eas."The projection of Indian control was the prolix diplomatic exchanges,published at first carried out by para-military forces by the Indian government almost as soon as under the direction of the intelligence chief, they were sent and received,was that the In- Nehru's close advisor,B.N.Mullik,who dians succeeded in framing China as the ex- later stated as his operative principle:"Once pansionist and intransigent party. we claimed a territory to be our own we Reluctance by the Indian army to imple- were free to go and open our post there,no ment a policy that the generals knew could matter whether the Chinese disputed our lead only to defeat postponed the conflict. claims and raised protests."Inevitably that But by 1961 the resisting officers had been policy soon brought about clashes with the replaced by military courtiers under whose Chinese,who were in administrative control orders the army took over trom Mullik's of the Aksai Chin area and by about 1957, paramilitaries the task of advancing into In- in a significant engineering feat,had laid a dian-claimed territory in the west.By the strategic road across it. summer of 1962,that "forward policy"had precariously established dozens of small In- Diplomatic Deadlock dian military outposts in the disputed west- Patrol clashes in the western sector in 1958 ern terrirory.Each was confronted by Chi- brought the border dispute implicit in the nese forces overwhelmingly superior in num- Indian and Chinese maps explicitly into bers and weaponry and enjoying every logis- diplomatic exchanges.Writing to Nehru, tical advantage.Beijing was by now warn- Zhou Enlai applied the principles he had ing that India's attempt to enforce a settle- declared at Bandung.He described the dis- ment on its own terms by creating "facts on pute as a problem left by history that could the ground"must provoke counterforce,and be resolved by negotiation;asserted that Ak- thus entail war. sai Chin had long been Chinese territory; In October 1962 the crisis switched to intimated that in negotiations China would the eastern sector.While the Chinese had accept the McMahon alignment;and pro- tacitly acquiesced as India,through the posed a standstill agreement to prevent fur- 1950s,made the McMahon Line good over ther clashes.In reply,Nehru denied that any its length as the de facto boundary,they ob- dispute existed,declined to negotiate until jected forcefully when the Indians began the Chinese had withdrawn from Indian- modifying McMahon's alignment in their claimed territory,and refused to enter into own favor,pushing across it to the north a standstill agreement.In the Indian per- in several areas.India insisted on the right ception,Beijing's insistence on maintaining to impose those unilateral "corrections' the Chinese presence in Indian-claimed Ak- because the map on which McMahon had sai Chin amounted to“aggression,”and an drawn his line was imprecise:the result was agreement to maintain the status quo would a series of standoffs between Indian and Chi- have condoned it. nese forces north of the McMahon Line. Nehru's policy and practice thus closed When another such developed in the late off any possibility of peaceful resolution.Do- summer of 1962,Nehru accused China of mestic political pressure,aroused by Nehru's having made a deliberate incursion onto In- charges of"Chinese aggression,"pushed for dian territory,and treated it as a challenge military action to drive the invaders out that must be taken up.He publicly declared of what was seen as sacred Indian territory. that the Indian army had been ordered to From 1959 the deadlock was complete.New throw the Chinese off the territory India Delhi refused to drop its demand that China claimed. withdraw from Indian-claimed territory; In this particular confrontation the Beijing refused to oblige.The only result of Indian army's disadvantages were at their China's "Aggression in 1962"and the "Hindu Bomb" 115 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner.Further reproduction prohibited without permission.Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission