Initiation of India-China Border Talks

The unresolved border issue, a legacy of the India-China war of October 1962, cast a long and deep dark shadow on areas of engagement in the post-war period. Although ambassador-level relations between them were restored in April 1976, the first positive development on the part of China came when greeting the Indian diplomat in 1970, Mao said that India is a great country and that India and China should be friends again.

The border issue between them was intensified after the 1962 war, when the Chinese forces withdrew 20 Kilometers behind the Mc Mahon Line, which China called “the 1959 line of actual control” in the eastern sector and 20 km behind the line of its latest position in Ladakh, which was further identified with the “1959 line of actual control” in the western sector. This left China in possession of 23,200 square km of territory in Ladakh. India asked for status quo-ex-ante as of 8 September 1962 in all sectors, which China rejected.

It was made clear to the Chinese authorities that the border issue between the two is central to normal relations when Wang Ping Non visited India in March 1978 as the leader of a goodwill delegation and emphasised that the bitterness that had developed between the two countries as a result of the border conflict 16 years before was a thing of the past.  From the Government of India’s points of view complete friendship with China would be possible only after the return of its territory.  Morarji Desai, the Prime Minister of India, also told the Rajya Sabha that there was no possibility of having full friendship with China: a border solution was first, amity could only come after.  Thus, the question in India was seen as a precondition to the normalisation of relations between the two countries

It resulted in a stalemate on the boundary dispute.  The Indian suggestion of status quo was further refuted in December 1964 by Chinese Premier Chou Enlai while speaking to the National People’s Congress in Beijing. He called the suggestion of restoration of the status quo as of 8 September 1962 “an unreasonable Indian pre-condition”. He declared on the occasion that China would never dismantle its posts and reminded India that China had not relinquished its claim to an additional 90,000 square km south of the Mc Mahon Line. This territorial demand was in addition to the 23,200 square km in Ladakh that was already with China.  Thus, the bigger border issue, if made central to further development of Sino-Indian relations, would effectively freeze any progress towards entente.

In fact the conflict left a trail of bitterness whose traces are still present in their relations. For many years to come their mutual hostility determined their foreign policy. There were no ambassadors is each other’s capital for many years and there was virtual absence of contact. There is nothing worse for a country’s image than defeat, as the prestige and image of a nation gets tarnished. Its capacity to influence other nations gets seriously affected. As J. F. Kennedy aptly put it: ‘Victory has many fathers, defeat is an orphan’.

Internationally, the two countries traded abuses and generally adopted opposite standpoints. Peking was engaged in a full-scale campaign against New Delhi, a chief purpose of which was to carry conviction that India was no longer non-aligned but was firmly in the US camp.  With Chinese propaganda and its alliances against India, now the later was deeply suspicious about Chinese motives and designs. India believed that China wanted to dominate Asia as Lal Bahadur Shastri, the then Prime Minister of India, said in Parliament, ‘To justify its aggressive attitude, China is pretending to be a guardian of Asian countries, who, according to China are being bullied by India. The basic objective of China is to claim for itself a position of dominance in Asia, which no self-respecting nation in Asia is prepared to recognise’

 The annual report of the Ministry of External Affairs for the year 1964-65 spelt-out India’s perception of Chinese motivations. After a long period of hostility and strife from the mid-1970s the two countries felt the need to normalise their relations and accordingly they moved in this direction, although slowly. In line, China participated in the 33^rd Table Tennis Championship at Calcutta in February 1975. Peking began to respond to the earlier Indian initiatives.

A major change of guard took place almost simultaneously in India and China. As a result of the  general election held in early 1977, for the first time since country’s independence in 1947, a non-Congress Government, the Janata Party coalition, under the leadership of Morarji Desai, assumed office. The Chinese confidently expected that the Janata Government would considerably distance itself from the USSR and move towards new bonds with Washington and Peking.

The change of government was welcomed in Peking and as reported in The Times, the Chinese government expressed the hope that the new Indian government would bring changes in the hitherto pro-Soviet policy of the Government of India.  The new Government and Atal Bihari Vajpayee, its Minister for External Affairs, assured the Chinese Government by reiterating that India considered Tibet as a part of China and normal relations were maintained in the period with exchange of delegations from both sides. However, it was made clear to the Chinese authorities that the border issue between the two is central to normal relations when Wang Ping Non visited India in March 1978 as the leader of a goodwill delegation and emphasised that the bitterness that had developed between the two countries as a result of the border conflict 16 years before was a thing of the past.  From the Government of India’s points of view complete friendship with China would be possible only after the return of its territory.  Morarji Desai, the Prime Minister of India, also told the Rajya Sabha that there was no possibility of having full friendship with China: a border solution was first, amity could only come after.  Thus, the question in India was seen as a precondition to the normalisation of relations between the two countries.

Therefore, this background persisted in the background to the recent clahes between forces of the two countries. The experience of te past also played a role in te recent clash between the two.