Aksai-Chin and Sino-Indian Conflict

India and China the inheritors of two ancient civilizations and aeons of neighbourly bonds cemented by Buddhism and the bridge-building missions of Fa-Hien, Huen Tsang, Tagore and Kotnis never witnessed strife between themselves till the fateful autumn of 1962, when they fought a short but bitter border war on the desolate heights of the Himalayas. The western portion of the Sino-Indian boundary originated in 1834, with the Sikh Confederacy’s conquest of Ladakh. In 1842, the Sikh Confederacy, which at the time ruled over much of Northern India (including the frontier regions of Jammu and Kashmir), signed a treaty which guaranteed the integrity of its existing borders with its neighbours. The entire China-India boundary has never been formally delimited by any mutually-accepted treaty. There has existed a boundary line of actual control between the two countries. It took shape on the basis of the extent of each other’s administrative jurisdiction over a long course of time. The entire boundary has been traditionally divided into three sectors-the eastern sector, the middle sector and the western sector with all in dispute. This book debunks many notions about the boundary dispute and conflict, delves deep into its different aspects to give a blow by blow account of as to how and why a conflict arose over the boundary.