Conclusions: Impact and Significance of the Border Conflict

First of all, the Sino-Indian border conflict in 1962 was an inevitable outcome of Nehru’s foreign policy and deeply influenced India’s foreign and national security strategy. India’s diplomacy before, during and after the Sino-Indian border conflict pointed to the uncertainty and pragmatism of the so-called “neutral” countries in their policy alternatives. In the wake of the border conflict, India leaned more to the West and the CPC leaders were convinced that the Sino-Indian boundary question had got more complicated and become a part of an American strategic plan.

The most direct impact of the 1962 border conflict on the national security strategy of India was manifested in changes in India’s nuclear weapon policy. The peaceful nuclear policy Nehru had pursued after Independence underwent a radical change after the conflict. After 1962, more and more social strata in India demanded they reserve the right to nuclear alternatives. In 1965, India approved a plan for underground nuclear testing and formally took the path of developing a nuclear arsenal.

Next, the Sino-Indian border conflict in 1962 was not merely a boundary question, it embodied the theory and practice of China’s “revolutionary diplomacy” carried out since the middle and late 1950s. Mao later saw the conflict as a military battle on the political front or political battle on the military front. Behind the border conflict, therefore, were fundamental differences between China and the Soviet Union over a set of important theories and international strategies. These differences were expressed mainly in the following aspects:

l         How to perceive and practice the advocacy of “peaceful coexistence.” The CPC believed that Khrushchev’s views on the Sino-Indian boundary question were glaring examples of his distortion of Lenin’s principle of peaceful coexistence. “What the Soviet leaders mean by peaceful coexistence amounts to surrender.”⁹

l         What policy and stance should be adopted regarding nationalism and nation­al­ist states. The Chinese policy on the Sino-Indian border conflict embodied the new understanding of nationalist states in the light of China’s “revolutionary diplomacy.” The CPC persisted in the view that “with the sharpening of social contradictions at home and class struggles in the world, the bourgeoisie in some independent countries, especially the big bourge­oisie, are increasingly throwing in their lot with imperialism and adopting anti-the-people, anti-Communist and counter-revolutionary policies.” As to Neh­r­u’s policies, the CPC held that the Indian ruling clique he headed had provoked the border incident, even staging a large-scale armed invasion of Chinese territory. As with their interference in Tibet, these events were by no means accidental, but were determined by “the class nature of India’s big bourgeoisie in close collaboration with imperialism.”

l         On the perception of the role of the non-alignment movement in the foreign policy of socialist countries. As India enjoyed great influence and prominence in the non-alignment movement, the CPC no longer stressed the important role of this movement in China’s foreign relations after the border conflict.

The Soviet views were elucidated very clearly and fully by Konstantin Chernenko in a letter to the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party dated 17 May 1963. In the eyes of the Soviet Party leaders, the point of China’s attack was directed not against India, but against the non-alignment movement. China’s counter-attack against India highlighted the great difference between the CPC and communist parties in other countries.

Because of fundamental differences between China and the Soviet Union on these issues, the CPC began to openly criticize the Soviet policies in the course of the border conflict. As a result, their contradictions and differences were no longer confined to ideologies, but also involved vital national interests.

Finally, the Sino-Indian border conflict in 1962 changed the strategic pattern in South Asia. In the wake of the conflict, while US-Indian relations rapidly developed the Soviet Union also energetically developed its relations with India, which, no doubt, posed serious threats to the national security of China. The CPC leaders thought the role of Sino-Indian border conflict was “mainly to arrive at unity through struggle, and force Nehru to agree to sit at the negotiation table to draw a relatively permanent and peaceful boundary line. This way, we will have peace along one part of the boundary, that is, along the southwest front, so that we will be able to concentrate our forces to cope with the east. Our strategy is to focus on America.” However, the vigorous development after the border conflict of Soviet-Indian relations, especially in military affairs, against the background of Sino-American hostilities and Sino-Soviet split, undoubtedly placed tremendous strategic pressure and very serious challenges on China’s national security, particularly on its southern border.

More importantly, as a consequence of the border conflict, relations between China and Pakistan were substantially improved. During the conflict, Pakistan openly declared its support for China. In Beijing on 2 March 1963, China and Pakistan signed an “Agreement on the Boundary between Chinese Xinjiang and the Areas Where the Defense Is under the Actual Control of Pakistan,” whereby China changed its stand on the question of Kashmir. When Sino-Indian relations were deteriorating Pakistan became a strategic ally of China in South Asia, further deepening the animosity between China and India.

In the years after the Sino-Indian border conflict in 1962, American endeavors to keep a balance in South Asia all ended in failure due to deep-seated differences between India and Pakistan. The formation of an actual strategic alliance between China and Pakistan invalidated the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), leading the U.S. to lower its expectations of Pakistan in its strategy to contain China and to shift its strategic focus to India. America’s strategic adjustments engendered far-reaching influence on big-power relations in South Asia, and the involvement of China and the Soviet Union changed the strategic structure. American-Soviet rivalry over India, Indian-Pakistani opposition and the formation of Sino-Pakistani strategic relations were the main features of the Cold War in this part of the world during this period.

* Dai Chaowu, b. 1963. Professor of PLA International Studies University and concurrently Research Fellow with the Research Center of the History of International Cold War affiliated to East China Normal University. His research interest focuses on the history of international Cold War and the history of Chinese diplomacy. His recent works include Zhongguo hewuqi de fazhan yu Zhong Su guanxi de polie (Development of Nuclear Weapons in China and the Disruption of Sino-Soviet Relations), Dangdai Zhongguoshi yanjiu, 2001, nos. 3 and 5; Taiwan Haixia weiji, Zhong Mei guanxi yu Yazhou de lengzhan (Crisis in Taiwan Strait, Sino-American Relations and the Cold War in Asia), Shixue yuekan, 2002, no. 10.

Notes

1. Literature Research Center of the CPC Central Committee, ed., Jianguo yilai Mao Zedong wengao (Texts of Mao Zedong after the Founding of the PRC) (Beijing: Central Party Literature Publishing House, 1992), vol. 7, pp. 265-266.

2. Wu Lengxi, Yi Mao Zhuxi (My Memory of Chairman Mao) (Beijing: Xinhua Publishing House, 1995), pp. 121-125.

3. The Literature Research Office of the Central Committee of the CPC, op cit., pp. 188-189.

4. K.P.S. Menon, “India and Soviet Union,” in B.R. Nanda, ed., Indian Foreign Policy: The Nehru Years (Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii), pp. 229-232.

5. TsKhSD f. 2, op. 1, d. 415, see “New East-Bloc Documents on the Sino-Indian Conflict, 1959 and 1962,” Cold War International Project Bulletin, Issues 8-9, Winter 1996/1997 (Washing­ton DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center For Scholars).

6.FRUS, 1961-1963, Vol. 19, p. 397.

7. T.N. Kaul, A Diplomat’s Diary, 1947-1999: China, India and USA, The Tantalising Triangle (New Delhi: Macmillan India Limited, 2000), p. 77-78.

8. Wu Lengxi: Shinian lunzhan: Zhong Su guanxi huiyilu 1956-1966 (Ten Years of Polemics: Recollections of Sino-Soviet Relations, 1956-1966) (Beijing: Central Party Literature Publishing House, 1999), vol. 3, p. 504.

9. The Editorial Department of People’s Daily, Sugong lingdao lian Yin fan Hua de zhenxiang (The Truth of Anti-Chinese Activities of the Leadership of the Soviet Communist Party in Alliance with India), 2 November 1963.

—Translated by Lin Hong

Revised by David Kelly