BRIEFS
INDIA: Indian Officials Query Chinese Actions
Dr. Phil Jones
Issue date: 10/28/09 Section: Eagle Eye
Summary: Border tensions have increased as Indian officials demanded an explanation for the Chinese issuance of maps discrediting Kashmir as being part of India.
Development: Recent Chinese media kits seem to exclude Kashmir from India and appear to give the region the same national status as India, Nepal, and Myanmar. Further, visas issued to journalists from Kashmir also appear to give Kashmir a special status, perhaps because Kashmir includes Ladakh, also called "Little Tibet," parts of which are disputed with India. The Indian press has published reports of troop increases and troop movements on both sides of the long and disputed Sino-Indian border along the Himalayas. Chinese officials have complained that Chinese territory is being used by Tibetan rebels to infiltrate Tibet and want New Delhi to disestablish the Dalai Lama's government-in-exile, which has legal status in India. Chinese officials are also demanding Nepal control the border between Nepal's northern Mustang salient and Tibet. Mustang, which lies north of the Himalayas, was used by CIA-backed Tibetan Khampa guerrillas in the 1950s and 1960s to harass Chinese military convoys inside Tibet.
Analysis: China is likely upset by the Dalai Lama's upcoming visit to India's state of Arunachal Pradesh, formerly the North-East Frontier Agency, which lies along the Himalayas between Bhutan and Burma. China claims this territory as part of historic Tibet, although most of the region-the middle ranges south of the Great Himalaya Range-is populated by Tibeto-Burmese tribal peoples such as Akas and Abors, who were not brought under any form of administration until the British Raj, and then only in the most preliminary way. Higher up, however, and south of the MacMahon Line drawn by the British along the high watershed of the Himalaya, are a number of Tibetan-speaking peoples, including the Monpa Tibetans at Tawang in the far northwest corner of Arunachal Pradesh contiguous to the Bhutan border. A major monastery of the Dalai Lama's Gelukpa Sect is located at Tawang, as is the boyhood home and shrine of the sixth Dalai Lama. This is one of the most sensitive places on the disputed border and the site of India's largest defeat in the 1962 Sino-Indian Border War.
Development: Recent Chinese media kits seem to exclude Kashmir from India and appear to give the region the same national status as India, Nepal, and Myanmar. Further, visas issued to journalists from Kashmir also appear to give Kashmir a special status, perhaps because Kashmir includes Ladakh, also called "Little Tibet," parts of which are disputed with India. The Indian press has published reports of troop increases and troop movements on both sides of the long and disputed Sino-Indian border along the Himalayas. Chinese officials have complained that Chinese territory is being used by Tibetan rebels to infiltrate Tibet and want New Delhi to disestablish the Dalai Lama's government-in-exile, which has legal status in India. Chinese officials are also demanding Nepal control the border between Nepal's northern Mustang salient and Tibet. Mustang, which lies north of the Himalayas, was used by CIA-backed Tibetan Khampa guerrillas in the 1950s and 1960s to harass Chinese military convoys inside Tibet.
Analysis: China is likely upset by the Dalai Lama's upcoming visit to India's state of Arunachal Pradesh, formerly the North-East Frontier Agency, which lies along the Himalayas between Bhutan and Burma. China claims this territory as part of historic Tibet, although most of the region-the middle ranges south of the Great Himalaya Range-is populated by Tibeto-Burmese tribal peoples such as Akas and Abors, who were not brought under any form of administration until the British Raj, and then only in the most preliminary way. Higher up, however, and south of the MacMahon Line drawn by the British along the high watershed of the Himalaya, are a number of Tibetan-speaking peoples, including the Monpa Tibetans at Tawang in the far northwest corner of Arunachal Pradesh contiguous to the Bhutan border. A major monastery of the Dalai Lama's Gelukpa Sect is located at Tawang, as is the boyhood home and shrine of the sixth Dalai Lama. This is one of the most sensitive places on the disputed border and the site of India's largest defeat in the 1962 Sino-Indian Border War.
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