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In the current situation it would be helpful to recall the background of India- China relationship. This background is based on the account I have given of India-China and Pakistan-US relations in my book on Ayub Khan. Few people seem to know how much pressure was brought upon Ayub Khan by the Americans to align himself with the Indians during the China-India war in 1962. It is also important to remember that China and India were close friends in the 1950s and it was India which converted China into her enemy No. 1.
In the early 1950s friendship with China was the cornerstone of Indias foreign policy. Chinas response to Indian gestures of friendship was warm and enthusiastic. This great relationship, dramatized by the much-chanted slogan Hindi-Cheenee Bhai- Bhai was a little soured when Nehru discovered at the Bandung conference, the first-ever get-together of Afro-Asian leaders in 1955, that Chou En-Lai, whom he regarded as a protégé, was in fact a formidable rival. It was Chou En-Lai, soldier, poet, and scholar, who outshone all the other luminaries and came to dominate the conference. Nehru, the great pundit, a shining symbol of anti-imperialism, was completely eclipsed.
The relations turned sour when India and China started squabbling over some desolate Himalayan peaks. A summit meeting between Nehru and Chou En-Lai in April 1960 ended in frustration and ill-concealed recrimination. Thereafter, the two sides continued to exchange protest notes, while the Indians tried to establish an improved communications network along the border. The Indians also set up a number of posts and pickets in the western sector running from the Karakoram Pass to Demchock on the Indus river, while lodging protests against Chinese intrusions in the area. However, nothing mush of significance happened, and as a result of Soviet mediation the two countries agreed to enter into formal talks. These talks, too, ended in a stalemate in December 1960.The Indian President, in his address to the budget session of the Indian parliament in February 1961, announced that the Government of India was alert to the problems of aggression on and incursions into the sovereign territory of the Union. During the debate on the Presidents address in the Upper House Nehru said: the major advance of the Chinese forces into Indian territory took place in the summer of 1959. Ever since then there has been no advance anywhere. The Chines wanted that the border should be delimited and marked but Nehru rejected any suggestion of sitting down with the Chinese to define the border.
The situation was transformed when Ayub Khan suggested to the Chinese in November 1959 that the Pakistan-China should be demarcated to eliminate any possibility of misunderstanding or dispute in the future. Ayubs move caused a stir not only in India but also among Pakistans western allies and in the Soviet Union. Pakistan had introduced a wholly unexpected dimension into the strategic situation in the region.
The India leadership was positively cocky about their military prowess. Had the Indian forces not captured Goa in October 1961? The conquest of Goa had thrilled his people Nehru claimed. In January 1962, Nehru, while campaigning for Krishna Menons election to the Lok Sabha, announced: I say that after Menon became Defence Minister our defence forces have become for the first time a very strong and efficient fighting force. I say it with a challenge and with intimate knowledge that it is for the first time that our defence forces have a new spirit and modern weapons.
India and China had signed a trade agreement covering the Tibet region in 1954, which was hailed by the two sides as a model for peaceful co-existence in Asia and elsewhere. Six months before the expiry of the agreement the Chines suggested that negotiations should be taken up to renew the agreement. India declined to have any negotiations for a new agreement until China withdrew from the territory claimed by India. Two border incidents, one in Chipchap valley and the other in Galwan valley, resulted in a serious clash between Indian and Chinese forces, but on both occasions the Chines withdrew and this confirmed the Indian belief that in the event of a real showdown the Chinese would do no more than huff and puff and if the Indian troops remained resolute the Chinese would swerve away before the impact. ( See Neville Maxwells India s China war, 1970)
India pressed on with its forward policy in the Western sector to push the Chinese out of the territory claimed by India. It was in the Eastern sector, however, where the Chinese were not in occupation of any territory claimed by India that the India action of setting up a new post north of the McMahon Line invited swift retaliation. Diplomatic exchanges between India and China continued during August and September 1962. In October the Indians announced that a special force had been created to oust the Chinese. When Nehru was asked by a reporter what orders had been given to the special force, he replied: Our instructions are to free our territory. The reported pressed: When? and Nehru replied: I cannot fix a date. That is entirely for the army. With that India had given an ultimatum to China. The Chinese troops opened a heavy barrage on Indian leading to a full-scale war in October 1962. Within less than thirty days the Indian forces along the front were encircled and routed and the entire disputed border was captured by the Chinese. Quite unexpectedly, the Chinese declared a unilateral cease-fire on 21 November and announced that their frontier guards would withdraw to positions behind the line of actual control that had existed between India and China on 7 November 1959. The Chines decision astonished the world and turned Indias military defeat into a national humiliation.
President Kennedy had urged Ayub Khan during the war to give India an assurance that it would do nothing to create any difficulties for her during her confrontation with China. Ayub declined to do that and, instead, used the opportunity provided by the war to conclude a boundary agreement with China, which caused consternation in India.
The Americans had totally misread the situation. They thought the Chinese invasion of India was the opening bid in the communist strategy to overwhelm the free world. Just when Kennedy had called the Russian bluff over Cuba, the Chinese, it seemed, were trying to enact a similar drama in the Indian subcontinent. For more than a decade the Americans had been trying to wean India away from communist influence. The Chinese action in the Himalayas gave them the opportunity they had been looking for, and they immediately proceeded to extract the maximum advantage, regardless of their commitments to Pakistan.
John Kenneth Galbraith, the US ambassador to India, persuaded Kennedy that India should be given full military assistance including, if necessary, the protection of the nuclear umbrella, and that nothing should be done to encourage India formally to forsake its policy of non-alignment or to settle its differences with Pakistan.. Galbraith made the India- China war his war and expressed great impatience with Pakistans insistence that the US should exercise some pressure on Nehru to resolve the Kashmir dispute. He accused Pakistan of trying to blackmail India. There were the Chinese grabbing Indian territory and the Pakistanis wanted the US to ask Nehru to hand over Kashmir to them. Since Dean Rusk, the US secretary of state and Robert McNamara, the defence secretary, were both engrossed in the Cuban crisis, Galbraith could approach Kennedy directly, ignoring the state department and the department of defence.
Walter McConaughy, the Us ambassador in Islamabad met the foreign minister, Muhammad Ali Bogra, and gave him a letter from Kennedy addressed to Ayub. He impressed upon Bogra the urgency of giving some sort of assurance to Nehru that he might be able to withdraw his forces from Pakistans borders and deploy them against the Chinese. Such a gesture, he said, would soften Indias attitude toward the Kashmir problem and would be greatly appreciated by the US and other Western countries. Bogra told the US ambassador that Pakistan had to contend with two hostile neighnours, India and Afghanistan. There was no reason for her to incur hostility of China. However, if the US would underwrite Indias pledge to hold a plebiscite in Kashmir, the American request could be considered. McConaughy told Bogra that Nehru would react strongly against any such proposal. The US ambassador continued to press the urgency of the situation, and suggested that any indication given by Pakistan to India would remain in the strictest confidence. Bogra said that he understood the American argument but the feelings of the people would not allow Pakistan to make a unilateral gesture of friendship to India.
Ayub Khan continued to resist the American pressure. It was Ayubs determination not to follow the American line which provided the basis for the establishment of friendly relations between China and Pakistan.
CHINA: INDIA
In the early 1950s friendship with China was the cornerstone of Indias foreign policy. Chinas response to Indian gestures of friendship was warm and enthusiastic. This great relationship, dramatized by the much-chanted slogan Hindi-Cheenee Bhai- Bhai was a little soured when Nehru discovered at the Bandung conference, the first-ever get-together of Afro-Asian leaders in 1955, that Chou En-Lai, whom he regarded as a protégé, was in fact a formidable rival. It was Chou En-Lai, soldier, poet, and scholar, who outshone all the other luminaries and came to dominate the conference. Nehru, the great pundit, a shining symbol of anti-imperialism, was completely eclipsed.
The relations turned sour when India and China started squabbling over some desolate Himalayan peaks. A summit meeting between Nehru and Chou En-Lai in April 1960 ended in frustration and ill-concealed recrimination. Thereafter, the two sides continued to exchange protest notes, while the Indians tried to establish an improved communications network along the border. The Indians also set up a number of posts and pickets in the western sector running from the Karakoram Pass to Demchock on the Indus river, while lodging protests against Chinese intrusions in the area. However, nothing mush of significance happened, and as a result of Soviet mediation the two countries agreed to enter into formal talks. These talks, too, ended in a stalemate in December 1960.The Indian President, in his address to the budget session of the Indian parliament in February 1961, announced that the Government of India was alert to the problems of aggression on and incursions into the sovereign territory of the Union. During the debate on the Presidents address in the Upper House Nehru said: the major advance of the Chinese forces into Indian territory took place in the summer of 1959. Ever since then there has been no advance anywhere. The Chines wanted that the border should be delimited and marked but Nehru rejected any suggestion of sitting down with the Chinese to define the border.
The situation was transformed when Ayub Khan suggested to the Chinese in November 1959 that the Pakistan-China should be demarcated to eliminate any possibility of misunderstanding or dispute in the future. Ayubs move caused a stir not only in India but also among Pakistans western allies and in the Soviet Union. Pakistan had introduced a wholly unexpected dimension into the strategic situation in the region.
The India leadership was positively cocky about their military prowess. Had the Indian forces not captured Goa in October 1961? The conquest of Goa had thrilled his people Nehru claimed. In January 1962, Nehru, while campaigning for Krishna Menons election to the Lok Sabha, announced: I say that after Menon became Defence Minister our defence forces have become for the first time a very strong and efficient fighting force. I say it with a challenge and with intimate knowledge that it is for the first time that our defence forces have a new spirit and modern weapons.
India and China had signed a trade agreement covering the Tibet region in 1954, which was hailed by the two sides as a model for peaceful co-existence in Asia and elsewhere. Six months before the expiry of the agreement the Chines suggested that negotiations should be taken up to renew the agreement. India declined to have any negotiations for a new agreement until China withdrew from the territory claimed by India. Two border incidents, one in Chipchap valley and the other in Galwan valley, resulted in a serious clash between Indian and Chinese forces, but on both occasions the Chines withdrew and this confirmed the Indian belief that in the event of a real showdown the Chinese would do no more than huff and puff and if the Indian troops remained resolute the Chinese would swerve away before the impact. ( See Neville Maxwells India s China war, 1970)
India pressed on with its forward policy in the Western sector to push the Chinese out of the territory claimed by India. It was in the Eastern sector, however, where the Chinese were not in occupation of any territory claimed by India that the India action of setting up a new post north of the McMahon Line invited swift retaliation. Diplomatic exchanges between India and China continued during August and September 1962. In October the Indians announced that a special force had been created to oust the Chinese. When Nehru was asked by a reporter what orders had been given to the special force, he replied: Our instructions are to free our territory. The reported pressed: When? and Nehru replied: I cannot fix a date. That is entirely for the army. With that India had given an ultimatum to China. The Chinese troops opened a heavy barrage on Indian leading to a full-scale war in October 1962. Within less than thirty days the Indian forces along the front were encircled and routed and the entire disputed border was captured by the Chinese. Quite unexpectedly, the Chinese declared a unilateral cease-fire on 21 November and announced that their frontier guards would withdraw to positions behind the line of actual control that had existed between India and China on 7 November 1959. The Chines decision astonished the world and turned Indias military defeat into a national humiliation.
President Kennedy had urged Ayub Khan during the war to give India an assurance that it would do nothing to create any difficulties for her during her confrontation with China. Ayub declined to do that and, instead, used the opportunity provided by the war to conclude a boundary agreement with China, which caused consternation in India.
The Americans had totally misread the situation. They thought the Chinese invasion of India was the opening bid in the communist strategy to overwhelm the free world. Just when Kennedy had called the Russian bluff over Cuba, the Chinese, it seemed, were trying to enact a similar drama in the Indian subcontinent. For more than a decade the Americans had been trying to wean India away from communist influence. The Chinese action in the Himalayas gave them the opportunity they had been looking for, and they immediately proceeded to extract the maximum advantage, regardless of their commitments to Pakistan.
John Kenneth Galbraith, the US ambassador to India, persuaded Kennedy that India should be given full military assistance including, if necessary, the protection of the nuclear umbrella, and that nothing should be done to encourage India formally to forsake its policy of non-alignment or to settle its differences with Pakistan.. Galbraith made the India- China war his war and expressed great impatience with Pakistans insistence that the US should exercise some pressure on Nehru to resolve the Kashmir dispute. He accused Pakistan of trying to blackmail India. There were the Chinese grabbing Indian territory and the Pakistanis wanted the US to ask Nehru to hand over Kashmir to them. Since Dean Rusk, the US secretary of state and Robert McNamara, the defence secretary, were both engrossed in the Cuban crisis, Galbraith could approach Kennedy directly, ignoring the state department and the department of defence.
Walter McConaughy, the Us ambassador in Islamabad met the foreign minister, Muhammad Ali Bogra, and gave him a letter from Kennedy addressed to Ayub. He impressed upon Bogra the urgency of giving some sort of assurance to Nehru that he might be able to withdraw his forces from Pakistans borders and deploy them against the Chinese. Such a gesture, he said, would soften Indias attitude toward the Kashmir problem and would be greatly appreciated by the US and other Western countries. Bogra told the US ambassador that Pakistan had to contend with two hostile neighnours, India and Afghanistan. There was no reason for her to incur hostility of China. However, if the US would underwrite Indias pledge to hold a plebiscite in Kashmir, the American request could be considered. McConaughy told Bogra that Nehru would react strongly against any such proposal. The US ambassador continued to press the urgency of the situation, and suggested that any indication given by Pakistan to India would remain in the strictest confidence. Bogra said that he understood the American argument but the feelings of the people would not allow Pakistan to make a unilateral gesture of friendship to India.
Ayub Khan continued to resist the American pressure. It was Ayubs determination not to follow the American line which provided the basis for the establishment of friendly relations between China and Pakistan.
CHINA: INDIA
