Sansad TV Perspective: India-China Border

Context: Recently, a tussle took place between the armies of India and China at the Arunachal border. 

Anchor: Tina Jha

Participants: 

• Dr Sanjay Bharadwaj, Central of South East Asia Studies, JNU
• Major General (Retd.) A.K Shiva, Defence Expert
• Prubhu Dayal, Former Ambassador

Details: 

Image: area of face off

What is the Line of Actual Control?

• The LAC is the demarcation that separates Indian-controlled territory from Chinese-controlled territory.
• India considers the LAC to be 3,488 km long, while the Chinese consider it to be only around 2,000 km.
• It is divided into three sectors: 
  • The eastern sector which spans Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim,
  • The middle sector in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, and 
  • The western sector in Ladakh.

• The line in the middle sector is the least controversial but for the precise alignment to be followed in the Barahoti Plains.

Reason for the dispute: 

• India and China have differing perceptions of the LAC in many places, and some 16 such points are listed in mutually agreed-upon documents.
• The alignment of the LAC in the eastern sector is along the 1914 McMahon Line, and there are minor disputes about the positions on the ground as per the principle of the high Himalayan watershed.
• The major disagreements are in the western sector where the LAC emerged from two letters written by Chinese Prime Minister Zhou Enlai to PM Jawaharlal Nehru in 1959 after he had first mentioned such a ‘line’ in 1956.
• After the 1962 War, the Chinese claimed they had withdrawn to 20 km behind the LAC in November 1959.
• Zhou clarified the LAC again after the war in another letter to Nehru: 
  • “To put it concretely, in the eastern sector it coincides in the main with the so-called McMahon Line, and in the western and middle sectors it coincides in the main with the traditional customary line which has consistently been pointed out by China.”
• Unlike in Ladakh, where there had been no overlapping Chinese claims, in three places where the incursions took place in 2020 namely, Gogra, Hot Springs and Galwan, the trouble in Tawang, the western-most district of Arunachal, erupted at an “agreed” disputed point.
• China claims Arunachal Pradesh as part of the Tibet Autonomous Region and describes it as south Tibet.
  • It views Tawang as an area of strategic importance for its control over Tibet and its Buddhist leadership.

India’s response to these claims of China

• India rejected the concept of LAC in both 1959 and 1962.
• India claims that the Chinese line “was a disconnected series of points on a map that could be joined up in many ways; the line should omit gains from aggression in 1962 and therefore should be based on the actual position on September 8, 1962, before the Chinese attack. 
• The Border Road Organisation’s Sela Pass tunnel project, which could be ready by January 2023, will provide crucial all-weather connectivity between Tezpur in Assam and Tawang.
• A 1,500-km Frontier Highway project, shadowing the LAC in Arunachal, is also coming up. It will run from Tawang in the west to Vijaynagar in east Arunachal along the state’s frontier with China.

Difference between LAC and LOC:

• The LoC emerged from the 1948 ceasefire line negotiated by the UN after the Kashmir War. It was designated as the LoC in 1972, following the Shimla Agreement between the two countries.
• The LAC, in contrast, is only a concept – it is not agreed upon by the two countries, neither delineated on a map nor demarcated on the ground.

More on the difference between LAC and LOC in the link.