A Disastrous Policy Of Direct Approach

For years, that 바카라�aggressor바카라� charge hung around Beijing바카라�s neck, but publication of a book, India바카라�s China War, in 1970 occasioned an international rethink, with the verdict turning squarely in China바카라�s favour. That is the dispute into which the Swedish writer Bertil Lintner, an experienced Asia specialist, has waded, and the polemical title of his powerful new book, China바카라�s India War, proclaims which side he takes.

Linter is an indefatigable researcher, eager to follow every avenue promising enl­ightenment, so that if a reservation is to be expressed it would be that his readers are sometimes taken up to dead-ends that while themselves are rewarding or beguiling, are distractions from his main theme. And for Lintner as a researcher his medium is not libraries, but his boots and the walker바카라�s staff. His writings indicate that he has physically visited the countries, even specific localities he writes about. But for this reviewer (the author of India바카라�s China War, the book whose argument Lin­­­tner seeks to refute, and who consequ­ently becomes the target of sneers and jeers which sully Lintner바카라�s text), the task is to seek and understand the misreading or incomprehensions which have led him to take up the invidious cause of re-establishing public belief in a falsehood.

Since a robust anti-Communism and fixed animus towards China and its leaders, past and present, pervades Lintner바카라�s book, one may first cite, in a corrective effort, the PRC바카라�s record in border settlement. Beijing바카라�s policy was set by the Com­munist Party바카라�s Central Committee in the first months after 바카라�liberation바카라� in 1949, and proclaimed by Zhou Enlai at the Bandung Conference in 1955. China had many stretches of unsettled frontiers, he said, but the PRC would never use that uncertainty for expansion, but would rigorously observe the status quo until diplomatic negotiation could peacefully create new, agreed boundary alignments. Beij­ing바카라�s record in persuance of that declaration is good. It has a dozen sovereign nei­g­hbours and has had disputes, territorial and sometimes belligerent, with several of them but now enjoys settled bou­­ndaries with each bar India (Bhutan excluded; it is India바카라�s satellite).

And international boundaries can be created only through a process called del­imitation, diplomatic give-and-take, followed by demarcation, the joint marking of the agreed line on the ground. Which takes us back to India, because the fundamental factor in the Sino-Indian conflict is that it is the consequence of Nehru바카라�s absolute, adamant refusal to negotiate, which has been sustained by all his successors. India바카라�s policy on its China borders was first set and declared in 1954 in a memorandum from Nehru. There would be no negotiations, he decreed; the border alignments shown in a new set of maps just issued must be considered 바카라�firm and definite바카라� and would not be 바카라�open to discussion with anybody바카라�. Furthermore, a system of checkposts must be set up along the entire frontier, 바카라�especially in disputed areas바카라�. Thus was inaugurated an Indian 바카라�forward policy바카라�, and so was planted the slow-gestating seed of border war.

India바카라�s new maps, on which Nehru바카라�s policy was based, were wildly different from anything previously conceived. First, they falsely indicated that the external borders were agreed with the neighbours concerned; second, they depicted a settled NE boundary on what was known as the McMahon alignment, which was no more than a British imperial claim; and thirdly they depicted Indian ownership of Aksai Chin, a broad tract of desolate territory in the NW, long held by China and of the highest strategic importance to Beijing.

At first the normal administrative agencies for implementation of the aggressive policy were not available to Nehru. The MEA was averse to making the PRC an opponent, and the army, then generalled by soldiers who recognised the dangers of provoking war with an immensely stro­n­ger military power, refused to involve tro­ops. But Nehru had a fall-back in his director of intelligence, N.B. Mullik, who commanded in effect a private army of armed police. Nehru instructed Mullik that China was, along with Pakistan, a state enemy, ordered him to 바카라�help in every way possible바카라� Tibetans hostile to Beijing, giving him free rein in establishing the 바카라�system of checkposts바카라� along the borders in the new maps. So, through the late 바카라�50s, Mullik executed Nehru바카라�s covert policy.

Mullik is one of Lintner바카라�s sources, but Lintner turns a blind eye to his role as a determined agent provocateur. In 1959, Mullik바카라�s secret offensive began to yield results in armed clashes, with Indian cas­ualties바카라�those enraged the Indian public and aroused a war-fever. Nehru바카라�s assurances of the army바카라�s overwhelming tactical advantages (opposite of truth) lulled any apprehension and aroused an eager exp­ectation of imminent Indian victory.

By the early 1960s, the penny had dropped in Beijing. The border cla­s­hes were recognised as expressive of a belligerent intention. Mao took per­sonal control and ordered that Indian advances must be blocked, but that the PLA must not allow itself to be provoked: not a shot was to be fired without his specific permission. This was a time of great stress for the PRC, with mounting pressure from the Guomintang and the Amer­icans, and war with India could only be a dire diversion and danger. But in October 1962 Nehru removed all doubt about his intentions. Until then, the Indian army (now under generals promoted by Nehru바카라�s favour) had been attempting to evict the Chinese from Indian-claimed territory by blockade and harrassment. Nehru orde­red the army to use all available force in a frontal assault to drive the Chinese out of tactically impregnable positions they occ­upied north (that is, on the Chinese side) of the Indian 바카라�McMahon바카라� claim line in the north-east! And he publicly proclaimed it! The news of that statement 바카라�hit me like a bludgeon바카라�, said an Indian general at the front. 바카라�Since Nehru had declared his int­ention to attack, the Chinese were not going to wait to be attacked바카라�. Nor did they.

The steadily growing Indian threat, the emerging perception in Beijing that Nehru intended war, had since 1960 led to the PLA taking energetic precautionary measures. Troop concentrations, impro­vement of communications, establishment of intelligence networks on the Indian side of the line of actual control, so that by October 10, 1962 the unfortunate Indian troops, under-armed, under-clo­thed, on starvation rations, faced at close quarters a crouching tiger which they were ordered to subdue. An Indian-pro­voked skirmish on that day, with heavy Chinese casualties, broke the pre-war lull; ten days later the PLA launched an overwhelming general offensive, under which Indian troops could only fight and die or surrender. Victorious but controlled, Beij­ing a few days later reiterated its long-­standing offer: mutual cessation of hos­­t­­ilities, return to previous positions, immediate border negotiations. Nehru, now relishing his Churchillian moment, did not wait even to receive the text before refusing. So the Chinese completed their operation with a further grand assault which, by November 20, left no organised Indian force on the battle-fields.

To label that provoked, measured and controlled counter-attack 바카라�an invasion바카라�, as does Lintner, is absurd. As The Times was quick to recognise, it was a classic 바카라�punitive expedition바카라�. The Chinese aim was to chasten a neighbour whose provocations had become dangerous and intolerable. By November 20, that objective had been achieved. No organised Indian military force remained in the disputed areas, either east or west. Accordingly, the Chinese declared their pre-planned unilateral ceasefire with near-immediate withdrawal from all occupied areas, ret­urn of all POWs and materiel, and again Zhou Enlai (now with scepticism and angry contempt) urged Nehru to negotiate a border settlement.

How Lintner was brought to take up the project of gainsaying all of the above and re-establishing the despairing Indian bleat of 바카라�unprovoked aggression바카라� is a mys­tery. He adduced no new evidence, merely paraded again all New Delhi바카라�s spe­cious and often casuistical arguments.