World Tibet Network News Wednesday, May 20, 1998

NEW DELHI, May 20 (AFP) - The trading of insults between India and China since last week's nuclear tests has highlighted their rumbling border dispute -- which sparked a brief but bitter war in 1962. The two Asian giants still claim vast swathes of each other's territory along their 2,010 kilometres (1,246 mile) border.China reacted to the tests by accusing India of launching a "full-scalewar" in 1962, while India has responded by indignantly laying the blame for the conflict at Beijing's door.

The border dispute first flared during a visit by India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru to Beijing in 1959. Nehru questioned the boundaries shown on official Chinese maps, leading then Chinese premier Chau Enlai to reply that his government never recognised the border drawn up by the British colonial rulers of India in 1914 known as the Mc Mohan Line. He in turn laid claim to around 50,000 square miles (120,000 square kilometres) of Indian territory. The conflict erupted on three separate fronts along the two countries' mountainous frontier in September 1962. Skirmishing between the two sides around the Dhola area on the north-east frontier triggered a three-pronged Chinese invasion between October 20 and 22, and a push into Indian territory.

After giving the Indian army a bloody nose -- an estimated 10,000 Indiand eaths -- the Chinese announced a ceasefire on November 21 and then withdrew its forces 20 kilometers (13 miles) behind the Mc Mohan Line ten days later. The war led to a 14-year break in diplomatic relations. China still claims around 90,000 square kilometre (36,000 square miles) of Indian territory in Arunachal Pradesh (north-east), while New Delhi says China occupies some 38,000 square kilometres (15,200 square miles) in Kashmir. Ties began to improve substantially with the holding of more than 10 rounds of Sino-Indian negotiations since 1988. The last round of talks was in 1996. In November 1996, Jiang Zemin became the first Chinese president to visit India, and the two countries signed a pact to cut troops and armaments on their border and agreed to stop flying combat aircraft over contentious areas.

Ironically India was one of the first countries to recognise the new government of the communist People's Republic of China in 1949. China's invasion of eastern Tibet upset the balance the following year, but the two countries stabilised relations by agreeing the Indo-Chinese pact in 1954. Under the pact India gave up all extra-territorial rights and privileges it enjoyed in Tibet, which it inherited from the British colonial legacy, and formally recognised Tibet to be a region of China. The countries commited themselves to five principles under the pact -- popularly known as the Panchsheel -- including mutual respect for each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty. It also included mutual non-aggression, mutual non-interference in each others internal affairs and peaceful coexistence. However the pact has been strained by the presence of exiled Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama and 200,000 Tibetan refugees on Indian soil.