Sino-Indian Conflict and the Sino-Soviet Alliance } 147
The subsistence economy of that poor region simply could not support large
numbers of soldiers and administrative cadres. Supplies for such personnel
had to be trucked in from China proper or from India via the Chumbi Valley.
PLA surveying for the Aksai Chin road—which followed an old caravan
route—started in October 1951. Construction on the road began in 1955, and
the road was opened in October 1957. The existence of the road was unknown
to India’s government until 1958, when China’s media carried articles about it.
Revelation of China’s Aksai Chin road was, in the words of the official Indian
history of the 1962 war, a “rude shock to India.”^2 Figure 6-1 shows the align-
ment of China’s four supply lines into Tibet circa 1959.
Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had raised the territorial issue
with Zhou Enlai several times during the 1950s. On those occasions, Zhou
had downplayed the issue, saying that various maps objectionable to India
were merely holdovers from the pre-1949 era and that the PRC had simply not
yet had time to change the old maps and print new ones. On another occasion,
Zhou strongly implied that China accepted a line drawn on a map along what
CHINANEPAL BHUTANEAST PAKISTANBURMAINDIATIBETQINGHAILhasaKashgarNew Delhi
imphuDhakaKathmanduChinese
Line of
ControlIndian
Disputed Claim
AreaAksai Chin route
from KashgarChumbi route
from IndiaQamdo-Garze route
from SichuanGolmud-Xining route
via QinghaiF IGU R E 6-1 China’s Four Routes into Tibet, circa 1959