Line of Actual Control|| Line of Control|| UPSC Current Affairs

LINE OF ACTUAL CONTROL

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Context:

Increasing militarization of the border between India and China is the bigger problem, the external affairs minister said.

The LAC is the demarcation that separates Indian-controlled territory from Chinese-controlled territory.
India considers the LAC to be 3,488 km long, while the Chinese consider it to be only around 2,000 km.

This sector comprises the area between Ladakh to Tibet and the Kunlun mountain range and also extends from Wakhan (Afghanistan edge) to the Karakoram Pass, thereafter following the alignment of the Kunlun mountain range.
The border length of the western sector is 1,597 kms.
India's claim is based on the Treaty of 1842 which was signed between the representative of Maharaja Gulab Singh, former ruler of J&K, with Lama Gurusahib of Lhasa and the representative of the Chinese emperor.
China was ruled by the Qing dynasty till 1911 before it was replaced by Chinese nationalists led government, called the Republic of China (ROC) in 1912. In 1949, power shifted to the People's Republic of China (PRC).
The 1842 treaty line was further modified as the Johnson-Ardagh line of 1897.
It is this alignment which is the basis of the Indian-claimed border and was formally stated in 1954.
Though China was not a signatory of this line (in any case, it was not a treaty), it used this alignment even beyond 1933 in various official and unofficial communications.
This was de-facto acceptance of this line which puts the entire Aksai Chin as part of India being a successor state of British India.

The major disagreements are in the Western sector where the LAC emerged from two letters written by Chinese Prime Minister Zhou Enlai to PM Jawaharlal Nehru in 1959, after he had first mentioned such a ‘line’ in 1956.
After the 1962 War, the Chinese claimed they had withdrawn to 20 km behind the LAC of November 1959, which coincided with eastern sector so-called McMahon Line, and in the western and middle sectors it coincided in the main with the traditional customary line.

India rejected the concept of LAC in both 1959 and 1962.
The then Prime minister was criticized the forceful demarcation by aggression.
India’s objection was that the Chinese line “was a disconnected series of points on a map that could be joined up in many ways.
The line should omit gains from aggression in 1962 and therefore should be based on the actual position on September 8, 1962 before the Chinese attack.
The vagueness of the Chinese definition left it open for China to continue its creeping attempt to change facts on the ground by military force.

This comprises the states of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
This is the least disputed sector and covers 545 km of Indian borders.
Except for the larger claim of China in the Barahoti sector in Uttarakhand, other claims and counterclaims are miniscule.

A tripartite conference was held at Shimla between the representatives of British India (McMohan), Tibet and China and the McMohan Line was drawn and initialed by all the three representatives in the draft document on April 27, 1914.
The eastern sector conventionally refers to Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh.
Though Sikkim has a land border of only 220 km and has been witness to both the 1962 as well as 1967 Nathula-Chola conflicts, the situation has normalised after it joined the Indian state on May 16, 1975.
China finally recognised Sikkim as part of India in 2003 in a reciprocal statement by India to re-emphasise Tibet being part of China.
The border in Arunachal Pradesh, as per the McMohan Line, has been a part of China's formal offer for border settlement but not by itself.
China has made large encroachments in this area and a fair number of them during the 1962 war.
It has also established Wangdung camp south of Samdurong Chu on the Indian side, which led to a major response by India in 1987.
While India has improved its forward positions in a number of areas, Wangdung camp continues to be under Chinese occupation.
On 18 June 2017, as part of Operation Juniper, Indian troops with two bulldozers crossed the Sikkim border into Doklam, to stop the Chinese troops from constructing the road.

India formally accepted the concept of the LAC in 1993 and the two sides signed the Agreement to Maintain Peace and Tranquillity at the LAC.
The reference to the LAC was unqualified to make it clear that it was not referring to the LAC of 1959 or 1962 but to the LAC at the time when the agreement was signed.
To reconcile the differences about some areas, the two countries agreed that the Joint Working Group on the border issue would take up the task of clarifying the alignment of the LAC.

It was needed because Indian and Chinese patrols were coming in more frequent contact during the mid-1980s.
In the backdrop of the Sumdorongchu standoff, when the then PM Rajiv Gandhi visited Beijing in 1988, two sides agreed to negotiate a border settlement.

Only for the middle sector.
Maps were “shared” for the Western sector but never formally exchanged, and the process of clarifying the LAC has effectively stalled since 2002.
There is no publicly available map depicting India’s version of the LAC.
In 2015 India proposed to clarify the LAC but was rejected by China.

India’s claim line is the line seen in the official boundary marked on the maps as released by the Survey of India, including both Aksai Chin and Gilgit-Baltistan.
In China’s case, it corresponds mostly to its claim line, but in the eastern sector, it claims entire Arunachal Pradesh as South Tibet.

The LoC emerged from the 1948 ceasefire line negotiated by the UN after the Kashmir War.
It was designated as the LoC in 1972, following the Shimla Agreement between the two countries.
It is delineated on a map signed by the Director General of Military Operations of both armies and has the international sanctity of a legal agreement.
The LAC, in contrast, is only a concept – it is not agreed upon by the two countries, neither delineated on a map nor demarcated on the ground.

Must read articles

LAC: https://www.iasgyan.in/daily-current-affairs/line-of-actual-control

McMOHAN LINE https://www.iasgyan.in/daily-current-affairs/mcmohan-line#:~:text=At%20present%2C%20Line%20of%20Actual,Chinese%20Aksai%20Chin%20claim%20line.

India China border talk: https://www.iasgyan.in/daily-current-affairs/india-china-border-talks-17

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PRACTICE QUESTION

Q.Discuss how the border dispute influences the contemporary India-China relationship and its impact on regional stability. 150 words