The Unresolved Sino–Indian Border Dispute

Abstract

This paper posits that China’s insistence on the ‘return’ to China of the territory constituting Arunachal Pradesh, and even China’s insistence on Indian cession of a salient of territory in the Tawang area of that region, is a form of Chinese deterrence of what Beijing takes to be potentially dangerous ‘anti-China’ behaviour by India. Deep divergence of Chinese and Indian perceptions of Tibet, plus the history of Indian support for unarmed and armed Tibetan resistance to Chinese Communist rule of Tibet, makes Beijing fearful that India might again, someday, work to undermine Chinese rule in Tibet. An open territorial dispute serves as a standing threat to ‘teach India a lesson’, underlining for New Delhi the need for great circumspection in dealing with China. Indian strategic alignment with the United States exacerbates Chinese fears. The intensity of China’s implicit threat can be turned up or down by Beijing as the perversity of Indian policy indicates. Keeping the border issue open dovetails with China’s continuing entente with Pakistan and may even be based on an understanding between Beijing and Islamabad. A premise of this argument is that mainstream Indian opinion is willing to translate the line of actual control into an international border.