Historical Introduction: the Limits of Empries
(i) The Western Sector
(ii) The McMahon Line
Part I: Collision Course
(i) The Course is Set
(ii) Evasive Action
Part II: The Forward Policy
Part III: The View from Peking
Part IV: The Border War
(i) The Ridge and the River
(ii) Between Two Passes
Part V: Ceasefire

Map: the disputed boundaries and Aksai Chin area
 

The disputed territories between China and India are located at a no-man’s land, where nothing grows and no one lives, on high altitude Himalayas, one of the most barren regions of the world. For centuries, the Himalayas was the focal point of military and political maneuvers between the three empires, the Russians in the north, the British on the subcontinent and the Chinese over the other side of the Himalayas. A constant and basic British aim was to keep the Russians as far as possible from the plains of India. The British and Russians made Afghanistan to play as buffer between them to avoid collision, but their attempts to make China as a buffer failed as the Chinese refused to cooperate. In 1846, after the British took Kashmir and set it up as the northern frontier, they tried to demarcate a boundary with Tibet at Ladakh, which lay in the valley of the upper Indus at an altitude of twelve thousand feet or more. It had been part of Tibet up to the tenth century, when it became an independent kingdom. In the sixteenth century, it became a tributary state of the Mongol Empire, and in the nineteen century, it was regarded as part of Tibet again. In 1846, since neither the Chinese nor Tibetans cooperated with Britain, no demarcation of the Tibet-Ladakh boundary took place. In 1846 and 1847, the British commissioners drew boundaries in north of the Pangong Lake and stopped at the Karakoram Pass but could not correctly define the northwest boundaries of Tibet. Aksai Chin, which became the heart of contention between India and China a century later, lay between the Lake and the Pass. At 17,000 feet elevation, the desolation of Aksai Chin had no human importance other than an ancient trade route that crossed over it, providing a brief pass during summer for caravans of yaks from Sinkiang to Tibet that carried silk, jade, hemp, salt or wool.

By the 1860s, the Russians forced China to sign the treaties of Aigun and Peking. China lost a great tract of territory in Central Asia to Russia, which took all the north of the Amur River and east of its tributary, cutting off China from the Sea of Japan. China decided not to negotiate boundary settlements from a weak position, and persisted with this approach until the middle of the 1950s. In early 1880s, China and India agreed the Karakoram Pass as the fixed point of boundary, while leaving both sides of the pass indefinite. In the mid-1890s, China claimed Aksai Chin as its territory, and voiced the claim to Macartney in 1896, who drew part of the British boundary in the Himalayas. Macartney presented the claim to the British who agreed with his comment that part of Aksai Chin was in China and part in the British territory. Meanwhile, the forward school of British strategist in London suggested that the British should not only include the whole of Aksai Chin, but also all the territory given to Kashmir in 1865. In 1899, however, the British proposed a boundary demarcation with the Macartney-MacDonald line, which gave China the whole of the Karakash Valley, and almost all of Aksai Chin proper while pushing the British boundary forward on the Karakoram range, but China never replied to the proposal. By the first decade of the twentieth century, the British adhered to the 1899 proposal and aimed at making Aksai Chin as part of Tibet, rather than Sinkiang. In 1911, the collapse of the Chinese power in central Asia prompted the British to revise its objective of keeping Russia away from the plains of India. The British had long expected the Russian annexation of Sinkiang. The forward school of strategist recommended to place Aksai Chin outside Russia but within British territory. The London Government ignored the recommendation, and held to the 1899 proposal and in the Simla Convention in 1914 still placed Aksai Chin as part of Tibet. Up until the end of British rule, Britain had never attempted to exert authority on Aksai Chin or establish posts in it.

For the first decade of the twentieth century, Britain attempted to establish exclusive influence over Tibet. When the British first arrived, Nepal, Sikkim, and Bhutan were all in various degrees of dependence upon or allegiance to China. Nepal was created by a Hindu hill-people invading Tibet in the eighteen century. In 1792, the Chinese troops defeated their invasion of Tibet and left Nepal a tributary of China. Lhasa took Sikkim as a Tibetan dependency, and periodically asserted suzerainty over Bhutan. The British considered the Tibetan, and indirectly the Chinese, dominance as a challenge to its rule. In the nineteenth century, Britain achieved the reversal of the allegiance of the Himalayan states by converting Nepal, Sikkim, and Bhutan as a chain of protectorates. With that, the British were content comfortably with their boundary beneath the Himalayan foothills.

Map: the disputed boundaries and Aksai Chin area.

(ii) The McMahon Line

In 1911-12, the Chinese power in Tibet suddenly collapsed. The British decided that it was in their strategic and political interest to exclude effective Chinese power from Tibet. In 1913, British convoked a conference at Simla which was aimed at making Tibet a buffer state between Britain and China, like the buffer effect to keep the Russians away. McMahon, the Foreign Secretary of the Indian government, led the British delegation to attend the Simla Conference. The British made open effort to make China accept a division of Tibet into Inner and Outer Tibet, as the agreement made by China and Russia in the case of Mongolia. China would have suzerainty over the whole of Tibet, but would have no administrative rights in Outer Tibet, thereby keeping back from the borders of India. The coercive diplomatic methods of Britain brought the weak and unwilling China to the conference. The Chinese representatives stressed the paramount importance of Tibet and resisted its zonal division, keenly aware of the British effort to separate Tibet or at least a great part of it from China. In April 1914, McMahon induced the Chinese official, Ivan Chen, to initiate a draft treaty, but the Chinese government repudiated the unauthorized compliance immediately. McMahon presented the draft to the British, which plainly cancelled its validity. In July, the conference was closed without Chinese signing the convention. London had instructed McMahon all along not to sign bilaterally with Tibetans if China refused, but McMahon proceeded to sign with the Tibetan representative while Ivan Chen was sent to the next room. Chen was not told of what was being signed and the declaration was kept as secret for many years. Although all this provided much fertile ground for international lawyers, the results of the conference were clear, and was accepted as such by the British Government at the time: the Simla Conference produced no agreement to which the government of China was a party. McMahon admitted this himself: "It is with great regret that I leave India without have secured the formal adherence of the Chinese Government to a Tripartite Agreement." China had emphatically and repeatedly denied that Tibet enjoyed sovereign identity and that China would not recognize any bilateral agreement between Tibet and Britain.

A covert byproduct of the Simla Conference was the McMahon Line. It came as a result of the secret discussions, without the Chinese participation or knowledge, which took place in Delhi between the British and the Tibetans in February and March of 1914. These meetings breached not only the Anglo-Chinese Convention of 1906, in which Britain was to "engage not to annex Tibetan territory," but also of the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907, in which Britain was to engage "not to enter into negotiations with Tibet except through the intermediary of the Chinese Government." The British moved the line progressively to the north of Tawang, which was still short of the goal proposed by the Chief of the General Staff to annex some two thousand square miles of Tibetan territory. McMahon Line essentially pushed the boundary northward about sixty miles, and moved it from the foothills to the crest line of the Assam Himalayas. In doing so, McMahon accomplished for British India what other officials attempted twenty years ago on the Afghan frontier, and brought the tribal no-man land under nominal British sovereignty. China forcefully repudiated the convention and denied the validity of the map, and the Tibetans in practice ignored the Line. In 1919, the British tried once more to induce China to resume the tripartite negotiations. After China refused, the British began providing military aid to Tibetans, including arms, ammunitions, and training in their use. When the British relinquished the Indian Empire in 1947, they started to translate the McMahon Line from the maps as the effective northwest boundary of India, despite that the Line appeared on its maps only ten years before. As the British departed, the new Indian government assured that they would complete their work: "If anything, they intended to pursue an even more forward policy than had the British."

With their independence on August 14, 1947, the status of the boundaries of India changed from the pawns for the British to play with their imperial rivals, to become the cell walls of a new national identity. The Indian government followed closely the footsteps of the British colonists. In 1949, India sent troops during an uprising in Sikkim and brought the state as a protectorate. In the same year, India signed a treaty to take over Britain’s rights to guide Bhutan in foreign affairs. In 1950, India increased its control over Nepal and consolidated the "chain of protectorates" in the Himalayan states. Towards Tibet, the new Indian Government followed the British mission in encouraging Tibetan separatism. In its strategic and geopolitical thinking inherited from the British, the Indian Government continued the exclusion of China’s authority from Tibet and attempted to increase the Indian influence. The Tibetans hoped that the transfer of British power to the Indians would give them an opportunity to regain the territory that British took from them a century before. In October 1947, they formally requested India to return their territory from Ladakh to Assam, and including Sikkim. The Indians in return simply asked Tibet to continue the relationship on the basis of the previous British Government.

The Indian plan to continue with British policy was met with major challenges. The absence of the British power and emergence of a strong central authority with the establishment of the Communist China reversed the power balance. With the announcement of Chinese military marching into Tibet, India reacted sharply and threatened that it would support the position of the Nationalist rump on Formosa rather than the People’s Republic of China in the United Nations. A few days later, Chinese army entered Tibet, and Indian government headed by the Prime Minister Nehru issued an angry protest, deploring the "invasion" of Tibet. China replied sharply: "Tibet is an integral part of China, and the problem of Tibet is entirely a domestic problem of China," and warned that it would not tolerate foreign interference. In response to India’s avowal that the use of military would injure China’s reputation in the world, China stated that any governments that interfere with China’s sovereign rights in Tibet as a pretext to obstruct China’s membership in the UN would further demonstrate their hostility. Indian government changed the China’s "sovereignty" to "suzerainty" over Tibet and hoped that China would leave domestic affairs to Tibetans like what Indians did in Bhutan. China viewed the Indian desire to have semi-independence in Tibet as a preliminary attempt to draw Tibet under Indian influence, an inference neither far-fetched nor unfair. When China later established diplomatic relations with Nepal, China became an open competitor in what India regarded as diplomatic reserve. In 1950, after its failed attempt to have some degrees of Tibetan independence and buffer, the Indian government adopted a pragmatic policy of pursuing friendship with China, a central element in India’s foreign policy formulated by Nehru. As China confirmed its authority in Tibet, India did not support the appeal of Tibet to the UN.

The presence of Chinese power in the northern borders alarmed the political rights in India, who feared the Communist China the most. The Opposition criticized the Tibet policy of Nehru and the Government, and accused them of complacency and vacillation. Fundamental reappraisal of China policy was proposed, and India was to deploy forces to guard potentially disputed areas. While maintaining the policy of friendship to China and advocating on behalf of China in the United Nations, Nehru ordered Indian administration to extend at the tribal belt beneath the McMahon Line through the North-East Frontier Agency. In a year, twenty posts were extended into NEFA, and several hundreds porters and escorts moved into Tawang without challenging the Tibetan administration there. The Indian government decided not to modify McMahon Line and push their boundary up from Se La to the McMahon Line. In response to the protests of the Tibetan authorities in Lhasa, the Indian officials stated that India was taking over Tawang. The Tibetans protested again that they "deeply regret and absolutely cannot accept’ what the Indian government "seizing as its own what did not belong to it." The Indian government ignored the protests, forced the Tibetan administration out, and stayed on in Tawang, as the British did in Dirang Dzong in 1944. With this, the Indian government overcame the "dangerous wedge" of Tibetan/Chinese territory that so concerned the British General Staff. Having their verbal resistance ignored, the Tibetans took a toll in blood the Indian extension. One of the Tibetan tribes warmly welcomed a strong patrol comprising seventy-four riflemen and civilians from Assam. The Tibetans feasted and gave them shelter, and then massacred all but one. Nehru ordered an overwhelming show of force, rather than burning the villages or imprisoning the Tibetans as would have done by the British. The McMahon Line was formally transported from the maps to the ground, and was set as the de facto northeast boundary of India. To deal with China about the repudiated McMahon Line, the British provided part of the solution, that India would simply treat McMahon Line as the boundary and leave it to China to protest. Indian Government decided to push the boundary settlement from diplomacy to an absolutist approach, that "India would refuse to open the question to negotiation when or if the Chinese did raise it." In November 1950, the Government unilaterally declared the McMahon Line as their boundary, "map or no map… we will not allow anybody to come across that boundary," as Nehru declared.

In September 1951, the Chinese Prime Minister Chou En-lai, proposed to the Indian ambassador to stabilize the Tibetan frontier through discussions between India, China and Nepal, confirming that China had decided to accept the McMahon Line as India’s northwest boundary. But India passed the opportunity to formalize the McMahon Line. In July 1952, when China proposed to settle "pending problems" related to commercial intercourse and trade in Tibet, the boundary question was not raised. There was doubt in India about the decision not to raise the boundary questions with China. But it was decided that McMahon Line might be the "scars left by Britain in the course of her aggression against China" and that to "seek to heal or ease this scar" was not in the liking or interest of India. The Indian government was fully aware that China, "never having accepted … as the frontier between Tibet and us," would not regard the McMahon Line as the settled boundary. They decided to treat the Line as the boundary and leave it for China to either agree or ignore the statement. In 1954, when the Indian delegation went to negotiate trade and intercourse in Tibet, they even went out of their way to avoid the subject. The agreement stated the famous "Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence," or "Panch Sheel" as Indians called them, the first of which was "mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty." China’s sovereignty in Tibet was unequivocally recognized, and the British attempts and latter Indian attempts to treat Tibet as independent were formally buried. India formed a crucial China policy that India would make clear and treat what India regarded as proper boundary, leaving it to China to protest, and then "refuse to reopen the question." Based on the first principal of the Panch Sheel, China would have not choice but to accept the boundary. It was understood, based on Chinese acquiescence in the 1951 Indian takeover of Tawang, that China was going to accept the McMahon Line. The decision not to renegotiate transformed a boundary problem into a dispute, which then progressed into a border war. China maintained that parts of the boundaries were undetermined and to be negotiated. Indians held that the boundaries were already determined and decided to establish checkposts all along them.

In 1954, the official Indian map made sharp changes in the northern boundaries. The British earlier made Aksai Chin a strategic area to keep Russian advance from India, but never proposed it as a boundary and reflected in the extension of administration, which was far beyond the British capacity. However, India categorically claimed Aksai Chin as part of the northern border and Nehru ruled it as "a firm and definite one which was not open to discussion with anybody." Thus far, the claim remained on the official map change and not reflected on the ground. The Indian posts were set in Ladakh, far short of Aksai Chin. In September 1954, it was decided that border posts should be advanced as far as possible into the disputed areas. The forward move into the middle sector brought prompt Chinese protests that Indian troops had intruded into Chinese territory and violated the principles of non-aggression and friendly co-existence. The Indian government responded that the territory belonged to India and asked China to keep the personnel out. The Tibetans had so far controlled the middle sectors of the boundary passes, and an annual race occurred to get to the high point before the other side. The Indian government accused China of aggression, while in fact the two border forces came into contact as a result of the forward move made by the Indians, a fact that Nehru confirmed to the Parliament years later. The reversed accusation by India, that it was China who "probe forward," took place before the ink was dry on the Panch Sheel agreement and was universally believed.

Aksai Chin was easily accessible from the Chinese side as an ancient trade route wedging from Sinkiang across the plateau to Tibet. It was more difficult for the Indians to reach, as it led to nowhere for them. Through the first half of the 1950s, China used the Aksai Chin route to supply western Tibet and built a total length of seven hundred and fifty miles of road, of which one hundred and twelve crossed the territory claimed by India. By 1958, on the east, the Indians completed the unfinished work left by the British in claiming the McMahon Line as boundary and asserting administration over the tribal territory from Tawang, which was renamed as North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA) listed as Indian territory. On the west, the road built across Aksai Chin had become the main traffic artery between Sinkiang and Tibet. The two sides left each other alone, and the boundary problem went faraway from resolving itself.

From 1950 on, Nehru had no peers in the Indian government and acted as the Prime Minister, Defense Minister, and took on the presidency of the Congress Party, and retained the portfolio of External Affairs until his death in 1964. Nehru often made crucial foreign policy decisions without the awareness of the committees or the Cabinet. One Finance Minister resigned in 1956 after complaining Nehru’s "cavalier and unconstitutional" methods. Nehru visited China in 1939 and again in 1954, and was much impressed by the "terrifying strength," the energy and discipline that the Chinese demonstrated in their nation building. The domestic oppositions attacked Nehru for his China policy as appeasement. But in the middle 1950s, the resentment at the assertion of Chinese authority in Tibet died down and was replaced with the popular policy of Hindee Chinee bhai-bhai, or India-China brotherhood. In 1956, Chou En-lai returned Nehru’s visit and was cheered by large crowds. Chou raised the subjects of the McMahon Line. Nehru warned Chou that the Burmese were displeased about the two big neighbors and suggested China to take steps to remove Burma’s misgivings. Chou told Nehru that China had accepted the McMahon Line, albeit established by the British imperialists as unfair, as the boundary with Burma because of the friendly relations between China, India and other countries concerned. Chou reaffirmed that the Chinese Government approached the alignment established by former imperialist neighbors as effective boundary, including the Sino-Russian boundary on the Ussuri and Amur Rivers. The Indians made the McMahon Line as the de facto boundary only five years ago, but China treated the "accomplished fact" as effective boundary. This was the only practical way for China to go on without creating intractable and poisonous disputes with every neighbor. However, China would not simply confirm the McMahon Line that had no treaty basis, but was prepared to accept the alignment in negotiation with India.

In October 1958, after discovering the Aksai Chin road, the Indian Government claimed that the territory had been "part of the Ladakh region of India for centuries." India expressed "surprise and regret" to Peking that the Chinese government constructed "a road through indisputably Indian territory without first obtaining the permission of the Government of India." The note further inquired of a missing Indian patrol. China counter complained that an Indian armed personnel was detained for having intruded into Chinese territory, and asked India to comply with the five principles of peaceful co-existence. With conflict of claims over Aksai China came into open, the Indian Government replied that it was "a matter in dispute," the only time it conceded of the disputed nature of the area before reversing its position in a few weeks. Chinese maps continued to show the Sino-Indian border along the foothills and had the whole of Aksai Chin in China. China expected to discuss the boundary before confirming the alignment. But New Delhi suspected the rational approach as an alarm that China was to advance territorial claims, and the distrust soon became resentful hostility. In December 1958, Nehru wrote Chou En-lai a friendly letter expressing that India had been "under the impression that there were no border disputes" during Chou’s visit in 1956. Chou En-lai replied with equal affability stating that "the Sino-Indian boundary has never been formally delimited" and that "historically no treaty or agreement on the Sino-Indian boundary has ever been concluded" between the Chinese and Indians Governments. Chou En-lai stated that there were border disputes and suggested settling by mutual consultation and joint survey. As Nehru was categorical about the entire boundary, Chou was categorical about Aksai Chin as it "has always been under Chinese jurisdiction" and that the Chinese guards have continually patrolled it. Chou further raised the illegality of the McMahon Line as the product of the British policy of aggression against the Tibetan Region of China, but stated that, in light of the friendly relations China had with India and Burma, China would accept the McMahon alignment as the boundary. Chou En-lai proposed the maintenance of the status quo before the boundary was formally settled. Nehru rejected Chou’s proposal and suggested China to evacuate from Aksai Chin and made it an absolute precondition for discussion of the borders. The Indian Government did not take as adamant position as in negotiations with Pakistan over Kashmir.

In 1959, the Tibetan armed uprising failed in Lhasa and the Dalai Lama fled through the old trade route across the McMahon Line to Tawang, where Indian Government took him under the wing. The Dalai Lama later made an issue of the legality of the McMahon Line, suggesting that if India denied the sovereign status to Tibet, it was also denying the validity of the Simla Convention and the validity of the McMahon Line. There was general sympathy for Tibetans, especially the Dalai Lama in the Indian political class. The latent suspicion of China was revived and the diffidence over China’s takeover of Tibet in 1950 sharpened. Peking complained that Kalimpong (the terminus of the trade route to India through the Chumbi Valley), which China declared as the commanding center for the armed rebelling, was a nest of spies and was used as a base to instigate resistance against China. Aside from the activities of émigrés and American and Kuomintang agents, there was evidence that the Indians played a more active role for Tibetan independence. The Chinese National People’s Congress made angry references to the "Indian reactionaries" for giving aid and comfort to the rebellious feudal forces, working "in the footsteps of the British imperialists, and harboring expansionist ambitions towards Tibet." The old suspicions were thus revived on both sides.

Like Nehru, the Chinese Government recognized that good relations were in its best long-term interests, and the Chinese Ambassador conveyed the concern to the Indian Foreign Secretary: "China will not be so foolish as to antagonize the United States in the east and again to antagonize India in the west." The Ambassador stated that the outcry of Tibetan rebellion in India overcastted dark clouds over Sino-Indian relations and that it would "speedily disperse." The statements expressed urgency and directness, but were undiplomatic. A week later, the Chinese Ambassador was called to the Ministry and was rebuked for having used "discourteous and unbecoming language." He was told that India treated all countries as friends "in consonance with India’s past background and culture and Mahatma Gandhi’s teachings." The diplomatic exchange was coupled with stronger presence of Chinese troops on the McMahon Line to prevent the Tibetan rebels from crossing. On the other side, the Indians also pushed their outposts right up to and over the McMahon Line. The McMahon Line was never demarcated, i.e., marked out on the ground and agreed by both parties, but it followed an unmistakable and inaccessible crest-line. A demarcation must be a joint process, but Indians were unilaterally establishing border posts according to their maps without seeking China’s approval. In September 1959, Nehru rejected Chou En-lai’s letter in which China complained that the Indians were overstepping the McMahon Line. But Nehru admitted that there was "slight" difference in the Migyitun area with the map, which he justified as modifications "based on definitive topography" in accordance with "established international principles." India insisted that China not only should first formally recognize the McMahon Line, but also should accept the boundary India claimed in the western sector. China protested the Indian forward moves and complained that on August 25, Indian troops intruded south of the Migyitun and fired on Chinese. New Delhi protested the next day that China moved into Indian territory and forced Indians out of Longju, accusing China of "deliberate aggression" and warning that it would "use force on the trespasser if necessary," a bluff threat that was not founded in international law.

China’s account of the Longju incident was contrary to India’s. China maintained that the Chinese border guards merely returned fire at the unprovoked attack by the Indians. The Indian claims were militated by the fact that China did not attack the other Indian posts set up along McMahon Line. However, in India, there was no doubt that the incident was Chinese aggression. The Chinese were denounced for the "expansionism" and the "cynical contempt" to treat the "noble concepts of friendship, toleration and co-existence." Meanwhile, another collision broke out on the western sector of the McMahon Line. The Indian troops went to establish posts on Lanak Pass, which India regarded as the boundary feature. The patrol of about seventy men came into contact with the Chinese at the Kongka Pass, which China regarded as the boundary feature and had established a post. On October 20, three Indians were detained by the Chinese; next day nine Indian forces were killed and seven taken prisoner. Chinese suffered casualties, with probably only one killed. The Indians reported to have been ambushed from a hilltop, whereas the Chinese said that the Indians attempted to capture the small Chinese patrol and opened fire. The captured Indians, including the patrol commander, confirmed the Chinese accounts, but after release retracted their statements. However, there was no doubt in India, as the newspaper called "the brutal massacre of an Indian policy party."

In the three following years after the Longju and Kongka pass clashed, the Parliament spent hundreds of hours on the dispute with China. Nehru enjoyed his dominance in the House, which accepted his arrogant authority, but he was also submerged with powerful opposition from the Congress Party. The Defense Minister Menon often became a scapegoat target for the critics of Nehru. In August 1959, the "bluster against China" picked up volume and the opposition criticisms attacked the government’s China policy over the boarder dispute. The opposition was not deep and was formed primarily by small upper-class group, whose views were regarded as "public opinion" and expressed in newspapers, especially the English newspapers. The newspapers reported of the Chinese troops crossing the McMahon Line and suggested of Indian government to aid Bhutan, of which Prime Minister promptly declared that Bhutan was not an Indian protectorate. But up to the end of August 1959, Nehru had told Parliament nothing at all about the boundary dispute with China, about the Aksai Chin road, or China’s proposal to settle the boundary. After the Longju incident, word got out and the existence of the Chinese road came to the House. Nehru coolly validated that the road existed "through a corner of our north-eastern Ladakhi territory" and affirmed that the Chinese claimed of "the hundreds of miles of Indian territory" was "totally and manifestly unacceptable" and was not "a matter of discussion." Nehru stated a few days later the importance of the "two miles of territory in the high mountains, where nobody lives" entail "national prestige and dignity." He stressed that China "having accepted broadly the McMahon Line, I am prepared to discuss any interpretation of the McMahon Line" and "to have arbitration of any authority agreed to by the two parties." About the western sector of the border, Nehru was vague: "The point is, there has never been any delimitation there in that area and it has been a challenged area," but he maintained that "Aksai Chin was and had always been the historic frontiers" of India.

Nehru’s tentativeness about the western sector soon ended with Dr. Gopal, the director of the Historical Division of the Ministry of External Affairs, who was sent to London to review materials on India’s northern borders. Nehru told Gopal to disregard all contemporary political consideration and to make an objective appraisal of the historical evidence. Gopal reported in November 1959 that India’s claim to the Aksai Chin area was clearly stronger than China’s. Gopal removed the reservations in Nehru, whose Government has long adopted a policy that the McMahon Line must not be submitted to renegotiations and, in 1954, the principle was extended to the rest of the northern borders. Menon and other Cabinet members felt that the amateur historian Nehru and the professional historian Gopal were taking the Government in a wrong course. But they only expressed to Gopal and none stood up to disagree with Nehru.

Chou En-lai replied to Nehru’s letter on September 8, 1959, and reaffirmed the basic point that the Sino-Indian boundary had never been delimited, further arguing that the 56,000 square miles between the McMahon Line and the foothills had been Chinese. Chou restated the approach of the Chinese Government: to reach a settlement through friendly negotiations, fair and reasonable to both sides, taking into consideration the historical background and existing actualities, and that in the meantime the status quo should be observed. Chou suggested that China, like India, had been subjected to imperialist aggression, and would like to adopt "an attitude of mutual sympathy, mutual understanding and fairness and reasonableness" to settle the boundary question. Chou raised the issue that India refused to recognize the undelimited state of the boundary and attempted to impose upon China its one-sided claims "militarily, diplomatically and through public opinion." Chou finally asked India to withdraw "trespassing Indian troops and administrative personnel" and suggested that would speedily dispel "the dark clouds hanging over Sino-Indian relations."

The Indian Government read the letter as a veiled claim for the whole NEFA. Chou’s previous assurance that China would accept the McMahon Line almost disappeared. China suspected that India provided covert assistance to the Tibetan rebels, allowed them to raid back along the McMahon Line, and let Kuomintang agents operate freely in Kalimpong, smuggling saboteurs, weapons and ammunition into Tibet. There was an outburst of anti-Chinese sentiment and calls for war in India, but Nehru maintained his friendly and calm tone, while publicly giving sympathy to the Dalai Lama. To the boundary question, Nehru not only ruled out a settlement by negotiation, but also advanced to a categorical claim to the segment of the Aksai Chin, the only land route from Sinkiang to Tibet. He further pushed the Indian forces forward across the McMahon Line and the western sectors. Nehru and his government were in no mood to read between the lines of Chou’s letter, which offered the settlement to be reached. They took the letter as proof that they were faced with "a great and powerful nation which is aggressive." Nehru replied to Chou expressing "great surprise and distress" and argued that the boundaries had "always been the historical frontier" and were settled by "history, geography, custom and tradition." Indian government decided that it was dangerously against Indian interest to negotiate a boundary settlement with China, and that the only reasonable ground to refuse negotiation was the argument that the boundary is already delimited. This argument was put forth for the international community, which now started trying to follow the Sino-Indian debate.

The 1899 Macartney-MacDonald line was the only boundary alignment that the British proposed to China, which left the whole of Aksai Chin on the Chinese side. In his letter to Chou in September 1959, Nehru claimed the reverse: that the 1899 line "signified beyond doubt that the whole of Aksai Chin area lay in Indian territory." Nehru further introduced the Indian demand for restoration of the status quo ante, which was a veiled demand for unilateral Chinese withdrawal. The two clashes at Kongka and Longju brought forth a convulsive response in Indian political opinion. Nehru’s emphasis on long Sino-Indian friendship was criticized fiercely as "irrelevant," "hypocritical," "fatuous," and "dishonest." The critics proposed to pass a resolution to take immediate action to "throw out" the Chinese. Nehru dismissed these as "utterly wrong and useless," but affirmed that "at no time since our independence, and of course before it, were our defense forces in better condition, in finer fettle, … than they are today." Nehru stressed that "I am quiet confidant that our defense forces are well capable of looking after our security." Nehru’s allusions to the possibility of war and assurance of the strong defense force nourished the impression that war with China was a possibility and that it could be won. Thus far, Nehru and his advisers choose the directions toward the war, with no significant public pressure. By 1959, there was aroused political opinion that denounced any compromise with China as appeasement or cowardice.

After the Kongka incident, Chou En-lai wrote Nehru on November 7, 1959, and described it as unfortunate and unexpected. Chou proposed a summit meeting to settle the entire boundary question through peaceful negotiations and suggested that, in order to avoid further border clashes, the armed forces of both sides should be withdrawn twenty kilometers from the McMahon Line. China recommended that before the settlement, status quo should be maintained which meant "the situation obtaining at present." India used the word jiggling of "maintaining status quo" to mean Indian patrols moving into the Chinese-held territory. Despite that the proposal of summit meeting and demilitarization appeared consistent with the general approaches of India, Nehru rejected the summit meeting with Chou En-lai, a decision almost universally welcomed in India. In face of the Chinese willingness, indeed eagerness, to settle the boundary dispute through negotiation, India instantly rejected the idea of negotiations. The idea was solid that there should be no discussions until China withdrew from Aksai Chin.

The Chinese proposal of mutual military withdraws placed India on the diplomatic defensive. Nehru equivocated that the Chinese proposal was the same as Indian position of total and unilateral Chinese withdrawal from the disputed territory in the western sector. The Indians urged that "no negotiations can take place on the basis of prior acceptance by China of our frontiers and the immediate vacation of territories forcibly occupied by them." Nehru made puzzling statements: "we will negotiate and negotiate and negotiate to the bitter end. I absolutely reject the approach of stopping negotiations at any state," and that "as far as I am concerned, I am prepared to meet any body in the wide world." In fact, Nehru reaffirmed his position that "we will never compromise on our boundaries, but we are prepared to consider minor adjustments to them and to talk to the other side about them." Nehru was to refuse to meet Chou En-lai until China accepted the Indian version of the boundaries, and withdraw behind the Indian claim line. However, the international community failed to appreciate the ambiguities in Nehru’s words and almost universally blamed China, rather than India, for refusing to negotiate a boundary settlement. The confidence of India hardened after Chou En-lai pressed his proposal after the rejection of a summit meeting. In December, Chou reiterated the Chinese position that the joint military withdrawal along the border would not prejudice the claims of either side. Nehru wrote Chou to explain the rejection of the summit meeting that without preliminary agreement "we would lose ourselves in a forest of data." Chou wrote back and emphasized the importance of agreements that may prevent "endless and fruitless debates," and proposed to meet on December 26, nine days after the delivery of the letter. Nehru replied promptly and coldly expressing regret that his "very reasonable proposals" for joint withdrawals had not been accepted, and that it was impossible for him to meet Chou in the next few days.

The Indian refusal of the summit brought the diplomatic game to stalemate, as China continued to treat the McMahon Line as the de facto boundary in the eastern sector and the western sector unchallenged. From the moment India accused China with "aggression" for the Chinese presence in Indian claimed territory, the Indian Government was obliged to take actions, and Nehru had pressed for a military operation against China and expected the Government would comply. India thus far took for granted its international esteem for its persistent advocate of a rational and civilized approach, and negotiating table as a lightning conductor for international quarrels. This Nehru stated at the end of 1959, "whether it is in the United Nations or whether it is elsewhere, we are respected all over the world," and wondered why "it has been an amazing thing." This was attributed to clever diplomacy, the radiance of Gandhi, and "that we have spoken with conviction and earnestness and sincerity about peace and our desire for peace and … for tolerance … from deep inside our hearts and deep understanding of the world as it is today." India by then occupied a unique position in the world. It was called to act as referee peacemaker or arbitrator from Gaza to the Congo and Korea, and was listened to with respect and courted for understanding. India was the prime articulator of the concept of non-alignment and accepted spokesman for the non-aligned countries. As personified in Nehru, India contributed much to blunt the conflicts of the cold war.

India’s successful foreign policy was demonstrated by its acceptance by both the USA and the USSR, of which presidents made successive visits to New Delhi. The visit of President Eisenhower in December 1959 removed the old disapproval of "immoral neutralism" and replaced it with cordial sympathy. Eisenhower stated that the India "speaks to the other nations of the world with greatness of conviction, and is heard with greatness of respect" and especially appraised India’s falling out with China, even before it became a public knowledge. The US economic aid to India multiplied suddenly. It was $1.7 billion in the twelve years to mid-1959, and the amount increased to $4 billion in the next four years. Both the US and Soviet Union took a dispassionate view of the Sino-India dispute from the beginning. As the Longju incident occurred on the eve of Krushchev’s visit to the US, both the US and Russians have been carefully neutral and deplored the incident as to "discredit the idea of peaceful co-existence." Those who could read between the lines, the dispassionate regret of Moscow "in reality condemned China’s stand." India took the tacit Russian support as high importance. Western countries would readily accept the Indian version of the dispute, and condemn China with, or even before, New Delhi. But such sympathy and support was not easily forthcoming from the non-aligned and especially of other Asian countries, as they were not prepared to accept uncritically the proposition that China was wholly in the wrong. The Russians had already expressed that negotiations were the only way to resolve the border questions, and the fact that India had twice rejected China’s proposal for a summit meeting would make it hard for the Russians to appreciate Indian approach. India extended an invitation to Krushchev for a visit and expected to clarify the validity of Indian approach to the boundary dispute.

In the meantime, China wrote New Delhi another long note stating that Peking was expected the summit meeting and that the Sino-Indian borders were not delimited but China intended to settle the dispute through friendly negotiations. New Delhi studied the note, felt the desire to end the dispute sincere, and decided that there might be something to be gained by meeting with Chou En-lai. It appeared that the summit meeting would serve Indian interest in showing the watching world that India was consistent with its prescriptions of advocating negotiations in every dispute. However, the reversal of policy by dropping the insistence on Chinese withdrawal as a precondition for a summit meeting, the domestic criticism and increasing suspicion over compromise with China would be intensified. To overcome this, a semantic smoke screen was created by making a distinction between "talks" and "negotiations". The day after Krushchev arrived in New Delhi, Nehru delivered a cordial, or even warm, invitation letter to Chou En-lai on February 12, 1960, without informing his government. Nehru stated to Parliament: "I see no ground whatever at the present moment, no bridge between the Chinese position and ours," and "that is, the present positions are such that there is no room for negotiations on that basis, and therefore there is nothing to negotiate at present." The smoke screen covered the general expectation that Krushchev’s visit would bring about negotiations between China and India, and refusal to negotiate confirmed Parliament that Nehru had no intention of meeting with Chou En-lai. On February 16, the members of Parliament learned of the invitation from the newspapers. The Opposition fumed anger on the "sudden and unwarranted reversal" of policy, and described the invitation as a "national humiliation."

Chou En-lai accepted the invitation with "deep gratitude" and arranged a seven-day visit on April 19. The Indian politicians suspected that Nehru would compromise with China and the opposition declared of a "no-surrender week," arranging demonstrations in New Delhi and other cities during Chou’s visit in order to make "things hot" for the Chinese party. Nehru and the Government made a nice compromise by ending the "no-surrender week" the day before Chou arrived and holding no customary public receptions in Chou’s honor. The oppositions reiterated their view of having no talks without "Chinese vacation of aggression" and put out slogans "invaders, quit India," "no surrender of Indian territory," and "down with Chinese imperialism." The oppositions found further international reason for refusing to negotiate with China that ill-effects of compromise would "shatter the morale of all" the rest of Asian countries "who are aspiring to build themselves up independently and in a democratic way." The editorial placed on the eve of Chou’s arrival that, if the talks succeeded, "China’s prestige and power will be enhanced in the eyes of the smaller Asian countries, for India’s action will be construed as acquiescence in and compliance with China’s attitude." If talks broke down, "India will be held up as unreasonable, (but better) to be held up temporarily as unreasonable than to be dismissed as weak and pusillanimous." The pressure not to settle was further increased by the dispute with Pakistan. One month before Chou’s arrival, the Indian Supreme Court reinforced the inflexible approach on the northern boundaries and challenged the compromise that Nehru made with small patch of disputed territory of several square miles with Pakistan.

On April 19, 1960, Chou En-lai arrived in New Delhi, accompanied by Marshall Chen Yi, the Foreign Minister, and a large party. The cheer of "Hindee Chinee bhai-bhai" of yesteryear was replaced with only a polite patter of applause from the diplomats. Both sides exchanged speeches of greeting. Nehru recalled the good will between China and India, and said "unfortunately other events have taken place since then which have put a great strain on the bond of friendship and given a great shock to all our people." Chou replied: "Both of us need peace, both of us need friends," "there is no reason why any question between us cannot be settled reasonably through friendly consultations in accordance with those principles" of Panch Sheel, and concluded that "I have come with the sincere desire to settle questions."

In the following days of visit, the Indian Government maintained adamant and immovable position: there could be no general boundary negotiations; the boundaries were already delimited and ran just where India said they did; and China must withdraw before there could be any of the discussions on "minor rectifications" that were all India would agree to. Chou En-lai reiterated that the Sino-Indian boundary question had been left over from history, and not created by either of the two Governments: it was "only an issue of a limited and temporary nature" and it was "entirely possible to achieve a fair and reasonable overall settlement." China was proposing "reciprocal acceptance of present actualities in both sectors and constitution of a boundary commission." China would accept the McMahon alignment in the western sector, while India would accepted the positions then obtaining in the west. There would be no physical withdrawals involved, as the forward posts on both sides were far apart, but India would drop the claim to Aksai Chin. Chou En-lai maintained the position that he took since his the first meeting with Nehru, that although the McMahon Line was not fair, Chinese Government would accept it because of its friendly relations with Burma and India. After India expressed its claim to Aksai Chin in the note of October 18, 1958, China consistently treated the Indian presence in the territory south of the McMahon Line the same as the Chinese presence in Aksai Chin. China made it clear in the summit meeting that China would accept the McMahon alignment provided that India accept the Chinese control line in the west. However, India insisted on the sin qua non of a boundary settlement that China must concede that Aksai Chin was Indian territory as well as accepting the McMahon Line. The conference had failed from the outset, but the summit meeting continued for the remaining five more days, neither side wished it to break down.

A press conference was held prior to Chou’s departure. Chou concisely reiterated the Chinese position: that the boundary had never been delimited, that the question could be settled through friendly consultations, and that, pending settlement, "both sides should maintain the present state of the boundary and not change it by unilateral action, let along by force." In the meantime the friendship between China and India should not, and could not, be jeopardized by the boundary question. Chou stated that Chinese government, like those before it, could never recognize the McMahon Line because it was "illegally delineated through an exchange of secret notes by British imperialism with the Tibetan local authorities." Nevertheless, he said, China was observing the Line as the boundary, and had not put forward territorial claims as pre-conditions in the negotiations. The press conference displeased the Indians. Nehru waited only until the Chinese were airborne and dwindling in the eastern sky on their way to Katmandu before attacking the Chinese Government as aggressors. He said that Chou En-lai "came here because something important had happened, the important thing being that according to us they had entered our territory … which we considered aggression." After learning Nehru’s word, Chou later was not amused but was "very much distressed by such an attitude, particularly as we respect Prime Minister Nehru." The summit meeting thus failed on the unyielding refusal of India to give up, modify or hold over its claim to the Aksai Chin territory. With Burma, China accepted the McMahon alignment as the basis of the boundary, and with Nepal, "adjustments were made in accordance with the principles of equality, mutual benefit, friendship and mutual accommodation." The Chinese maps showed Mount Everest within China, but China accepted the Nepali (and general) view that the peak itself marked the boundary. Both sides agreed to keep their armed personnel out of a forty-kilometer zone along the boundary. Chou En-lai maintained that the summit had not failed, but the summit cleared the way for a worsening of the situation on the borders. As Chou En-lai faced the American and Indian correspondents who questioned with hostility and suspicion, Chen Yi broke in: "I want to call your attention to the fact that China is a country which is being wronged. I want to stress, China is a country which is being wronged."

The Indians had no doubt about their inherent position that Aksai Chin had been incontrovertibly Indian territory and that the Chinese claim was factitious and concocted to camouflage illegal and clandestine seizure. By describing the Chinese presence as an act or aggression, the Indian Government obliged itself to take actions, even to use force if diplomatic methods failed. It was decided that India "must assert its rights by dispatching properly equipped patrols into the areas currently occupied by the Chinese, since any prolonged failure to do so will imply a tacit acceptance of Chinese occupation, and … Indian patrols penetrate into disputed areas of Ladakh." By the time Chou En-lai left, Indian Government had started implementing a "forward policy," by sending patrols to probe the Chinese-occupied areas and penetrating the spaces between the Chinese positions without attacking them. The objectives were to block potential lines of further Chinese advance and to establish an Indian presence in Aksai China, ultimately undermine Chinese control of the disputed areas by the interposition of Indian posts and patrols between Chinese positions, thus cutting the Chinese supply lines and forcing them to withdraw. The forward policy sprang from the conclusion that there was nothing else India could do. It was based on the fundamental premise that the Chinese would not physically interfere no matter how many Indians posts and patrols were set up, provided that the Indians did not attack any Chinese positions. As soon as the dispute started in 1954, the advance of the Indian boundary posts in the middle sectors intended to threaten with force against the Chinese who maintained their positions, but Nehru and his colleagues had absolute faith that the Chinese would not act likewise. The confidence in the moral unassailability was embedded in the belief that the British were reluctant to use force and if the Chinese did attack, it would rebound against them. It reflected Nehru’s perception that the unique position of India in the world, with the reputation and depth of its pacific instincts, would go with the Indian patrols into Aksai Chin like a moral armor. Nehru and his colleagues held this belief, that the Chinese would stand idly while India gradually and laboriously built up positions of strength, until the brutal disabuse took place in October 1962.

The Oppositions and critics in India began to cherish the phrase "police action," that "to defend your own territory is not to wage war" and "that if you throw out bandits … is just police action on your own territory." "We as a peaceful nation who are members of the UN do not believe in war as any remedy … therefore … the only way is to have a police action whereby we can push the Chinese out of our territory … after that have a basis for negotiation." Others argued that war was not the ultimate catastrophe or even an unmixed evil. It was believed that small and local wars could not always be avoided, and "when such wars are fought … the wisdom of the world" would localize them and would find a workable solution later. "So we need not scare ourselves that any resistance to Chinese aggression will lead to a world war and a destruction of humanity. The world will see to it that this does not happen." The opposition emphasized that "it is conflict that brings out the best in a country, that brings about unity," and that the danger would be turned to good effect "to achieve national cohesion and spur national endeavor." However, Nehru consistently stressed the dangers of war, that "war between India and China would be one of the major disasters of the world … for it will mean world war … which will be indefinite. We would not be able to limit it in time, because it will not be possible for China to defeat us and it will be impossible for us to march up to Peking across Tibet." In the rhetoric allusions to the ultimate possibility of war, the conceived context was that India was going to war for its territory after exhausting its patience and gaining a position of strength. It never occurred to New Delhi that war might arise from Chinese reaction to or anticipation of Indian moves. Nehru and his colleagues were unwavering in their faith that whatever India did along the borders, China would not attack. This basic assumption was the basis of the forward policy, a military challenge to a militarily far superior neighbor.

The Indian armed forces had been neglected in the 1950s. Nehru and Indian Congress ruled out possible threats to India one by one, and concluded that "no danger threatens India from any direction, and even if there is any danger we shall be able to cope with it." As for China, the Himalayas made "an effective barrier and not even air fleets could come that way." It was believed that its size, its geo-strategic position and the interest of the great powers would keep India immune from any significant external attacks. "If any power was covetous enough to make the attempt" to acquiring the commanding position, "all the others would combine to trounce the intruder. This mutual rivalry would in itself be the surest guarantee against an attack on India." Nehru held this rational and pragmatic view of external threats to India after independence and until the main Chinese assault in November 1962. The Indian Government stressed on development to come first. Military aid from abroad was considered unacceptable since it would impair India’s non-alignment and be unreliable. The positively pacific, almost pacifist approach to international relations, the emphasis on development, and insistence on non-alignment, all reinforced the Gandhian disapproval of men of war as part of the Indian Congress attitude. The civilian leadership thus placed the soldiers into disadvantaged position. After Menon became the Defense Minister in 1957, he was warmly welcomed for being energetic and politically relevant. The military had misgivings about Menon’s interference in steadily promoting officer Kaul, who played a central and disastrous role in the border war. Following its conception in the beginning of 1960, the total lack of military means made the Army resist the implementation of the forward policy until the end of 1961.

While the Sino-Indian border dispute halted, China proceeded to negotiate boundary settlements with other neighbors. Since 1954, the US equipped and trained Pakistan’s armed forces and it became no longer easy for India to defeat Pakistan. From 1960, the Indian Government tried to tutor Pakistan to adopt the Indian approach and the same attitude in dealing with China over the northern frontier. Instead, Pakistan agreed with China that the boundary had never been delimited and negotiated with China on October 13, 1962. By December 26, 1962, the two Governments jointed announced to have reached "complete agreement in principle," in which China followed for the great part what the British had proposed to China in 1899 and ceded some 750 square miles of territory to Pakistan. With Burmese Prime Minister, U Nu, China sought a settlement since 1956. U Nu found that after having emphatically repudiated all past boundary agreements with the British, China was prepared to open negotiations on the basis of what the British proposed. China found the "unequal treaties" imposed by Britain as unacceptable, but not the alignment that the British proposed. China offered Burma the whole Sino-Burmese boundary along McMahon Line, an agreement converted to a treaty in October 1960. China settled the boundaries with other neighbors equably and equitably shaded an adverse light on India’s position, but brought more sharply the deadlock between India and China. India reiterated its boundary could not be a matter of negotiation, and denied "the necessity of further or formal delimitation." China replied that "refusing to negotiate and trying to impose a unilaterally claimed alignment on China is in actuality refusal to settle the boundary questions," and warned that while India maintained the position, China would "absolutely not retreat an inch."

By the spring of 1961, Nehru found the Chinese position unchanged. China was still ready, indeed eager, to negotiate a boundary settlement with India, while indicating that China would agree to the McMahon Line. In the fall of 1961, Nehru Government gave categorical orders for immediate implementation of the forward policy. China protested about forward moves already made from Demchok that "the Chinese Government has been following with great anxiety the Indian troops" pressing forward on China’s borders in "gross violations of China’s territory and sovereignty," which would have serious consequences had it not been orders to avoid conflicts. India asserted that the Indian patrols were moving into their own territory and rejected the Chinese protest as unwarranted interference in their internal affairs, as they viewed that "according to our thinking our trouble at the border is not a dispute at all." The Goa incident further reinforced India’s readiness to take unilateral and forceful action in territorial question. Goa had been a Portuguese colony on the west coast since the beginning of the sixteenth century. The Portuguese stayed on after the British left the subcontinent in 1947, but never thought of giving the Goans independence. In 1955, India attempted to force Portugal to cede Goa through nonviolent demonstrations, but Portuguese police opened fire, killing several and wounding many. India severed diplomatic ties with Portugal, but the Portuguese stayed on in Goa. In the end of 1961, the Indian government decided to give its resolve military demonstration to China by invading Goa. With minimal resistance, India seized Goa, but it became more of a scandal and an irritant to India, especially to Nehru, in face of their persistent advocacy of the doctrine never to justify the use of force as a means of settling international disputes. India insisted that the military operation did not breach the prescription, and few came to criticize Indian action. President Kennedy wrote to Nehru: "All countries, including the USA, have a great capacity for convincing themselves of the full righteousness of their particular cause." The Indian press supported: "Why is it that something that thrills our people should be condemned in the strongest language?" A political journal summed up the Indian view of the seizure of Goa: "No aggression has been committed, because we have regarded Goa ever since 1947 as our rightful territory … To drive out an intruder who is in illegal occupation of part of our territory is not aggression."

The Goa incident reflected the amorphous and subjective processes within which the Indian Government operated. Neither the seizure of Goa nor the forward policy was decided upon in Cabinet. It showed the dualities of India’s attitude toward the use of force: reprehensible in the abstract and in the service of others, but justifiable both politically and morally when employed by India in disputes. Some politicians were intoxicated by the Goa victory as talks began of driving Pakistan out of Kashmir and forcing China out of Aksai Chin. The Home Minister, Shastri, paralleled the Goa incident with China: "If the Chinese will not vacate the areas … India will have to repeat what she did in Goa." The president of the Congress Party announced that India was "determined to get Pakistani and Chinese aggression on its soil vacated before long" and that Pakistan-occupied Kashmir must be "liberated." However, the military operation in Goa did not test the capabilities of the troops or their commanders, as the Portuguese put up no organized resistance against the overwhelmingly superior Indian forces. The Army had been experiencing chronic shortage of boots, and half of one battalion went through the operation in canvas gym shoes. Although this was discussed widely in the Army, little came out in India, which called the operation "our finest hour."

The easy victory over the Portuguese encouraged the hope of similar success against the Chinese. Nehru had repeatedly assured Parliament and public that the Army and other services were stronger than they have been, and were ready to defeat any challenges to the integrity of India. The Indian army would quickly teach the Chinese a lesson in the event of a conflict. Nehru said that the boundary dispute with China was more important to India than a hundred Goas. Although India now had rejected the Chinese proposal for a joint twenty-kilometer withdrawal, China had unilaterally stopped patrolling within twenty-kilometers of the bounder. India refused to open negotiations, and steadily pushed forward, first in the middle and eastern sectors and now in the west. China warned that India’s action "is most dangerous and may lead to grave consequences," but "so far as the Chinese is concerned the door for negotiation is always open." India insisted that the Sino-Indian boundary had long been settled and justified the forward policy as "the legitimate right, indeed the duty, of the Government of India to take all necessary measures to safeguard the territorial integrity of India." The forward policy continued as small Indian posts were being established overlooking Chinese positions and sometimes astride the tracks or roads behind them. The theory was that interruption of the communication lines would ultimately force the Chinese to withdraw from their posts. Nehru dismissed the increasingly emphatic Chinese warnings of "grave consequences," and explained to Parliament that the Chinese became "rather annoyed" as the Indian posts were set up behind their own. Nehru reassured the doubtful members who though Chinese tone dangerous: "There is nothing to be alarmed at, although the (Chinese) note threatens all kinds of steps," and that "if they do take those steps we shall be ready for them."

As Nehru assured Parliament that the position in the western sector was "more advantageous to India," the forwarding Indians in the Ladakh were outnumbered by the Chinese by more than five to one. The strength disparity was beyond the numbers. The Chinese were concentrated where the Indians were scattered; the Chinese were able to move in trucks where the Indians trekked on foot; and the Chinese had all regular supports arms for the troops while the Indian Brigade had nothing beyond one platoon of medium machine-guns. The Chinese ranged heavy mortars and recoilless guns on the Indian posts, and infantry equipped with automatic rifles. The Indians had nothing heavier than three-inch mortars and most posts even lacked those, their troops equipped with rifles last seen in action before the First World War. In early 1961, the Chinese began to react vigorously on the ground. As the Indians set up a post overlooking a Chinese position, the Chinese promptly took up more positions around it. Since April 1959, the Chinese also resumed the suspended patrol in the western sectors and warned to resume patrolling everywhere if Indians continued the forward movement. China also warned that the continued Indian "pressing on the Chinese post and carrying out provocation" would compel the Chinese troops to defend themselves, and that India would be responsible for the consequences. The Indian Government dismissed the warnings as bluff and the threatening Chinese moves as bluster. In the Chip Chap valley, the Chinese formed in assault formation and gave every indication to wipe out the Indian post. Western Command requested permission to withdraw the post, but Nehru believed that the Chinese were making a show of force to test India’s resolution and ordered to reinforce the post. The Chinese later did not follow up on the threats, and the Indian Government and Army concluded the judgement and nerve of the Prime Minister, further confirming the basic premise of the forward policy, which was further validated by the subsequent Galwan incident.

The Indian Amy map showed Galwan valley as one of the best routes to move into Chinese-held territory, which was one of Kaul’s orders to establish a post in November 1961. The terrain in the valley was extremely difficult and the Chinese had already had a post there since at least 1959. After the winter pasted, Western Command decided that any move to threaten the well-established Chinese post would certainly evoke a violent reaction, and concluded that no Indian post could be established. But Kaul overruled the command. After over a month of trekking, the Indians emerged on the upper reaches of the Galwan River, and took positions, on July 5, 1962 to cut off a Chinese outpost and also hold up a small Chinese supply party. On July 8, the Chinese first made diplomatically "strongest protest" asking for immediate withdrawal of the Indian troops and warning that China would not "give up its right to self-defense when unwarrantedly attacked." India replied that India has "regularly been patrolling the Galwan valley" and has "never encountered any Chinese infiltrators" there, and lodged "an emphatic protest" against the Chinese "unwarranted aggressive activity" on the ground. India warned China to be entirely responsible for any untoward incident if China did not "stop the incessant intrusions deep inside Indian territory and ceaseless provocative activities against Indian border guards." The Chinese reacted on the ground advancing on the Indian post with a company in assault formation and quickly building up to battalion strength. In response, the External Affairs Ministry called the Chinese Ambassador and warned that the garrison would open fire if the Chinese troops pressed any closer to the Galwan post, and that India would retaliate against Chinese positions if the post were attacked. In a few days, the Chinese pulled back a little while continuing to surround the post in relatively great strength, cutting off the ground supply. Western Command requested for air supply since any land approach would provoke a clash. India decided that, since China blinked in the confrontation that now relaxed, the moral initiative must be maintained. A small force was dispatched to reinforce Galwan. It was turned back under the Chinese guns, which warned to fire if it advanced any farther. The Galwan post was supplied by air until it was wiped out on October 20.

The news of the Galwan incident appeared in India on July 11, as a new and provocative Chinese advance into Indian territory. When the Chinese did not follow up on their physical and diplomatic threats, a wave of triumph swept the press and the politicians. It was believed that the incident raised the morale of the whole nation, and the Chinese withdrew "in the face of the determined stand of the small Indian garrison." The orders given to the Indian garrison were extended to all Indian troops in the western sectors, and the "fire only if fired upon" changed to "fire if the Chinese press dangerously close to your positions." Nehru further decided that the military moves had to be coupled with diplomatic pressure. Nehru assured the Indian Parliament with a proposal that would withdraw very large Chinese and very small Indian withdrawal. It was hoped that, with the establishment of Indian posts in Chinese-claimed territory, China would accept what the Indians considered to be the best way of saving face, the complete withdrawal, and that the few Indian posts already established might have brought China to that position. China rejected the proposal as "unilaterally imposed submissive terms" and questioned: "Why should China need to ask India’s permission for using its own road on its own territory?" New Delhi concluded that the forward policy had not yet presented enough pressure and decided that it must be pursued until China accepted to withdraw.

The Indian troops pressed hard in the western sector, acting as if they were the vanguard of a powerful army rather than the stake in a wild political gamble. Meanwhile the domestic critics demanded stronger and quicker action against China. To defend itself, the Government drew lines to connect the new forward Indian posts on maps and calculated the enclosed area. One journalist praised the Prime Minister for "a general advance over a wide front of 2,500 square miles" and complimented Nehru as "a unique triumph for audacious Napoleonic planning." Only sporadic report was made on the real situation that the Chinese had a ten-to-one superiority in the western sector and also all the advantages of terrain and communications. Most reported on the superior strength and better equipment of the Indians over Chinese, the latter as garrison troops of poor fighting quality. The Opposition in India further pushed for yet stronger measures to expel the Chinese. It was claimed that "The bogey of Chinese superiority … should not worry our military experts" and that "two hundred Indian soldiers are equal to two thousand of the Chinese," and asked "Why should we be afraid of them? Why are we not able to hurl them back?" When the Indian Ambassador (Nehru’s cousin) in Washington expressed the truth that the Indian defense forces were so badly equipped that they could not ensure the security of the country, he was ignored. Nehru repeatedly assured Parliament that the Army was capable of defending the frontiers, and suggested disciplining the Ambassador for an indiscretion.

Saner voices in the Government suggested that India should give China the same pledge as it gave to Pakistan with respect to the Pakistan-held and Indian-claimed part of Kashmir, and a daily newspaper also urged the Government to negotiate. However, the overwhelmingly dominant attitudes in Parliament were not to negotiate. After Kongka Pass incident on July 21, 1962, China protested. "China is not willing to fight with India, and the Sino-Indian boundary question can be settled only through routine negotiations." China had exercised self-restraint, but could not stand idle while the "frontier guards are being encircled and annihilated by aggressors … If India should ignore the warning and persist in its own way India must bear full responsibility for all the consequences." India replied on July 26, reminding China that under certain conditions India was prepared to "enter into further discussions" on the boundary question. But India was firm in its position that before any negotiations, China must withdraw all personnel from the India-claimed territory, and when the evacuation was complete, India would meet China at the conference table to discuss minor modifications of the boundary India claimed. In response, China reciprocated the reasonable and positive tone, but rejected the condition of "one-sided withdrawal from large tracts of its own territory," while accepting the proposal for discussion. "The Chinese Government approves of the suggestion put forth by the Indian Government for further discussion … As a matter of fact, if only the Indian side stop advancing into Chinese territory, a relaxation of the border situation will be affected at once… The Chinese Government proposes that such discussions be held as soon as possible..." India considered the discussions with China served no purpose since China explicitly rejected the "one-sided withdrawal," which India considered as the only acceptable settlement.

India had all the advantages of world opinions, as the newsstands were packed with supporters. The press and governments of the Western world cheered India as it stood against what they believed to be the expansionist China. The historical and documentary arguments about the boundary were too obscure except for the specialists, to whom the archives that might show which side was nearer the truth were closed. Although the invasion of Goa injured India’s reputation, there was generally no hesitation in the West to take the Indian side. As Felix Green explained the American reaction: "So solidly built into our consciousness is the concept that China is conducting a rapacious and belligerent foreign policy that whenever a dispute arises in which China is involved, she is instantly assumed to have provoked it. All commentaries, ‘news reports,’ and scholarly interpretations are written on the basis of this assumption. The cumulative effect of this only further reinforces the original hypothesis so that it is used again next time with even greater effect." The Americans viewed the conflict as a race between China and India for the economic and political leadership in Asia. In 1959, then Senator JF Kennedy said: "We want India to win that race with China …if China succeeds and India fails the economic-development balance of power will shift against us." Kennedy’s estimation lowered sharply when the Prime Minister visited Washington in November 1961. The president later described it as "the worst head-of-state visit" ever, and his conversations with Nehru as "like trying to grab something in your hand only to have it turn out to be just fog." The British Government’s support for India was as solid as that of the US except for a division of opinion. Some officials in the Foreign Office pointed out that India’s account of the historical argument for the boundaries was inflated and recommended less than categorical British support for the Indian claims. But as British viewed that its interest was concerned, it gave wholehearted and unqualified support for India.

In contrast to the committed support of the Western world, the Afro-Asian countries clung to the question of negotiation as the ground to decide their position in the diplomatic-historical argument between China and India. It seemed that China wanted India to negotiate a settlement, while India was refusing. But India proclaimed that in fact it was the other way around. To avoid the risk of too blunt refusing the negotiation, Nehru made a statement on August 13, reaffirming that there could be no discussion without Chinese withdrawal. "The Government of India is prepared to discuss" not about the alignment of the boundaries, but about the steps by which Chinese withdrew from India-claimed territory. The surrender had to be unconditional, but the Chinese were welcome to discuss the details of the surrender ceremony. In the same speech, Nehru quoted Chen Yi’s statement in Geneva that "to wish that Chinese troops would withdraw from their own territory is impossible." Nehru accused China of "laying down preconditions which make it impossible for us to carry on discussions and negotiations." The Indian argument was that the discussions prior to Chinese withdrawal would be "pre-judging or acceptance of the Chinese claim," whereas the Chinese withdrawal before discussion would be "prejudging or acceptance of the Indian claim."

In the meantime, the new "great games" on the borders were reaching climax. At the beginning of September, in the Chip Chap valley, the Indians put into effect of the orders they had been given since the Galwan confrontation, firing into and killing several Chinese who advanced close to one of the Indian posts. By the end of August, the Indians had placed nearly forty posts in Chinese-claimed territory, most staffed between a dozen to thirty and fifty men. They were more than vulnerable, in fact helpless, as they were outnumbered and outgunned. The question was not how long they could resist, if they were attacked, but was how many Chinese they could kill before being wiped out. They were the hostages of the Indian conviction, civilian and military, that China would never attack, as Kaul reported: "I am convinced that the Chinese will not attack any of our positions even if they are relatively weaker than theirs." The Chinese protests became more threatening as August passed into September. "If the Indian side should insist on threatening by armed force the Chinese border defense forces…. and thereby rouse their resistance, it must bear the responsibility for all the consequences arising therefrom." Meanwhile, two Russian lumber freighters were among ships delivering arms to Cuba, of which significance was to be recognized later by the U.S. Government.

Two distinct and divergent strains governed China’s attitude toward India. One placed India in historical and dialectical context of the Marxist-Leninist framework, and the other as a neighbor and fellow Asian power. In late 1940s, India appeared to be on the anti-revolutionary path as the US shifted support to India after the bitter ending of supporting Chiang Kai-shek. In 1949, a Shanghai journal accused Nehru and Indian Government’s pursuance of British policy as serving "the Anglo-American imperialist designs for the annexation of Tibet" and of nourishing imperialist intentions. In December 1949, India was second country to recognize the People’s Republic of China, only after Burma, and actively advocated presenting the new Peking Government as the representative of China in the United Nations. Subsequently, India played an important role in the ceasefire negotiations in Korea and also in prisoner-of-war repatriation. During the years of Hindee Chinee bhai-bhai in the middle 1950s, there was muted resentment. Chou En-lai commented in 1965 of Nehru’s "arrogance" and told some visiting Ceylonese politicians that "I have never met a more arrogant man than Nehru." However, the general attitudes toward India were genuinely friendly while a little patronizing. The Indian perception was that India and China were like twins in standing, with Indian seniority, and that it had been largely through India’s effort that "Communist China acquired a measure of respectability throughout Asia."

In 1958, as Nehru was constant in his support for China’s rightful seat in the UN, the People’s Daily summed Nehru as "a friend to China and an opponent to the imperialist policy of war and aggression." Thus far Nehru’s polices were consistent with Leninist scheme of a progressive nationalism, in which a temporary but valid alliance formed between the bourgeoisie and part o the exploited classes in the first stage of struggle against imperialism. In 1959, as the Dalai Lama fled to India, Chinese had no objections, as Chou En-lai said that it was normal international practice to grant the Dalai Lama sanctuary, although they complained of the impressive welcome extended to the Dalai Lama. Later Indian Government did not keep up its promise that the Dalai Lama would not be allowed to engage in political activities against China while he was in India. China also complained of the Kuomintang and American agents who were actively supporting the Tibetan émigrés in Kalimpong, channeling anti-Chinese propaganda, weapons and agents across the still very open border. China denounced the rebellion in Tibet as counter-revolution and an attempt to sustain the "dark, cruel and barbarous serf system" by the class that benefited from it. As the US started developing designs on India’s non-aligned virtue, especially the emergence of the Indian approach to the boundary questions, China began to watch Indian attitudes and policy for signs that India entered the imperialists’ camp. China regarded seriously India’s unilateral and unannounced modification of the McMahon Line and the establishment of posts. In the Longju incident, the Indians fired first. In Kongka Pass incident, a large Indian patrol attempted to move into Chinese-occupied territory and set up post there. This was more ominous as it concerned an area of thousands of square miles, with high strategic importance to China.

China viewed the Indian’s insistence for China to accept the unilateral Indian definition of boundary what "British imperialism had fabricated covertly but never dared to put forward." India claimed Aksai Chin in which it did not have any material interests, and China regarded this as "India’s … demand that China get out of her only traffic route to Western Tibet, a road India has no use for, was … seeking injury to China without benefit to India." India’s attempt for rough disdain for Chinese national sensibilities was nothing new to China. The Chinese history was replete with boundaries unilaterally imposed by stronger countries and with foreign arrogance and power. But now, "the days when the Chinese people could be bossed around are gone for ever." Chen Yi said mildly that by imposing the McMahon Line on China, India had not "given the slightest consideration to the sense of national pride and self-respect of the Chinese people." In spite of China’s reasonable approach, India took a path that led to an intractable dispute and "created tensions in relations" with China.

China submitted the Indian actions and attributed the root cause of the boundary dispute to the prisms of Marxist-Leninist analysis in the "ever-sharpening class contradictions and social contradictions and the deepening political crisis facing the Nehru Government." By the beginning of 1960, the Indian Government substituted reactionary nationalism for anti-imperialist and anti-feudal revolution, and inclined itself closer to the imperialist and feudal forces. China considered Nehru as a captive of the forces of reaction and that he may free himself to bring forth a progressive influence on Indian policy. The People’s Daily wrote that Nehru was "respected in China" and regretted that Nehru had "let himself be drawn into the whirlpool of anti-Chinese agitation in India." The Chinese attitude to Nehru changed after the summit talks of April 1960. Chou En-lai was shocked by Nehru’s intransigence and described Nehru as impossible to negotiate with, "being both unreliable and impenetrable." Chou resented that "he did not say it face to face, but as soon as we had left he attacked the Chinese Government as aggressors." China did not openly denounce Nehru until late in 1962, but from 1960 regarded Nehru as "the loyal representative of the big bourgeoisie and big landlords of India" and stooge of China’s international enemies.

The Indian Government also fulfilled China’s ideological expectations as the American assistance doubled in four years, as compared to previous twelve years, after Eisenhower’s visit in 1959. The conclusion was obvious: "The more anti-Chinese India is, the greater is the increase in US aid," which had increased "in direct proportion to the extent to which the Nehru Government has served United States imperialism and opposed China." In the Chinese analysis of the Indian politico-economic polices after independence, India continued as a colonial economy, with its foreign investment increasing 150 per cent by 1960, in which the British share doubled and American multiplied, as India became more dependent on foreign aid. A conservative Indian journal, Capital, pointed out in 1960 that "almost he entire third plan depends on (foreign aid): if the foreign aid does not come, the plan will have to be scrapped, since India’ sown foreign exchange reserves are already below the minimum." In 1962, an independent journal, United Asia, concluded on the pervasive and profound dependence of Indian economy, that "any drastic cuts in, or cessation, of foreign aid would immediately engender a major economic crisis in India, accompanied by the closing down of large numbers of companies, reduced productions, unemployment and uncontrollable inflation." China noted later: "Whenever imperialist ‘aid’ appears, genuine economic sovereignty and economic independence vanish for all practical purposes."

In the beginning of 1960s, China saw the frequent use of force by Indian Government as the armory of repressive measures inherited from the British. Chinese found another passage from Nehru’s own Marxist phase to describe the political processes in India: "So long as capitalism can use the machinery of democratic institutions to hold down and keep down labor, democracy is allowed to flourish, but when this is not possible than capitalism discards democracy and adopts the open fascist methods of violence and terror." China viewed that the Indian Government has made itself "the pawn of the international anti-China campaign," and concluded that "is the root cause and background of the Sino-Indian boundary dispute," which was created as a pretext for domestic and international propaganda. The Chinese policy toward other governments springs from how they act towards China, not from the political characters, as stated in a motto: "It’s not what you are, it’s the way that you act." This was illustrated in the Chinese attitudes towards Pakistan, which pursued an unfriendly policy towards China through the 1950s, but changed course at the end of 1959. The settlement of the Sino-Pakistani boundary lead to cordial and civil relations with China, and ultimately a tacit alliance against India. China did not make the full ideological denunciation of Nehru and his Government until very late in the border dispute, and anathematized Nehru in October 1962, while continuing to stress Sino-Indian friendship and that China would never close the door to a negotiated settlement. China repeatedly reiterated that "there is no conflict of fundamental interests between China and India," and that the boundary question was essentially one of small and temporary importance.

The Longju incident had a destructive impact for Sino-Soviet relations. The incident was reported without question in the Indian version that it was an instance of deliberate and unprovoked aggression by China. The Chinese account of the clash was ignored and subsequent Nehru’s admission that the boundary was "varied" by India "because it was not considered a good line" completely missed. Western observers were so convinced already that China was a bellicose and bullying power that the incident was interpreted accordingly, confirming their preconception. On September 6, Chinese informed the Soviet Union the background of the incident that it occurred on the Chinese side of the McMahon Line and the Indians fired at the Chinese frontier guards first. But the explanation carried no conviction with the Russians, who were to release a statement three days later. China handed a letter of Chou En-lai that was written to Nehru on September 8 in a sharply worded statement that the "trespassing and provocations by Indian troops" caused the armed clash at Longju. China urged Russia not to release the statement, but it was circulated that night, which indicated the agreement of the "leading circles" of Soviet Union regretting the incident. Soviet Union deplored that the two largest Asian countries discredited the idea of peaceful coexistence, and expressed confidence that "both Governments will settle the misunderstanding that has arisen." While Nehru viewed the position as "a more or less dispassionate view of the situation," China reacted violently to the Russian Government for "assuming a façade of neutrality" and "making no distinction between right and wrong," which by implication favored India and condemned China.

China was faced with double difficulty that was to beset and damage China in dealing with India. There was a credibility gap in which the universal tendency of people to accept the Indian version as the truth, and also the general readiness to conclude that Indians got the worst of the battle and they could not have possibly have provoked it. A conflict of doctrines emerged between China and India. Krushchev flatly denounced the war as an instrument of policy, for he believed that "force … must absolutely not be used against he capitalist world, no matter how strong the Communists might be." Krushchev placed his denunciation of the "Left revisionists" in Peking in handling the dispute with India. Krushchev rejected Chinese complaint that the Soviet Union had let them down by refusing to take side against India. In contrast he blamed China for having let down the cause of socialism and, by quarrelling with India, China failed to cooperate with the Soviet Union in encouraging India to move toward socialism. China was advised to take heart of Lenin’s denunciation of great-nation chauvinism, and accused China for having made Nehru a national hero in India, which was exactly what the imperialists wanted. The Soviet Union approached its boundary problems responsibly. Had it acted like China, it would have declared war on Iran more than once, after repeated clashes on the Russian-Iranian frontier and with casualties. The Russian position, ironically, was precisely the same as China’s, as Pravda put it: "We have always believed, and continue to believe, that there were no reasons for the border conflict between India and China … There is no doubt that had the two sides sat down at a conference table and discussed their mutual charges calmly, soberly and without bias, the conflict would have been settled long ago…" Although this was consistent with Chinese argument again and again urging India in an attempt to convince India that the boundaries must be settled by negotiation, the Soviet Union appeared to have concluded that the Chinese were lying in their accounts and hypocritical in their proposals of negotiation. They could not believe that as week a country as India would actually challenge China. The demonstrative neutrality of Soviet Union encouraged India to persist in its approach to the boundary questions, and the Russian aircraft enabled the Indians to implement the forward policy, thereby helping India on the way to disaster.

The Sino-Russian borders were the products of the Imperial Russian’s drive for territory and China’s weakness during the nineteenth century. In the middle of nineteenth century, Russians annexed all of China’s territory north of the Amur River, and was grinding into China in central Asia, pushing back the frontier of Chinese Tukestan (Sinkiang). In 1911, at the establishment of the Republic of China, the Chinese nationalists began demanding the abrogation of the "unequal treaties" and restoration of former frontiers. In 1917, Commissar for Foreign Affairs declared that the Soviet Government repudiated all unequal treaties. The Karakhan manifesto confirmed in 1920 that "The Government of the … Soviet Republic declares as void all the treaties concluded by the former Government of Russia with China, renounces all the annexations of Chinese territory, all the concessions in China and returns to China free of charge and forever all that was ravenously taken from her by the Tsar’s Government and by the Russian bourgeoisie." But the Soviet Government very soon came to the view that, unequal treaties or not, the Sino-Russian boundaries should stay where they were. The Chinese were prepared to accept the boundaries and to regard the lost territories as gone for good, despite of bitter resentment of the injustice over the "unequal treaties" and national humiliations. In 1960, the Chinese Government proposed to Moscow to negotiate the boundary settlements. In 1964, when the negotiations began, the Soviet Union adopted exactly the same approach to the boundary question as had India: "There is nothing to discuss except what we agree to discuss," and was as unacceptable as the Indian approach. Like Nehru, the Russian were willing, indeed eager, to settle with China on minor boundary rectifications, but refused to enter into general boundary negotiations. As the Chinese made explicitly clear that they were prepared to accept the old treaties, the Russians played deaf as did the Indians. It was probable that the Russian and Indian perceived the Chinese insistence on equality at the negotiation table as a challenge.

As the Sino-Soviet quarrel intensified through 1960, the Russian support of India became a key charge in China’s ideological denunciation of Krushchev’s "revisionism." China viewed the Tibetan revolt marked Nehru’s swerve to the Right. Now the national bourgeois Government of India entered second phase, in which the workers, peasants, and intellectuals began their struggle against the bourgeoisie, Nehru Government manufactured a frontier dispute with China in order to postpone the day of reckoning. In the autumn of 1960, Russia opened a new and deeply provocative chapter by providing a major military assistance to India, including Anthnov-12 heavy transport aircraft and then "Hound" helicopter suited to operate at 16-17,000 feet altitudes in Ladakh. Against vigorous protests of the British and American Governments, the Indians purchased MiG jet fighters from Russia. In the autumn of 1961, when the Indian military activity increased in the western sector as purposeful and coordinated, China recognized the Indian "attempt to realize territorial claims unilaterally and by force." In the middle of 1962, the People’s Daily warned that it would be "very erroneous and dangerous should the Indian Government take China’s attitude of restraint and tolerance as an expression of weakness." The Indians "mistook China’s long forbearance as a sign that China was weak and could be bullied. They thought that with the backing of the imperialists and support of the Soviet leaders they had nothing to fear, and that as soon as they took action China would be forced to retreat and their territorial claims would be realized." The alternative became clear. China could either agree to withdraw from the disputed territory and surrender to India’s diplomatic and military pressure at the cost of national pride and prestige as well as strategic position in the Tibet-Sinkiang region, or China could take up the Indian challenge and fight.

Like the Russians, China wished to avoid major, especially nuclear, wars, but they could not truckle to the imperialists. As Mao Tse-tung put it, the "US imperialism and the Chiang Kai-shek clique" must not be overestimated as they were "rotten to the core and had no future," and therefore can be slighted in the strategic context. "But in regard to any particular situation or specific struggle … we must never slight the enemy: on the contrary, we can win victory only when we take full account of him and devote all our energies to the fight." In 1929, after a dispute over the Chinese Eastern Railway, the Kuomintang Government of China attacked the Russian border. The Soviet Union invaded Manchuria, destroyed a Kuomintang army, and withdrew to its own territory. China now considered this, "compelled to act in self-defense," a perfectly right thing to do. The resolute Russian counterblow defended the national interests of the Soviet Union, and also "accorded with the interests of the Chinese people and of the revolutionary people of the world." With this thinking, China warned in September 1962, as the Indians determinedly pressed forward: "If the Indian side should insist on threatening by armed force the Chinese defense forces who are duty-bound to defend their territory, and thereby arouse their resistance, it must bear the responsibility for all the consequences arising therefrom."

In the summer of 1962, the public attention in India was focused on the western sector of the borders. The Indian Government reversed the actuality and propagated the belief that it was China that was deliberately pushing forward in order to expand. While pursuing a policy of utmost recklessness, the Government successfully obscured the facts to the outside world as well as to the Indian mass that increasingly complained of the inability to challenge China with boldness and determination. Nehru had deprived himself of all options, as suspending the forward policy would be construed as surrender and betrayal of the national cause. Since Nehru had misled the nation into the belief that the Indian Army was strong enough to handle the Chinese, he had no choice but to rely on the military force to counteract the Chinese. While the forward policy was being implemented in the western sector, the border war was triggered by a marginal Indian move forward in the eastern sector, where the Chinese observed the McMahon Line as the de facto boundary.

After the Longju incident in August 1959, the eastern sector had been quiet as Nehru and Chou En-lai agreed to suspend patrol along the McMahon Line on both sides. The forward policy reversed the orders and made the McMahon Line a live border again. In December 1961, Eastern Command was ordered to move forward to the closest practicable posts to the McMahon Line. To reach the Line, it took weeks of trekking, and supplying became an acute problem, often placing the remote garrisons in real danger of starvation. As the senior officers pointed out the impracticability of posting troops, unlike the western sector, their representations were brushed aside. In February 1962, General Kaul went to Assam to personally deal with the protests, and in the first half of 1962, the Army set up twenty-four posts along the McMahon Line. On the eastern sector, the Chinese did not counteract so long as the Indians kept to their own side of the McMahon Line. As the exact alignment of Longju was disputed, the Indians did not reoccupy it in 1962. However, the Indians set off the border war by establishing a new post at the disputed territory at the western extremity of the McMahon Line. The Line terminated on the boundary with Bhutan at the latitude of 27^o44'30''N on the map signed by the British and the Tibetans in New Delhi on March 24, 1914. When the Line was transported to the coordinates to the ground, it did not lie along the highest ridge in the vicinity, which in fact lied three to four miles north of where McMahon drew the line, at Thag La ridge.

Since August of 1959, the Indians set up a post north of the McMahon Line at Khinzemane, by which Indians claimed to and moved into an area of about twenty-five square miles north of the map-marked McMahon Line. This brought instant Chinese reaction. About two hundred Chinese came, as Nehru said later, "physically pushing back" the ten or twelve men of the Assam Rifles a couple of miles in the direction where they came from. But two days later, the Indians returned to Khinzemane and said they would resist to the Chinese who tried to push they back again. The Chinese acquiesced. New Delhi protested to Peking on August 11, claiming that Khinzemane was in Indian territory and that Thag La ridge was the boundary "traditionally as well as by treaty map." India referred "tradition" to the seasonal grazing practiced by the herdsmen from a southern village, but the villagers from the north used the area the same way. The claim of the treaty map was false as neither Thag La ridge nor Khinzemane was identified on the map. China protested too, claiming that Khinzemane was "undoubtedly part of Chinese territory" and that India made "serious encroachments upon China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity," warning India of serious consequences if the Indians post were not withdrawn. India modified a proposal requesting China to leave the status quo at Khinzemane undisturbed, while India would undertake no further change, "pending further discussions." China did not follow up the threat of "serious consequences," and the Indian post at Khinzemane was unmolested for the next three years, until India broke its implicit undertaking by setting up another post in the area.

In May 1962, the ban on patrolling to the west of Khinzemane was lifted and XXXIII Corps was ordered to set up several posts, including one at the trijunction of India, China and Bhutan. The platoon patrol of Assam Rifles, which were under control of the civilian arm through the governor of Assam, disregarded the McMahon Line and treated the Thag La ridge as the boundary. They set up a post there on June 4, overlooking the sizeable Tibetan village of Le, but there was no sign of the Chinese who still observed the 1959 no patrol agreement. Then the Corps recommended to establish Dhola Post in the Khinzemane area, which the Ministry of External Affairs approved and marked the point of no return. The eastern sector remained quiet until September 8, when the Chinese treated Dhola Post the same as they did to the Indian forward posts in the west. About sixty Chinese suddenly appeared down Thag La ridge and pressed close to the post. The Indian commander in the post exaggerated the number to six hundred, with the hope of bringing the Army to his assistance, calculating that if he reported a realistic figure, his own small force would be left to handle the situation. But the Chinese did not surround or attack Dhola Post. They settled into nearby positions and dominated the post. On September 16, China followed diplomatic protest that Indians were intruding further and "reveal how ambitious the Indian side’s aggressive designs are … also show that the Indian side is actively extending the tension to the entire Sino-Indian boundary," warning that India would be responsible for all the consequences.

In the Anglo-Tibetan agreement of March 1914, there were no verbal descriptions of the boundary and the location of the line, which was to be determined only by reading off and transposing the longitude and latitude from the original treaty map to the ground. This would plainly leave Dhola Post and Thag La ridge, like Khinzemane, north of the McMahon Line and in Chinese territory. However, the Indian Government insisted that McMahon intended to run the boundary along the lines of high ridges and, since Thag La ridge was the dominant feature, the boundary must lie along Thag La ridge. In Indian views, Thag La ridge had become a definitive and absolute boundary, and Dhola Post belonged to India as indisputably as New Delhi to itself. Based on its clear logic, India pushed the forward policy one explosive stage further. It was first thought that Indian patrols would infiltrate into Chinese-occupied territory and China would not retaliate. Then the Indian posts would cut off Chinese posts and force them to withdraw, and China would not retaliate. And now Indians would attack and force the Chinese back and China would not attack. The Indian Government built up the public confidence and expectation such that any marginal incursions by the Chinese on the McMahon Line, which was clearly and absolutely the boundary, would not be tolerated. It was further believed that the disadvantages were all on China’s side and the Indian Army was well placed to defend the border, while the truth was reverse. The road construction made movement relatively easy for the Chinese, whose troops had been stationed in Tibet for years, physically attuned and acclimatized to the high altitude as well as suitably clothed and equipped. On the Indian side, lateral movement was extremely difficult as the valleys lay north to south and the constant landslides and washouts during the monsoon made it unaffordable to cut roads. The Indians were disadvantaged throughout NEFA. As the Chinese road led to a point three hours, it took six days’ march for the Indians to reach Tawang. By the time Indian troops reached Tawang, they were exhausted and often sick with pulmonary edema, due to lack of acclimatization to and sudden exertion at high altitude. By as late as October 1962, Nehru still informed the journalists that the advantage lay with India in NEFA, and by September 1962, the belief had become an accepted truth in India.

Despite of public pressure, the Indian Government did not have to be pushed into actions. On September 9, a meeting was held in the Defense Ministry, which decided that the Chinese must be evicted immediately. As Nehru left for a Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ conference in London the day before, the meeting was conducted by Menon, who like other ministers, followed Nehru’s style of decision making without consulting the Cabinet. Although Menon initially did not favor the forward policy and inclined towards a negotiated boundary settlement with China, after failing to convince Nehru, now he took a strong and public line to eject the Chinese from Thag La ridge. The officers at the Defense Ministry meeting raised the issue that Dhola Post was in Chinese territory in their own maps, but they were told to disregard the maps and treat the crest of Thag La ridge as the boundary. General Thapar accepted the eviction order, which was code-named Leghorn, and XXXIII Corps was to move to Dhola Post immediately, without considering the difficulties in supplying the troops in an extremely difficult and little-known country. The military and civilian leadership, the latter with overriding command over the former, took unprofessional, overoptimistic and even irrational view of the military possibilities. On September 12, General Singh, of XXXIII Corps assured his superior officers of his determination to take actions, but suggested that Dhola Post should simply be withdrawn because of the limitations of his troops. The Chinese could quickly build up to divisional strength north of Tawang, and would outbid any Indian reinforcements in Thag La ridge. The Indian troops would have to rely on air supply, and also need heavy winter clothing and tents. General Sen of the Eastern Command personally went to Singh and other officers repeating the order to throw back the Chinese over Thag La ridge. On September 14, 9 Punjab battalion marched out for Dhola Post, with about four hundred rifles, half of the full complement of eight hundred. The second battalion of the brigade was ordered to move within forty-eight hours to Dhola Post, which was also at half strength.

By September 14, Army Head Quarter (H.Q.) learned the actual number of Chinese below Thag La ridge was only fifty or sixty, the true information that would unlikely have brought forth so drastic of reaction. But Army H.Q. did not call off the eviction move, but ordered the Punjabis to capture Thag La by September 19, but the order did not reached the Punjabis until September 19 itself. The Punjabis reached the Namka Chu early on September 15, still two full days of march away from Dhola Post, moving on hard scale rations and pouch ammunitions aside from heavy weapons and mortar ammunition. The Punjabis encountered the Chinese in company strength on both sides of the river that was forced by the monsoon rains. The Chinese reportedly "shouted in Hindi that the Indians should withdraw from the Namka Chu area as it was Chinese territory. They said that the Indian and Chinese peoples had an unbreakable friendship and this friendship should not be marred by petty border incidents. … They asked (the Indians) to send (their) local civil officers to discuss the exact location of the border." In response, the Indian political officer was ordered not to have discussions with the Chinese. The commanding officer of the Punjabis spread the battalion out along the Namka Chu in order to relieve Dhola Post, reopen the supply route and prevent Chinese incursion. Since September 13, Brigadier Dalvi, who was a forty-two-year-old graduate of the Indian Military Academy, had been ordered to move from Tawang to the Namka Chu. As the Indians laboriously built up force on the Namka Chu, the Chinese on the other side of the river kept pace with them effortlessly.

The Indian military intelligence (M.I.) declined during the last days of the British. There were no Indians in M.I. after 1947, and the civilian Intelligence Bureau (I.B.) replaced its role. Policy officers staffed the I.B., and a former officer Malik headed the Bureau and had an important place in the innermost counsels of the government. By 1960s Malik was widely accepted in domestic politics, especially his predictions about Chinese behavior. The forward policy was based on the rock solid faith established upon his appreciation, or rather divination, that the Chinese would not retaliate, even if India used force against the Chinese. Malik relied on extra-sensory perceptions, and helped to close the ears of Nehru and his official advisers, despite of mounting reports of increasing Chinese troops behind the McMahon Line. Nehru and his colleagues wished to believe that Chinese could be forced back without trouble. When a news agency reported of this on September 10, the Government tried to persuade the agency to withdraw it and then report that it was unfounded. When spokesman confirmed on September 13 that "some Chinese forces have appeared in the area of the Bhutan trijunction…" there was unwillingness to say squarely that Chinese troops deliberately crossed the McMahon Line. The spokesman simply said on September 14, "A Chinese group appears to be on our side." The Government leaked news constantly and most secret decisions appear in the press at extraordinary speed. The official attempt to suppress reports of Thag La ridge was thus unsuccessful, and the domestic critics obliged the Government to expel the Chinese instantly even if single Chinese crossed the McMahon Line, let alone Chinese forced across the line. The public, including the Congress, was outraged at the universally believed new Chinese aggression, unprovoked and insolent. The Swatantra Party called for Nehru’s resignation for the "utter failure to protect India’s borders," and the demands increased over the Government to issue an ultimatum to China, as impatience grew with the Government’s countermeasures.

General Singh at XXXIII Corps were reluctant to put troops where they could not be supplied and to launch an operation that was militarily impossible. The Chief of General Staff, General Thapar, expressed in a meeting in the Defense Ministry on September 22 that China would retaliate in the western sector and perhaps against all forward Indians posts east of the Chinese claim line. But a stock civilian reassurance overrode the concern. The Defense Ministry and External Affairs calculated to give a hard and demonstrative blow at the Chinese beneath Thag La ridge so that Chinese would retreat there but also would take a much more acquiescent line elsewhere. This was derived from reading the mood and character of the Chinese Government and confirmed by Malik’s estimations that no one would risk to assault a country as identified as India with the cause of peace. General Thapar’s warning was thus rejected in the Defense Ministry and the order for the Army was confirmed to evict the Chinese. General Thapar requested the order be put in writing, which came from a junior official who consulted through telephone call to the Defense Minister Menon in New York without consulting the Cabinet Defense Committee. The order overruled General Thapar’s professional judgment that his force was incapable of handling the Chinese reaction to the eviction operation. Three years before, Thapar’s predecessor Thimayya submitted resignation after having had a clash with Menon, and was humiliated and humbled under the name of "civil supremacy." This marked a point of no return in the Indian Army, and Thapar failed to offer his resignation. Brigadier Dalvi, much lower in rank, finally submitted resignation in protest and wrote later: "Resignation is the last constitutional resort of a service chief in a democratic set up … this is the only safeguard against incompetent, unscrupulous or ambitious politicians."

With the confirmation and passing down of the order, implementation was faced with daunting problems. The Indians were under far more strongly armed Chinese troops who outnumbered them by five or ten to one. The Namka Chu was still difficult to access and supply the troops. Rations of thirty days had to be air-dropped and stocked as well as field guns and ammunition. By the end of September, the politicians in New Delhi, including those in the Government, Congress Party and Opposition, were getting impatient with the Army "to take the steps necessary to clear the Chinese from Indian territory across Thag la ridge." The news media and official comments expressed confidence and optimism to achieve the Indian objectives without difficulty. In contrast to the impatience, the Namka Chu was quiet in the first part of September, as the Chinese offered cigarettes to the tobacco-less Indians and even handled over parachuted Indian supplies that landed on their side. On September 17, the Chinese reported that: "While two Chinese frontier guards were on sentry duty … more than sixty Indian soldiers closed in on them from three direction. The two Chinese soldiers immediately shouted to the Indian soldiers to halt. But the Indian troops pressed forward even faster. Several of the Indian troops gathered round them at a distance of about ten meters and some came as close as three meters to one of the guards, aiming their British-made rifles and Canadian-made sub-machine-guns and howling out at the top of their voices in wanton provocation." On September 20, the first shooting occurred, leaving two Chinese dead and five Indians wounded. Peking protested and demanded that "the Indian side immediately stop its attack and withdraw," warning that the Chinese would fire back in defense. The People’s Daily wrote: "the situation is most critical and the consequences will be serious. Let the Indian authorities not say that warning has not been served in advance." The Indians counter protested in almost the same language, calling China to "cease aggressive activities on Indian territory" and withdraw or "be responsible for all the consequences." Both sides were saber-rattling, but India’s scabbard was empty.

The official Indian accounts of exchanges of fire below Thag La ridge blamed the Chinese for having provoked them. This pressed the journalists and politicians to blame the field commanders as sluggish, and specifically pointed the blame on General Singh. When General Singh went to Eastern Command on September 29, General Sen refused to accept Singh’s requirement as impossible to meet. Singh wrote to protest both the impracticability of the operation that he was ordered to launch and the impropriety of Sen’s handling of the situation. Sen presented the written protest as an example of uncooperativeness and on October 2, both Thapar and Sen asked Menon to remove Singh from commanding XXXIII Corps, to which Menon agreed. The difficulties in finding a replacement made them decide to not simply remove Singh but to form XXXIII Corps into another corps to take over operations on the northwestern border. On October 3, it was decided that the new IV Corps should be headed by Kaul and would be made responsible for immediate launching of Operation Leghorn. Despite that Kaul had never commanded troops in combat, Nehru and Menon regarded Kaul as savior and were convinced that China would not strike back and the operation would be a straightforward one. The delusion was fused such that the operation would speedily succeed only if the right man commanded the troops. When Thapar repeated the possibility of Chinese counterblows, according to Kaul, Nehru replied that he had "good reason to believe that the Chinese would not take any strong action against us." As Kaul went to see Nehru prior to his appointment to command IV Corps, Nehru expressed that "the Chinese would see reason and withdraw from Dhola but in case they did not, we would have no option but to expel them from our territory. If we failed to take such action, Government would forfeit public confidence completely."

While the tension was building up on the border, the last rally of diplomatic exchanges was played out. In August the Indians expressed to China that they would be glad to discuss joint withdrawal from the disputed territory in the western sector. By "joint withdrawal", the Indians meant that China withdrew from all of the territory India claimed and India withdrew only the forward posts recently established in the western sector. After the completion of those withdrawals, India would proceed to talks with only minor adjustments of the "international boundaries," i.e., the Indian claimed lines. China replied on September 13, and accused India of seeking "excuses for rejecting discussions," pointing to the continuing Indians military activities in the western sector as "sham negotiations and real fighting." China would welcome seriously intended negotiations, but would "resist whenever attacked." China then reiterated the proposal put forward by Chou En-lai in November 1959 that the armed forces each withdraw twenty kilometers and urged further discussions first in Peking on October 15 and then in Delhi alternatively. On September 19, New Delhi agreed to talks in Peking as proposed but only based on Indian demands. "The Government of India are prepared to hold further discussions at the appropriate level to define measures to restore the status quo in the Western Sector which has been altered by force in the last few years and to remove the current tensions in that area." India would arrange talks with Peking on October 15 when China had indicated acceptance of that Indian formulation. By this time India refused to discuss the eastern sector at all, having the Punjabis set up along the Namka Chu. China replied on October 3, when the situation along the Namka Chu had become as tense as that in the western sector. Peking dismissed the Indian demand as absolutely unacceptable that "China must withdraw from vast tracts of her territory before discussions on the Sino-Indian boundary question can start." The Chinese expressed that they were against any preconditions set up to talks, and proposed that the October 15 talk proceed in Peking to discuss any aspect of the boundary question. But India replied on October 6, explicitly and categorically refusing to discuss while blaming China for preventing the talks. India retracted its earlier agreement to open discussions, and declared that it would "not enter into