I
t has been more than a month since the
confrontation between Indian and Chi-
nese troops started on June 16 along
the Sikkim-Tibet border. Indian border
troops put a stop to road construction work
on the Chinese side of the Doklam region,
triggering a diplomatic row between Beijing
and New Delhi. As both countries have sent
about 3,000 soldiers to the remote mountain
region, there are fears that the crisis could es-
calate to an armed conflict.
China and India have an ongoing border
dispute along the Himalayas, the cause of a
bloody border war in 1962. There have been
repeated stand-offs in recent years in the high
mountains. But the recent confrontation
could represent a major escalation of disputes
between the two countries.
Sikkim-Tibet Border
Currently, border disputes between China
and India involve two major territories along
the approximately 3,000-kilometre fron-
tier. In the west, China controls Aksai Chin
as part of its Xinjiang region, which India
claims as part of its Ladakh region. In the east
lies a large territory which India controls as
the state of Arunachal Pradesh but which is
claimed by China as the region of South Ti-
bet. In between the two major disputed ter-
ritories lie two smaller disputed areas which
are close to the Aksai Chin area.
The 220-kilometre-long segment between
India’s Sikkim and Tibet of China was pre-
viously considered the only settled border
between the two countries. Both countries
have accepted the validity of the Conventionbetween Great Britain and China Relating to
Sikkim and Tibet signed in 1890, that delin-
eated the border.
On March 22, 1959, Indian Prime Min-
ister Jawaharlal Nehru wrote to his Chinese
counterpart that “the boundary of Sikkim, a
protectorate of India, with the Tibet Region
of China was defined in the Anglo Chinese
Convention of 1890 and jointly demarcated
on the ground.”
Later that year, China responded in a writ-
ten statement that the boundary “has long
been formally delimited and there is neither
any discrepancy between the maps nor any
disputes in practice.”
Despite the ugly 1962 border war and a
couple of skirmishes along the Sikkim-Tibet
border in 1967, neither India nor ChinaChina-India Relations
Finding the Border
A new standoff between Indian and Chinese troops in the tri-junction area near Bhutan
has produced a volatile border disputeBy Yu Xiaodongs PECIAL REPORT