In a nutshell, without going into a detailed narrative of the number of times met, the places and the personnel concerned, it might be said that the history of India-China talks on the border dispute after 1962 is a story of missed opportunities.
Throughout the 70s through the 90s, the PRC side was more or less agreeable to a compromise solution where the Aksai Chin wilderness would be ceded to China permanently by India; on the other hand, Arunachal Pradesh would be permanently recognised by China as integral part of India.
India failed to take advantage of this very convenient solution. As has already been discussed, because of its arid and unpopulated nature, there is no Indian interest in Aksai Chin, while China finds it a convenient plain through which to run its strategic highway between Lanzhou and Xigatse. It is of vital strategic interest to China, of no strategic or cultural interest to India.
India also failed to take advantage of the flexibility of the Chinese position on Arunachal Pradesh, which is a legitimate area of Indian sovereignty, for a variety of reasons, vitiated only by lack of precision in defining boundaries and in identifying viable landmarks or topological divisions.
Arunachal Pradesh is inhabited by the following tribes, from west, the borders of Bhutan, to the east - the Monpa, the Aka or Hrusso, in two clans, the Kutsun and Kovatsun, the Dafla or Bangni or Ni, in two classes, the Gute and the Guchi, the Apa Tani, and the Abor or Adi, divided into Padam, Minyong, Pangi, Shimong and others. Further east than this is the large confederation of the Mishmi. In all cases, the names of the tribes have been used as commonly accepted by them; the alternative names that they call themselves have been indicated next to those.
None of these tribes are ethnically Tibetan, or even close, with the possible exception of the Monpas. In the case of the Monpas, it is the consensus of scholars, mainly the British, that they are closely allied to the eastern Bhutanese and any influence of Tibetan culture is due to the dominance of the Tawang monastery and its former feudal grip over this tribe.
In all other cases, there is greater affinity with tribes living south of the Brahmaputra than with the Tibetans. There are no cultural similarities, and the spread of Buddhism is not uniform here, as it was north of the Himalayas, or even to the west, in Bhutan. Even the residual matter of their folk-memories of migration has been handled academically by the great Christoph von Fuehrer-Haimendorff: ...these memories can only relate to the last stages of a population movement which may well have changed its course more than once."
Further proof of their distinction from Tibetans comes from Bailey, discoverer of the Bailey Trail which the PLA used with such devastating effect to achieve complete tactical surprise in 1962, who said, writing about the term lopa used by the Tibetans for these southern tribesmen,"The term Lopa meant to the Tibetans what barbarian meant to the Greeks..."
Quite clearly, we should have come to terms with the PRC while they were favourably inclined to deal with the matter on conditions that were perfectly acceptable and coincided with the primary interests of the two sides. Unfortunately, the dilatory nature of bureaucratic decision-making on the Indian side, and the huge difficulties constituted by political fear, by both major national parties, the Congress and the BJP, of acceptance of cession of land by India to China, (leaving aside the constitutional difficulty of this step, which probably requires an amendment to the constitution) stood in the way of a solution.
Today, these favourable conditions for a peace no longer exist. China has now some medium-term reasons to delay a settlement, as it causes tension and anxiety within Indian decision-making circles. There is clearly a distinction between the authority with which Mao and Deng chaired the Military Commission, and that which their successors brought to the same position. There was a marked difference between the veterancs of the Long March and their followers. As a result, today the PLA as well as the PLA AF and the PLAN have a far more aggressive attitude towards neighbouring countries than does the Foreign Ministry.
It is my personal evaluation that we may have to wait for the successor of Hu Jin Tao, the successor being a man with some authority among the military circles himself, greater than the influence of HU, or even for an efflux of time until China is markedly ahead of India in all metrics, for a lasting peace to be settled, and for boundaries to be settled.
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