First Burma War, was the first of three wars fought between the British and Burmese ...

. At the end of the war the

Brahmaputra The Brahmaputra is a trans-boundary river which flows through Tibet, northeast India, and Bangladesh. It is also known as the Yarlung Tsangpo in Tibetan, the Siang/Dihang River in Arunachali, Luit in Assamese, and Jamuna River in Bangla. It ...

valley of

Assam Assam (; ) is a state in northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . The state is bordered by Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh to the north; Nagaland and Manipur ...

came under its control and over the next few decades British India extended its direct administration over the region in stages. The thickly forested hill tracts surrounding the valley were inhabited by tribal people, who were not easily amenable to British administrative control. The British were content to leave them alone. In 1873, the British drew an "Inner Line" as an administrative line to inhibit their subjects from encroaching into the tribal territory within its control. The British boundary, also called the "Outer Line", was defined to mark the limits of British jurisdiction. But it was not significantly different from the Inner Line in this region. The British aimed to have peaceful neighbourly relations with the Himalayan tribes who lived beyond the Outer Line. : Quoting

Lord Curzon George Nathaniel Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston, (11 January 1859 – 20 March 1925), styled Lord Curzon of Kedleston between 1898 and 1911 and then Earl Curzon of Kedleston between 1911 and 1921, was a British Conservative statesman ...

, the Viceroy of India, from 1905: "We do not want Mr (J C) White or anybody else to present us with a North-east frontier problem or policy. There being no problem beyond that of remaining on peaceful and friendly terms with our neighbours and quietly developing our relations ... there is no occasion for a policy." However, British influence was nevertheless extended to many regions, through treaties, trade relations, and occasional punitive expeditions in response to "outrages" committed against British civilians. : "While the tribal hills were not inside the limits of British territory, yet it was felt that they fell within the sphere of British influence, and that the Indian Government was fully entitled to take what action it saw fit there to protect its interests. There seemed no need, however, before 1910 to have this situation confirmed by any international agreement." There is evidence of the British regarding the Assam Himalayan region as geographical part of India irrespective of political jurisdiction. Scholar Guyot-Réchard sees them as having extended "external sovereignty" over the Assam Himalayan tribes.

Forward policies of early 1900s

By 1900, the Chinese influence over Tibet had significantly weakened and the British became apprehensive that Tibet was about to fall into a Russian orbit. In an effort to preclude Russian influence over Tibet as well as to enforce their treaty rights, the British launched an expedition to Tibet in 1904, which resulted in a

Convention of Lhasa The Convention of Lhasa, officially the Convention Between Great Britain and Thibet, was a treaty signed in 1904 between Tibet and Great Britain, in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. It was signed following the British expedition to Tibet of 1903–1 ...

signed between Tibet and Britain.

Qing China The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu people, Manchu-led Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin (1616–1636), La ...

became apprehensive about British inroads into Tibet and responded with its own forward policy. This involved taking complete control over the southeastern

Kham Kham (; ) is one of the three traditional Tibetan regions, the others being Amdo in the northeast, and Ü-Tsang in central Tibet. The original residents of Kham are called Khampas (), and were governed locally by chieftains and monasteries. Kham ...

region of Tibet (also referred to as the "March Country"), through which passed the Chinese communications to Tibet. An assistant amban (imperial resident) was appointed for

Chamdo Chamdo, officially Qamdo () and also known in Chinese as Changdu, is a prefecture-level city in the eastern part of the Tibet Autonomous Region, China. Its seat is the town of Chengguan in Karuo District. Chamdo is Tibet's third largest city ...

in western Kham, who was to implement the new strategy. Over a period of three years, 1908–1911, the amban

Zhao Erfeng Zhao Erfeng (1845–1911), courtesy name Jihe, was a late Qing Dynasty official and Han Chinese bannerman, who belonged to the Plain Blue Banner. He was an assistant amban in Tibet at Chamdo in Kham (eastern Tibet). He was appointed in March ...

, implemented brutal policies of subjugation and sinification in the Kham region, for which he earned the nickname of "Zhao the butcher". Zhao Erfeng's campaigns entered the Tibetan districts adjoining the Assam Himalayan region such as

Zayul Zayul County ()
KNAB, retrieved 5 July 2021. Pomed (Bome County) and Pemako (Medog County). They also encroached into parts of the adjoining the tribal territory. This alarmed the British officials in the region, who advocated the extension of British jurisdiction into the tribal territory. The higher administration of British India was initially reluctant to concede these demands, but, by 1912, the Army General Staff had proposed drawing a boundary along the crest of Himalayas. The British appear to have been clear that they were only extending the political administration of their rule but not the geographical extent of India, which was taken to include the Assam Himalayan region. : Quoting the Secretary of State for India in 1913, "It should be observed that Tibet is nowhere coterminous with the settled districts of British India, but with a belt of country which, though ''geographically part of India'', politically is partly a no-man's land inhabited by aboriginal savages, partly the territories of states epal, Bhutan and Sikkim...." (emphasis added)

Tawang tract

Drawing the Line

In 1913, British officials met at

Simla Shimla (; ; also known as Simla, the official name until 1972) is the capital and the largest city of the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. In 1864, Shimla was declared as the summer capital of British India. After independence, the ...

, India to discuss Tibet's status.Maxwell, Neville
''India's China War''
, New York, Pantheon, 1970. The conference was attended by representatives of Britain, China, and Tibet. "Outer Tibet," covering approximately the same area as the modern "

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 ...

," would be under the administration of the

Dalai Lama Dalai Lama (, ; ) is a title given by the Tibetan people to the foremost spiritual leader of the Gelug or "Yellow Hat" school of Tibetan Buddhism, the newest and most dominant of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism. The 14th and current Dal ...

's government, under the "

suzerainty Suzerainty () is the rights and obligations of a person, state or other polity who controls the foreign policy and relations of a tributary state, while allowing the tributary state to have internal autonomy. While the subordinate party is cal ...

" of China. Suzerainty is an Asian political concept indicating limited authority over a dependent state. The final 3 July 1914 accord lacked any textual

boundary delimitation Boundary delimitation (or simply delimitation) is the drawing of boundaries, particularly of electoral precincts, Federated state, states, counties or other municipalities.

s or descriptions. Prescott, J. R. V., ''Map of Mainland Asia by Treaty'', Melbourne, Melbourne University Press, 1975, , pages 276–7 It made reference to a small scale map with very little detail, one that primarily showed lines separating China from "Inner Tibet" and "Inner Tibet" from "Outer Tibet." This map lacked any initials or signatures from the Chinese plenipotentiary Ivan Chen. Both drafts of this small scale map extend the identical red line symbol between "Inner Tibet" and China further to the southwest, approximating the entire route of the McMahon Line, and thus dead ending near Tawang at the Bhutan tripoint. However, neither draft labels "British India" or anything similar in the area that now constitutes

Arunachal Pradesh Arunachal Pradesh (, ) is a state in Northeastern India. It was formed from the erstwhile North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA) region, and became a state on 20 February 1987. It borders the states of Assam and Nagaland to the south. It shares int ...

. The far more detailed eight miles to the inch McMahon Line map of 24–25 March 1914 is signed only by the Tibetan and British representatives. This map and McMahon Line negotiations were both done without Chinese participation.Maxwell, Neville, ''India's China War'' New Delhi, Natraj Publishers, pages 48–9. After Beijing repudiated Simla, the British and Tibetan delegates attached a note denying China any privileges under the agreement and signed it as a bilateral accord.Goldstein 1989, pp. 48–75 British records show that the condition for the Tibetan government to accept the new border was that China must accept the Simla Convention. As Britain was not able to get an acceptance from China, Tibetans considered the McMahon line invalid.

British ambiguity (1915–1947)

Simla was initially rejected by the Government of India as incompatible with the 1907 Anglo-Russian Convention. C.U. Aitchison's ''A Collection of Treaties'', was published with a note stating that no binding agreement had been reached at Simla. The Anglo-Russian Convention was renounced by Russia and Britain jointly in 1921,UK relations with Tibet
but the McMahon Line was forgotten until 1935, when interest was revived by civil service officer

Olaf Caroe Sir Olaf Kirkpatrick Kruuse Caroe, (15 November 1892 – 23 November 1981) was an administrator in British India, working for the Indian Civil Service and the Indian Political Service. He served as the Foreign Secretary to the Government of India ...

. The

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

published a map showing the McMahon Line as the official boundary in 1937. In 1938, the British published the Simla Accord in Aitchison's ''Treaties''. A volume published earlier was recalled from libraries and replaced with a volume that includes the Simla Accord together with an editor's note stating that Tibet and Britain, but not China, accepted the agreement as binding. The replacement volume has a false 1929 publication date. In April 1938, a small British force led by Captain G. S. Lightfoot arrived in Tawang and informed the monastery the district was now Indian territory. The Tibetan government protested and its authority was restored after Lightfoot's brief stay. The district remained in Tibetan hands until 1951. However, Lhasa raised no objection to British activity in other sectors of the McMahon Line. In 1944, NEFT established direct administrative control for the entire area it was assigned, although Tibet soon regained authority in Tawang.

India–China boundary dispute

North-East Frontier in 1947 Political Map of India

When India and Pakistan became independent in 1947 through

Partition of India The Partition of British India in 1947 was the Partition (politics), change of political borders and the division of other assets that accompanied the dissolution of the British Raj in South Asia and the creation of two independent dominions: ...

, all the territories that had been part of British India had been transferred to the two new countries, causing the prevailing boundaries of British India to be inherited. The maps of the period showed the McMahon Line as the boundary of India in the northeast. In October 1947, the Tibetan government wrote a note to the Government of India asking for a "return" of the territories that the British had allegedly occupied from Tibet. Among these were listed "Sayul ayuland Walong and in direction of Pemakoe, Lonag, Lopa, Mon, Bhutan, Sikkim, Darjeeling and others on this side of river Ganges". Similar claims were apparently made against China as well. The Indian government did not take the claims seriously and asked instead to be treated on par with the former British Indian government. After a few months, the Tibetans agreed to the proposal. In Beijing, the Communist Party came to power in 1949 and declared its intention to "liberate" Tibet. India objected at first, but eventually acquiesced to Chinese claims over Tibet and recognised China as the suzerain power. In the 1950s, when India-China relations were cordial and the boundary dispute quiet, the Indian government under 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 ...

promoted the slogan ''Hindi-Chini bhai-bhai.'' (Indians and Chinese are brothers). Nehru maintained his 1950 statement that he would not accept negotiations if China brought the boundary dispute up, hoping that "China would accept the ''

fait accompli Many words in the English vocabulary are of French origin, most coming from the Anglo-Norman spoken by the upper classes in England for several hundred years after the Norman Conquest, before the language settled into what became Modern Engli ...

''. In 1954, India renamed the disputed area the

North East Frontier Agency The North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA), originally known as the North-East Frontier Tracts (NEFT), was one of the political divisions in British India, and later the Republic of India until 20 January 1972, when it became the Union Territory of ...

. India acknowledged that Tibet was a part of China and gave up its extraterritorial rights in Tibet inherited from the British in a treaty concluded in April 1954. Nehru later claimed that because China did not bring up the border issue at the 1954 conference, the issue was settled. But the only border India had delineated before the conference was the McMahon Line. Several months after the conference, Nehru ordered maps of India published that showed expansive Indian territorial claims as definite boundaries, notably in

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 the ...

. In the NEFA sector, the new maps gave the hill crest as the boundary, although in some places this line is slightly north of the McMahon Line. The failure of the

1959 Tibetan uprising The 1959 Tibetan uprising (also known by other names) began on 10 March 1959, when a revolt erupted in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, which had been under the effective control of the People's Republic of China since the Seventeen Point Agreemen ...

and the

14th Dalai Lama The 14th Dalai Lama (spiritual name Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso, known as Tenzin Gyatso (Tibetan: བསྟན་འཛིན་རྒྱ་མཚོ་, Wylie: ''bsTan-'dzin rgya-mtsho''); né Lhamo Thondup), known as ...

's arrival in India in March led Indian parliamentarians to censure Nehru for not securing a commitment from China to respect the McMahon Line. Additionally, the Indian press started openly advocating

Tibetan independence The Tibetan Independence Movement () is the political movement advocating for the separation and independence of Tibet from the People's Republic of China. It is principally led by the Tibetan diaspora in countries like India and the United Stat ...

, with anti-Chinese sentiment steadily rising throughout Indian society due to rising sympathy for the Tibetans. For example, in 1959,

Jayaprakash Narayan Jayaprakash Narayan (; 11 October 1902 – 8 October 1979), popularly referred to as JP or ''Lok Nayak'' (Hindi for "People's leader"), was an Indian independence activist, theorist, socialist and political leader. He is remembered for le ...

, one of India's foremost Gandhians, stated that, "Tibet may be a theocratic state rather than a secular state and backward economically and socially, but no nation has the right to impose progress, whatever that may mean, upon another nation."* Nehru, seeking to quickly assert sovereignty in response, established "as many military posts along the frontier as possible", unannounced and against the advice of his staff. On discovering the posts, and already suspicious from the ruminations of the Indian press, Chinese leaders began to suspect that Nehru had designs on the region. In August 1959, Chinese troops captured a new Indian military outpost at Longju on the Tsari Chu (the main tributary, from the north, of the Subansiri River in Arunachal Pradesh.) Longju was and is just north of the McMahon Line according to the inside back cover map in Maxwell and according to notable Indian mountaineer

Harish Kapadia Harish Kapadia (born 11 July 1945) is a Himalayan mountaineer, author and long-time editor of the '' Himalayan Journal'' from India. He has been awarded the Patron's Medal of the Royal Geographical Society, the Life Time Achievement Award fo ...

who explored the area in 2005. His published map and text locate Longju a kilometre or two on the China side of the McMahon Line "near the Chinese garrison town of Migyitun" (which is now quite sizeable, at 28-39-40 north latitude, over four kilometres north of the line.) (The rarely reliable coordinates in the Geonames database (

National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) is a combat support agency within the United States Department of Defense whose primary mission is collecting, analyzing, and distributing geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) in support of national ...

) incorrectly place "Longju" in snow and ice 10 kilometres away from the river at over 12,000 feet in elevation.) In a letter to Nehru dated 24 October 1959,

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 ...

proposed that India and China each withdraw their forces 20 kilometres from 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) Shortly afterwards, Zhou defined this line as "the so-called McMahon Line in the east and the line up to which each side exercises actual control in the west". In November 1961, Nehru formally adopted the "Forward Policy" of setting up military outposts in disputed areas, including 43 outposts north of Zhou's LAC. On 8 September 1962, a Chinese unit attacked an Indian post at Dhola in the

Namka Chu Namka Chu or Kejielang River () is a tributary of Nyamjang Chu that flows along the disputed border between India and China. The Indian side of the border is the Tawang district in Arunachal Pradesh. The Tibetan side of the border is in Tsona ...

valley immediately south of the Thag La Ridge, seven kilometres north of the McMahon Line according to the map on page 360 of Maxwell. On 20 October China launched a major attack across the McMahon Line as well as another attack further north. 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 ...

which followed was a national humiliation for India, with China quickly advancing from the McMahon Line to Rupa and then Chaku (65 km southeast of

Tawang Tawang is a town and administrative headquarter of Tawang district in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. The town was once the capital of the Tawang Tract, which is now divided into the Tawang district and the West Kameng district. Tawan ...

) in NEFA's extreme western portion, and in the NEFA's extreme eastern tip advancing to Walong.Maxwell, Neville
''India's China War''
, pp. 408–9, New York, Pantheon, 1970. The Soviet Union, United States, and Great Britain pledged military aid to India. China then withdrew to the McMahon Line and

repatriate Repatriation is the process of returning a thing or a person to its country of origin or citizenship. The term may refer to non-human entities, such as converting a foreign currency into the currency of one's own country, as well as to the pro ...

d the Indian

prisoners of war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held Captivity, captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold priso ...

(1963). The legacy of the border remains significant especially in India where the government sought to explain its defeat by blaming it on being caught by surprise. NEFA was renamed

Arunachal Pradesh Arunachal Pradesh (, ) is a state in Northeastern India. It was formed from the erstwhile North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA) region, and became a state on 20 February 1987. It borders the states of Assam and Nagaland to the south. It shares int ...

in 1972—Chinese maps refer to the area as

South Tibet South Tibet is a claimed area by China with the literal translation of the Chinese term '' (), which may refer to different geographic areas: * The southern part of Tibet, covering the middle reaches of the Yarlung Tsangpo River Valley between ...

. In 1981, Chinese leader

Deng Xiaoping Deng Xiaoping (22 August 1904 – 19 February 1997) was a Chinese revolutionary leader, military commander and statesman who served as the paramount leader of the People's Republic of China (PRC) from December 1978 to November 1989. After CC ...

offered India a "package settlement" of the border issue. Eight rounds of talks followed, but there was no agreement. In 1984, India Intelligence Bureau personnel in the

Tawang Tawang is a town and administrative headquarter of Tawang district in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. The town was once the capital of the Tawang Tract, which is now divided into the Tawang district and the West Kameng district. Tawan ...

region set up an observation post in the Sumdorong Chu Valley just south of the highest hill crest, but three kilometres north of the McMahon Line (the straight line portion extending east from Bhutan for 30 miles). The IB left the area before winter. In 1986, China deployed troops in the valley before an Indian team arrived.Sultan Shahin
Vajpayee claps with one hand on border dispute
Asia Times Online, 1 August 2003 This information created a national uproar when it was revealed to the Indian public. In October 1986, Deng threatened to "teach India a lesson". The

Indian Army The Indian Army is the land-based branch and the largest component of the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India is the Supreme Commander of the Indian Army, and its professional head is the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), who is a four- ...

airlifted a task force to the valley. The confrontation was defused in May 1987 though, as clearly visible on Google Earth, both armies have remained and recent construction of roads and facilities are visible.Natarajan, V.
"The Sumdorong Chu Incident"
, ''Bharat Rakshak Monitor'', Nov.-Dec. 2000, 3 (3) The Indian Prime Minister

Rajiv Gandhi Rajiv Gandhi (; 20 August 1944 – 21 May 1991) was an Indian politician who served as the sixth prime minister of India from 1984 to 1989. He took office after the 1984 assassination of his mother, then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, to beco ...

visited China in 1988 and agreed to a joint working group on boundary issues which has made little apparent positive progress. A 1993 Sino-Indian agreement set up a group to define the LAC; this group has likewise made no progress. A 1996 Sino-Indian agreement set up "confidence-building measures" to avoid border clashes. Although there have been frequent incidents where one state has charged the other with incursions, causing tense encounters along the McMahon Line following India's nuclear test in 1998 and continuing to the present, both sides generally attribute these to disagreements of less than a kilometre as to the exact location of the LAC.

Border crossings

Maps

File:McMahon Line Simla Accord Treaty 1914 Map1.jpg, McMahon Line 1914, Map 1 File:McMahon Line Simla Accord Treaty 1914 Map2.jpg, McMahon Line 1914, Map 2 File:Simla Accord Treaty 1914 Map2.jpg, Simla Convention map signed in 1914 (facsimile) File:Simla Convention map by Hugh Richardson.jpg, Simla Convention map reproduced by Hugh Richardson

Background

Forward policies of early 1900s

Tawang tract

Drawing the Line

British ambiguity (1915–1947)

India–China boundary dispute

Border crossings

Maps

See also

Notes

References

Citations

Sources

Further reading