Why India and China’s border disputes are so difficult to resolve

Abstract

Sovereignty over two separated pieces of territory has been contested between China and India. Aksai Chin is located either in the Indian province of Jammu and Kashmir, or the Chinese province of Xinjiang, in the west. It is a virtually uninhabited high-altitude wasteland crossed by the Xinjiang–Tibet Highway. The other disputed territory lies south of the McMahon Line. It was formerly referred to as the North East Frontier Agency, and is now called Arunachal Pradesh. The McMahon Line was part of the 1914 Shimla Convention between British India and Tibet, an agreement rejected by China. The 1962 Sino-Indian War was fought in both of these areas. An agreement to resolve the dispute was concluded in 1996, including "confidence-building measures" and a mutually agreed Line of Actual Control. In 2006, the Chinese ambassador to India claimed that all of Arunachal Pradesh is Chinese territory amidst a military build-up. At the time, both countries claimed incursions as much as a kilometre at the northern tip of Sikkim. In 2009, India announced it would deploy additional military forces along the border. In 2014, India proposed China should acknowledge "One India" policy to resolve the border dispute.