Borderline Sovereignty Disorder: China and the Law and Politics of the China-India Territorial Disputes

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Abstract International law is usually conducive to stability and peace. In the context of the China-India border and territorial disputes, however, international law exacerbates tensions and increases risks, as the incidents at the border in 2020 illustrate. Factors that explain this pattern include: the impossibility of ‘thick’ exercises of sovereignty in marginal, uninhabitable territory, the ambiguities of the human rights to self-determination of minority peoples and the dilemmas they pose for States’ central governments, China’s distinctive views on the invalidity of ‘unequal treaties,’ the relevance of various history-based claims to sovereignty, and the special place of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence in international law. These law-related problems are compounded by political aspects of the border and territorial disputes and China-India relations, including: rising nationalism in both States, concentrations in and near disputed territory of minority populations with cross-border ties, China’s and India’s status as rising or renascent powers, and alignments with third-party States.