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Sino-Indian Conflict
and the Sino-Soviet AllianceEruption of the Sino-Indian ConflictThe year 1959 was a turning point in Sino-Soviet relations. Three Soviet
policies touching on Moscow’s commitment to China dismayed Mao. First,
Moscow refused to support China in its confrontation with India. Then
Moscow scrapped the 1957 nuclear weapon cooperation agreement. Finally,
Khrushchev undertook a pathbreaking visit to the United States, followed
by a personal effort to mediate Sino-American conflict—all this contrary to
Beijing’s urging of a more confrontational approach to the United States. For
its part, Moscow was reevaluating the possible costs of alliance with Beijing.
By 1959, India had become an important diplomatic partner for the Soviet
Union. By precipitating a conflict with India, which Khrushchev believed is
what Mao did in 1959, Mao engineered a situation in which Moscow had to
choose between China and India. Khrushchev refused to make such a choice.
In Mao’s eyes, Soviet neutrality in the Sino-Indian dispute was sheer class
betrayal.
There were two aspects of the Sino-Indian conflict that flared starting in
1959: the border and Tibet. The existence of serious territorial conflict between
China and India emerged in 1958 when Chinese media revealed the recent
construction of a truck road from Kashgar in western Xinjiang to Lhasa, capi-
tal of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR). The road crossed a high, remote,
desolate, and cold desert region known as Aksai Chin. China believed this
region had traditionally been part of Tibet. India believed it had traditionally
been part of north Indian kingdoms, abandoned by British colonial strat-
egists who lacked loyalty to the integrity of India’s national territory.^1 The
road was important for the PLA, since it was the only road into Tibet open
year-round when the other two routes from China proper were closed by
heavy snowfall. Roads were essential for China’s effective occupation of Tibet.