Sino-Indian War

The Sino-Indian War was a brief but decisive frontier war fought high in the Himalayas between China and India in October and November 1962. Chinese troops overran Indian positions at both ends of the disputed border, in Aksai Chin in the west and the North-East Frontier Agency in the east, before Beijing announced a unilateral ceasefire. The defeat was a profound shock to India, reshaped its defence policy and left a lasting mistrust between the two most populous nations in Asia.

The two countries disagreed over two widely separated regions. In the west, Aksai Chin, a high cold desert of about 38,000 square kilometres, was claimed by India as part of Ladakh and by China as part of Xinjiang. In the east, China laid claim to the North-East Frontier Agency, roughly 90,000 square kilometres administered by India. India's claims rested on two colonial-era boundaries, the McMahon Line in the east and the Johnson Line in the west, neither of which China accepted. China had built a strategic road across Aksai Chin linking Xinjiang with Tibet, and tensions sharpened after India sheltered the Dalai Lama following the Tibetan uprising of 1959.

Talks in 1960 failed to settle the boundary. From December 1961 the government of Jawaharlal Nehru ordered the army to push its patrols "as far forward as possible" and set up posts in contested ground, eventually about 60 of them, 43 in Aksai Chin. Indian leaders expected China not to respond with force. Instead Chinese troops built their own posts to encircle the Indian ones, producing a chequerboard of rival positions. Mao Zedong described the stand-off as "armed coexistence". In September and October 1962 clashes broke out around Thagla Ridge in the east, where the two sides read the McMahon Line differently.

On 20 October 1962 China launched simultaneous attacks in both sectors. In the east its troops overran Indian positions at Namka Chu and took Tawang; in the west they cleared Indian posts in the Chip Chap valley and around Pangong Lake. Much of the fighting took place above 5,000 metres in bitter cold, which killed many soldiers on both sides. Neither country used aircraft or ships, declared war or broke off diplomatic relations. Chinese strength is usually given as about 80,000 against some 22,000 Indian troops.

After a pause of about three weeks, China attacked again on 14 November, capturing Se La and Bomdila in the east, while the western battles at Rezang La and Gurung Hill were costly for both sides. Nehru appealed to the United States for fighter squadrons, but the war ended before any American intervention; the fighting had coincided with the Cuban Missile Crisis. On 19 November Premier Zhou Enlai announced that Chinese forces would cease fire from 21 November and, from 1 December, pull back 20 kilometres behind the line of control as it stood in 1959. Indian figures record 1,383 killed, 1,696 missing and 3,968 captured; Chinese figures give 722 Chinese dead.

China kept control of Aksai Chin. In India the war was seen as a military and political disaster: Defence Minister Krishna Menon resigned, Nehru admitted that India had been "living in a world of our own making", and the government commissioned a secret inquiry, the Henderson Brooks–Bhagat Report. India rapidly enlarged and modernised its army and strengthened its border defences. Because the United States and Britain would not sell it advanced weapons, India turned increasingly to the Soviet Union, which had agreed in August 1962 to supply MiG-21 fighters, a choice that sharpened the Sino-Soviet split. Pakistan drew closer to China and signed a border treaty with it in 1963. The frontier remained disputed, and Chinese state media recalled the 1962 war during the Doklam stand-off of 2017.

Our 1960 and 1985 maps show China and India either side of the Himalayan frontier before and after the war.