The border dispute with China is so old but Indians are yet to come to grips with how this dispute can be resolved. The historical roots of the Sino-Indian frontiers have been narrated in several accounts. Understanding the historical variations and context around how China approaches the dispute has curiously received less attention. A focus on the intricacies of competing claims needs to be embedded in a geopolitical setting, which has been changing since the 1950s.
China links the border issue to its geopolitical environment
Although the Chinese position provides the appearance of continuity, the actual bargaining posture has been one of extraordinary flux often shaped by geopolitical considerations that have little to do with the border itself. Let us explore each of these inflexion points in China's approach to the dispute.
In April 1960, Zhou Enlai embarked on an ambitious diplomatic mission to India to attempt a resolution. But let us recall the context. The previous year Sino-Soviet differences had come into view, ironically because Moscow publicly broke ranks with Beijing by taking a neutral position on the India-China dispute. By the first half of 1960, Moscow withdrew its experts from China and suspended all economic contracts. In such a deteriorating environment, Beijing made a decision in January 1960 to take a more pragmatic line on the dispute with India and other unresolved frontier disputes with neighboring countries. The PLA was also ordered to adopt a policy of restraint and avoid armed clashes. Zhou's Delhi visit was an outcome of Beijing's policy to defuse tensions and arrest a worsening of its geopolitical environment. Zhou's famous words that India should "take towards the western sector an attitude similar to that which the Chinese Government had taken towards the eastern sector" were spurned by Delhi. More importantly, policymakers completely misread India's relative position in the changing international environment. This proved costly with India sleepwalking into conflict with a radicalised Mao in 1962.
After a hiatus of fifteen years diplomatic relations were reestablished in 1976 when Indira Gandhi decided to exchange ambassadors. The process was carried forward in 1979 when Atal Bihari Vajpayee visited China. From India's perspective, the visit was largely exploratory. Deng Xiaoping, unexpectedly, made a package proposal officially to Vajpayee without any prior diplomatic feelers. Deng told Vajpayee that a comprehensive settlement based on the exchange of claimed territories in the two sectors would settle matters for good, subject to what he described as adjustments "here and there" as necessary through detailed discussions in follow up action, once the overall principle was settled. Vajpayee responded with the Indian position that it should be possible to deal with areas of little or no difference first (the eastern sector) and then move on to areas where there was greater divergence (Aksai China). Deng ruled out a sector-by-sector approach and used the expression "package solution", to describe his proposal, one that would settle the dispute in one go. In his memoirs, Foreign Minster Huang Hua records that the package offer was again repeated in his talks with India's Foreign Minister Narasimha Rao in June 1981. Sharada Prasad records that Deng Xiaoping repeated the "package deal" to Indira Gandhi's close advisor G. Parthasarathy in September 1982. Unfortunately, India was unable to even accept the swap principle let alone endorse it as the basis for a border settlement.
Let us, again, explore the geopolitical context underlying China's postures. While the ice had been broken in Sino-American ties in 1971, the normalisation process assumed a greater impetus after Mao's demise and the arrival of a reformist Deng Xiaoping. A month before Vajpayee's February 1979 visit, Deng was in Washington engaging in candid exchanges with the Carter administration on countering the "Polar Bear". Both sides were quite explicit that Sino-American geostrategy must seek to wean India away from its Soviet ally. US national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski told Deng, "The U.S. has improved its relations with India" and "it's important for Sino-Indian relations to improve as well". Deng "agreed" with this logic. On Pakistan, Deng urged Carter to provide "solid assistance". In January 1980, Deng told visiting US Defense Secretary, Harold Brown that "after Pakistan has been strengthened, India will become a more stabilising factor" in South Asia. Brown's comments to Chinese Vice-Premier Geng Biao are instructive: "Indians must be brought to realise that there is no longer a concern about a threat from China. We think it is important that you renew a dialogue with the new Indian government and seek a compromise understanding on the border issue that would permit India to turn its attention elsewhere." China's attempted rapprochement with India must be located in the wider geopolitics of the time.
In June 1981, formal border talks were initiated after Huang Hua's meeting with Indira Gandhi. Eight rounds of talks were held between December 1981 and 1988. During the initial rounds, both sides adhered to their bargaining playbooks: India sought to address the eastern sector first which it viewed as relatively solvable and hoped to create a positive atmosphere for discussions on the western sector. China favoured a "comprehensive settlement". Then, in the sixth round in November 1985, Chinese negotiators pressed claims in the eastern sector south of the McMahon Line. In an interview to Indian journalists in June 1986, China's Vice Foreign Minister, Liu Shuqing, said "the eastern sector is the biggest dispute and key to the overall situation". The official Chinese statement after the seventh round in July 1986 stated, "The Indian side noted a hardening of the Chinese stand…".