Bilateral Relations

Answer: From the very beginning, India adopted a policy of friendship towards the Chinese republic. It not only gave diplomatic recognition to the new People’s Republic of China but also pressed for its representation in the UN Security Council. So, India never suspected that China would ever launch an attack, but it did which is attributed to certain fundamental factors such as:

• Disputed border: The British left an ill-defined 3,440 km long disputed border between India and then Tibet. And, subsequent failure to accept the McMahon line and Johnson line became the root cause of the dispute between both the countries.
• Occupation of Aksai Chin: Both China and India made territorial claims on Aksai Chin. It was China’s construction of an important western highway road link that connects the Chinese regions of Tibet and Xinjiang which triggered the conflict.
• Chinese insecurity in Tibet: The Chinese had tremendous sense of insecurity in Tibet particularly after the Dalai Lama crossed over to India and established the government-in-exile to internationalize the issue of China’s illegal occupation of his land and be a rallying force for Tibetans’ resistance against Beijing’s rule inside Tibet. And, China perceived India as a troublesome factor behind the Tibetan unrest.
• Forward policy: In response to Chinese militarization of the disputed border, India carried out a forward policy of establishing a series of outposts all along its Northern and Eastern borders with China without the necessary wherewithal to militarily implement this. It antagonized the Chinese and further increased the chances of conflict.

The Sino-Indian war is often cited as a watershed moment in Indian foreign policy, after which Nehruvian idealism began to give way to the pragmatic impulses of subsequent administrations. The significance of the 1962 war for India can be understood in following terms:

• Political aftermath: The China war dented India’s global image. India had to approach the Americans and the British for military assistance to tide over the crisis. It induced a sense of national humiliation. Some of the top army commanders and the then Defence Minister, V. Krishna Menon had to resign. A no-confidence motion against Nehru’s government was moved for the first time and debated in the Lok Sabha. It affected the opposition as well and resulted in the split of Communist Party of India in 1964 into CPI and CPI (M).
• Attention towards the North Eastern region of India: The war alerted the Indian leadership to the volatile situation in the Northeast region. Therefore, the process of its reorganisation began soon after the China war. Nagaland was granted statehood; Manipur and Tripura, though Union Territories, were given the right to elect their own legislative assemblies.
• Military advancement: The 1962 war and the nuclear tests conducted by China in 1964 led India to understand that China can be a bigger military threat for India than Pakistan. It had to be prepared for a joint Sino-Pak offensive on both its Eastern and Western fronts simultaneously. Therefore, to modernise its armed forces and military infrastructure, it created the Department for Defence Production and established Ordnance Factory Board. India also began to align itself more closely with the Soviet Union.

The war created such a rift between Sino-India relations that even after the lapse of six decades, the border issues between the two nations have never been negotiated considerably. The unresolved issues led to the recent standoffs in Doklam (2017) and the Galwan Valley (2020-21). China has also been found supporting the Maoists and the Northeast insurgents in India and creating a ‘String of Pearls’ in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) across Gwadar, Hambantota, Chittagong and Myanmar port to encircle India. Taking lessons from the 1962 war, India must develop a huge military might along with making strategic partners in the region and beyond.