Opinion: Article by an indian blogger regarding Sino-India tensions

[KeyBORED Warrior]

An Indian blogger,
Bill Purkayastha:

As an Indian, let me say what I think about this article and this issue.

First: the border between India and China had been repeatedly redrawn by the British during the 19th and early 20th centuries. The historical Kashmir territory had been a Mughal Empire possession, then been taken from it by the Sikh Empire, which in the early 1840s was in turn annexed by the Brits and Kashmir put under a puppet Hindu Dogra dynasty. The basic importance of Kashmir to the Brits was that it was a frontier state against “Russian expansion” like Afghanistan, which was not at the time (until the Afghan Independence War of 1919) permitted by the Brits to have a foreign policy. The space between Kashmir and Afghanistan was left to Tibet, which in turn was under the control of the weak and powerless Chinese Empire.

After the Chinese Revolution of 1911 the Brits – who had invaded Tibet in 1903 – decided to cut away Tibet from China before the latter could get strong. They therefore called a “Simla Conference” in 1913 at the Indian city of Simla, now Shimla. The participants were the Dalai Lama’s people, the British under one Henry MacMahon, and one single Chinese representative, Ivan Chen. At that conference the Brits unilaterally divided Tibet into two – an Outer (southern) Tibet that was to be under Chinese “suzerainty” but with no Chinese “sovereignty”, and an Inner (northern) Tibet under both Chinese suzerainty and sovereignty. That is, South Tibet would be explicitly Chinese in name only. MacMahon also redrew the border between the two entities of British India and Outer Tibet, claiming what is now the Indian State of Arunachal Pradesh in the east, calling the new border Britain unilaterally imposed the MacMahon Line. At the same time it explicitly relinquished a large part of its claimed borders of Kashmir in the West, leaving the plateau of Aksai Chin in Ladakh to Outer Tibet. The Dalai Lama’s regime eagerly agreed, but the Chinese did not.

*No Chinese government, Nationalist or Communist, has ever at any time recognised the validity of the Simla Conference or the MacMahon Line.* This is essential to remember. And it did not happen during the Chinese Civil War as this article claims, it happened long before that.

In 1947 India became “independent”, though its military was still equipped and led by British officers. When they left, Nehru began a policy of deliberately promoting incompetent yes-men to the Army’s top ranks so as to not have a military coup. China was still weak and just recovering from the Civil War and was embroiled in Korea, and, seizing the opportunity, in 1951 India invaded Tibetan territory that was explicitly left to Outer Tibet in the east by the MacMahon Line, the monastery town of Tawang, and annexed it. On 1 July 1954 Nehru also unilaterally extended the Indian claim line in Kashmir to re include Aksai Chin, which had been left to Tibet by MacMahon. My father, a young man at the time, himself confirmed to me that before 1954 Indian maps always depicted Aksai Chin in China.

*India cannot simultaneously claim the MacMahon Line in the east and Aksai Chin in the west.* The two are mutually exclusive. It cannot be legally done.

China had repeatedly suggested through the 1950s a straightforward swap – Aksai Chin for the MacMahon Line. India refused every time.

During the late 1950s to mid 60s, too, India hosted CIA listening posts in the Himalayas to spy on China. India and the CIA armed and trained Khampa rebels and parachuted and infiltrated them into Chinese Tibet. India – violating its own promise to China to not permit political activities – allowed the fugitive Dalai Lama regime to set up a “government in exile” in Dharmashala near Shimla. American engagement with India against China is nothing new.

As for the current crisis, it’s entirely manufactured by the Modi regime. The regime is desperate to distract attention from a collapsed economy, a ruinous failed lockdown, surging COVID-19 numbers, ravaging locusts, financial criminals who were permitted to escape abroad, rising popular discontent, and no idea how to fix things. It therefore chose to pick a fight with China, which boomeranged badly. The regime media has suddenly fallen silent on the topic while those media not under the regime claim massive further Indian territorial losses in Aksai Chin. It’s not going to end in war anyway. The Indian army is too weak to take on the Chinese alone, and America is not going to commit suicide for the greater glory of Narendrabhai Damodardasbhai Modi.

 

[jaibi]

Brother, we can't publish this unless it's from the original author himself. This place is for original articles only.

 

[KeyBORED Warrior]

Brother, we can't publish this unless it's from the original author himself. This place is for original articles only.

Can you please post in a relevant section then?

 

[jaibi]

Sure, brother

Can you please post in a relevant section then?

 

[Joe Shearer]

Thank you for inflicting the half-baked views of a half-informed Indian blogger on us. Perhaps some day, we can return the courtesy.

An Indian blogger,
Bill Purkayastha:

As an Indian, let me say what I think about this article and this issue.

First: the border between India and China had been repeatedly redrawn by the British during the 19th and early 20th centuries. The historical Kashmir territory had been a Mughal Empire possession, then been taken from it by the Sikh Empire, which in the early 1840s was in turn annexed by the Brits and Kashmir put under a puppet Hindu Dogra dynasty. The basic importance of Kashmir to the Brits was that it was a frontier state against “Russian expansion” like Afghanistan, which was not at the time (until the Afghan Independence War of 1919) permitted by the Brits to have a foreign policy. The space between Kashmir and Afghanistan was left to Tibet, which in turn was under the control of the weak and powerless Chinese Empire.

Obviously the good man has never looked at a map, and wouldn't recognise a compass if it came and smote him between the fourth and fifth waistcoat buttons. From west to east, we get Afghanistan, Kashmir, Tibet, China. How can the space BETWEEN Kashmir and Afghanistan have been left to Tibet when Afghanistan and Kashmir were next to each other, and Tibet was on the OTHER side of Kashmir?

After the Chinese Revolution of 1911 the Brits – who had invaded Tibet in 1903 – decided to cut away Tibet from China before the latter could get strong.

The results of that invasion, eight years BEFORE the Chinese Sun Yat-Sen Revolution, also had diplomatic consequences, that are discreetly obscured in this analysis.

They therefore called a “Simla Conference” in 1913 at the Indian city of Simla, now Shimla. The participants were the Dalai Lama’s people, the British under one Henry MacMahon, and one single Chinese representative, Ivan Chen.

The Chinese representative, needless to add, was dragged kicking and screaming by a team of mules all the way from Shanghai. He did not attend of his own accord. He couldn't say a word during the conference because he was tied and gagged throughout the proceedings.

At that conference the Brits unilaterally divided Tibet into two – an Outer (southern) Tibet that was to be under Chinese “suzerainty” but with no Chinese “sovereignty”, and an Inner (northern) Tibet under both Chinese suzerainty and sovereignty.

So an arrangement between the Imperial Russian and the Imperial British governments is now shown here as a unilateral British decision.

'A little knowledge is a dangerous thing,
Drink deep or taste not the Pierian spring.'

That is, South Tibet would be explicitly Chinese in name only. MacMahon also redrew the border between the two entities of British India and Outer Tibet, claiming what is now the Indian State of Arunachal Pradesh in the east, calling the new border Britain unilaterally imposed the MacMahon Line.

There was neither delineation nor demarcation of boundaries between Shigatse and the Brahmaputra Valley at that time. Trade and interaction between the two happened in a series of intermediate trades between tribes ranged across the whole region. Even today, ethnographers recognise Arunachal as being a series of tribes arranged next to each other from Bhutan to the Kachin, then the Shan states in Myanmar. Only the monastery of Tawang paid intermittent tribute to Shigatse, and held land in the vicinity in Arunachal Pradesh.

At the same time it explicitly relinquished a large part of its claimed borders of Kashmir in the West, leaving the plateau of Aksai Chin in Ladakh to Outer Tibet. The Dalai Lama’s regime eagerly agreed, but the Chinese did not.

The plateau of Aksai Chin was added to the J&K State by a sharp British geographer who took the Maharaja for a ride, telling him that there was no earthly reason why the state should not claim rule until as far as the Kuen Lun Mountains, it being unoccupied territory anyway. That was wrong in two ways:

• At that time, the Dzungarian Empire had been crushed by the Chinese, the Dzungarian people exterminated by a policy of systematic genocide, and the Uyghur brought in in their place. The policy of replacing the Dzungarian Buddhists by the Uyghurs was deliberate, and intended to break the chain of Buddhist states in that region.
• There was already, from the wars of 1842, after Zorawar Singh's unsuccessful invasion of Guge, or western Tibet, the Treaty of Chushul, determining the boundaries between Ladakh and Guge, and endorsed by Ladakh, J&K, Tibet and China (the Chinese representative had just died in battle when the Tibeto-Chinese forces were defeated in front of Leh).

*No Chinese government, Nationalist or Communist, has ever at any time recognised the validity of the Simla Conference or the MacMahon Line.* This is essential to remember. And it did not happen during the Chinese Civil War as this article claims, it happened long before that.

The Chinese Civil War and the end of Qing rule was 1911; the Simla Conference was 1913.

Repeat after me: 1911, then 1912, THEN 1913.

In 1947 India became “independent”, though its military was still equipped and led by British officers. When they left, Nehru began a policy of deliberately promoting incompetent yes-men to the Army’s top ranks so as to not have a military coup.

Crap.

Seniority was strictly followed, due to the integrity of the Indian officers themselves, when Nathu Singh refused to supersede either Cariappa or Rajendrasinhji, and when the third chief was Srinagesh, the fourth Thimayya. It was only in the promotion of Brij Mohan Kaul that this policy of deliberate promotion of a chosen man commenced, and it was not due to a desire deliberately to promote an incompetent man, it was due to the opposite impulse, due to Nehru (and Krishna Menon) deciding that they knew better than the professionals who was a good soldier and who wasn't.

Even Thimayya was not allowed to supersede a wimpish but senior P. N. Thapar by installing his brilliant deputy Lt Gen S. P. P. Thorat as his replacement.

Incidentally, Biji Kaul had the misfortune to serve under Thorat thrice, got ACRs marked not fit for further promotion thrice, and was whitewashed by the Prime Minister's direct intervention thrice.

Never happened before, never happened after (there were supersessions - S. K. Sinha and Prem Bhagat, and, very recently, Rawat)

China was still weak and just recovering from the Civil War and was embroiled in Korea, and, seizing the opportunity, in 1951 India invaded Tibetan territory that was explicitly left to Outer Tibet in the east by the MacMahon Line, the monastery town of Tawang, and annexed it.

Utter nonsense.

A young officer pointed out that there had been no administrative presence in the region, and was allowed to volunteer to tour the region and set up the normal administrative machinery.

On 1 July 1954 Nehru also unilaterally extended the Indian claim line in Kashmir to re include Aksai Chin, which had been left to Tibet by MacMahon. My father, a young man at the time, himself confirmed to me that before 1954 Indian maps always depicted Aksai Chin in China.

There had been no 'leaving to Tibet',ever; the region of Aksai Chin was simply not shown as part of J&K, as was the correct position. Implying that the British consciously left it is wrong; it was left out because it was never left in, except by the crook who mulcted the Maharaja of millions with his imaginative cartography.

It is true that Nehru ordered the maps extended.

*India cannot simultaneously claim the MacMahon Line in the east and Aksai Chin in the west.* The two are mutually exclusive. It cannot be legally done.

There was never any connection.

China had repeatedly suggested through the 1950s a straightforward swap – Aksai Chin for the MacMahon Line. India refused every time.

The single biggest blunder by India under Nehru's direct leadership. One of the worst disservices he did to India.

During the late 1950s to mid 60s, too, India hosted CIA listening posts in the Himalayas to spy on China. India and the CIA armed and trained Khampa rebels and parachuted and infiltrated them into Chinese Tibet. India – violating its own promise to China to not permit political activities – allowed the fugitive Dalai Lama regime to set up a “government in exile” in Dharmashala near Shimla. American engagement with India against China is nothing new.

Essentially true but the extent of Indian involvement is highly exaggerated.

As for the current crisis, it’s entirely manufactured by the Modi regime. The regime is desperate to distract attention from a collapsed economy, a ruinous failed lockdown, surging COVID-19 numbers, ravaging locusts, financial criminals who were permitted to escape abroad, rising popular discontent, and no idea how to fix things. It therefore chose to pick a fight with China, which boomeranged badly. The regime media has suddenly fallen silent on the topic while those media not under the regime claim massive further Indian territorial losses in Aksai Chin. It’s not going to end in war anyway. The Indian army is too weak to take on the Chinese alone, and America is not going to commit suicide for the greater glory of Narendrabhai Damodardasbhai Modi.

About the only useful bit in the whole thing.

As history, it is dangerously misleading and wrong on a large number of points.

Moral of the story: do not allow half-educated Bongs to mislead PDF. Use your own 3/4 educated Bong member to do so instead.

@jaibi

 

[Joe Shearer]

An Indian blogger,
Bill Purkayastha:

As an Indian, let me say what I think about this article and this issue.

First: the border between India and China had been repeatedly redrawn by the British during the 19th and early 20th centuries. The historical Kashmir territory had been a Mughal Empire possession, then been taken from it by the Sikh Empire, which in the early 1840s was in turn annexed by the Brits and Kashmir put under a puppet Hindu Dogra dynasty. The basic importance of Kashmir to the Brits was that it was a frontier state against “Russian expansion” like Afghanistan, which was not at the time (until the Afghan Independence War of 1919) permitted by the Brits to have a foreign policy. The space between Kashmir and Afghanistan was left to Tibet, which in turn was under the control of the weak and powerless Chinese Empire.

After the Chinese Revolution of 1911 the Brits – who had invaded Tibet in 1903 – decided to cut away Tibet from China before the latter could get strong. They therefore called a “Simla Conference” in 1913 at the Indian city of Simla, now Shimla. The participants were the Dalai Lama’s people, the British under one Henry MacMahon, and one single Chinese representative, Ivan Chen. At that conference the Brits unilaterally divided Tibet into two – an Outer (southern) Tibet that was to be under Chinese “suzerainty” but with no Chinese “sovereignty”, and an Inner (northern) Tibet under both Chinese suzerainty and sovereignty. That is, South Tibet would be explicitly Chinese in name only. MacMahon also redrew the border between the two entities of British India and Outer Tibet, claiming what is now the Indian State of Arunachal Pradesh in the east, calling the new border Britain unilaterally imposed the MacMahon Line. At the same time it explicitly relinquished a large part of its claimed borders of Kashmir in the West, leaving the plateau of Aksai Chin in Ladakh to Outer Tibet. The Dalai Lama’s regime eagerly agreed, but the Chinese did not.

*No Chinese government, Nationalist or Communist, has ever at any time recognised the validity of the Simla Conference or the MacMahon Line.* This is essential to remember. And it did not happen during the Chinese Civil War as this article claims, it happened long before that.

In 1947 India became “independent”, though its military was still equipped and led by British officers. When they left, Nehru began a policy of deliberately promoting incompetent yes-men to the Army’s top ranks so as to not have a military coup. China was still weak and just recovering from the Civil War and was embroiled in Korea, and, seizing the opportunity, in 1951 India invaded Tibetan territory that was explicitly left to Outer Tibet in the east by the MacMahon Line, the monastery town of Tawang, and annexed it. On 1 July 1954 Nehru also unilaterally extended the Indian claim line in Kashmir to re include Aksai Chin, which had been left to Tibet by MacMahon. My father, a young man at the time, himself confirmed to me that before 1954 Indian maps always depicted Aksai Chin in China.

*India cannot simultaneously claim the MacMahon Line in the east and Aksai Chin in the west.* The two are mutually exclusive. It cannot be legally done.

China had repeatedly suggested through the 1950s a straightforward swap – Aksai Chin for the MacMahon Line. India refused every time.

During the late 1950s to mid 60s, too, India hosted CIA listening posts in the Himalayas to spy on China. India and the CIA armed and trained Khampa rebels and parachuted and infiltrated them into Chinese Tibet. India – violating its own promise to China to not permit political activities – allowed the fugitive Dalai Lama regime to set up a “government in exile” in Dharmashala near Shimla. American engagement with India against China is nothing new.

As for the current crisis, it’s entirely manufactured by the Modi regime. The regime is desperate to distract attention from a collapsed economy, a ruinous failed lockdown, surging COVID-19 numbers, ravaging locusts, financial criminals who were permitted to escape abroad, rising popular discontent, and no idea how to fix things. It therefore chose to pick a fight with China, which boomeranged badly. The regime media has suddenly fallen silent on the topic while those media not under the regime claim massive further Indian territorial losses in Aksai Chin. It’s not going to end in war anyway. The Indian army is too weak to take on the Chinese alone, and America is not going to commit suicide for the greater glory of Narendrabhai Damodardasbhai Modi.

@KeyBORED Warrior

Please read this very accurate narration by @AgNoStiC MuSliM elsewhere.

The original territorial demarcation issue was between China and British India, which arose as a result of 1846 Amritsar treaty that left the border with China unmarked. British authorities assigned W.H. Johnson, a survey officer, to propose a line which was to be sent to the Chinese government for negotiations. Authors Christopher Snedden and Alastair Lamb state that Mr. Johnson was unhappy with the working conditions under the East India Company and sought to join the court of the Maharaja of Kashmir instead. To impress the Maharaja, he increased the size of the state of Kashmir in the map he created by including Aksai Chin and Shaksgam Valley in Kashmir, both of which were under Chinese control at that point in time.

British authorities in Calcutta were annoyed by the decision to demarcate the border in a manner that showed Chinese controlled territory as being a part of British India and Johnson was disciplined by his superiors and his map rejected. The Maharaja, however, thought that Johnson had magically increased his territory by drawing a few lines on the map and thus, as a reward, he was offered a job by the Maharaja and appointed Wazir or Governor of Ladakh in 1872.

The line he created is called the Johnson Line and, as mentioned above, was rejected by British India, let alone accepted by China.

And further - apparently your hero thinks every Scotsman looks like every other Scotsman; to him, McDonald and MacMahon are the same (well, close enough).

The East India Company then appointed Sir Claude MacDonald to create the new official British line which he did. The new demarcation by Sir Claude MacDonald did not include the Chinese areas that W.H Johnson had included in his demarcation to curry favor with the Maharajah. The British sent it to the Chinese on 14th March 1899 with the following proposal:

1. China will withdraw all claims to Hunza valley
2. British India will withdraw all claims to Shaksgam/Raskam and Taghdumbash

This is the McDonald Line. The Chinese did not respond, prompting the British to inform them that their silence was taken as assent and Britain would act accordingly, which Britain did.

That is why the idiot thinks that MacMahon was responsible for both the MacMahon Line in the east, and for renouncing the Johnson Line in the west.

Where did you find the creature?