China-India Territorial Disputes: Emergence, Post Independence Scenario and Conflicting Approaches

Abstract

This paper highlights the role played by the colonial legacy in the emergence of territorial disputes between China and India. The roots of the disputed border between China and India go deep into British Raj and Czarist Russian expansionist policies in the name of Great game in this region because Indian subcontinent was a strategic necessity of British Raj for the defensive purpose of its interests in the Indian Ocean and its swathes. On the contrary, Russia having emerging clout was ideally to be found to defy British supremacy in the region. As a result, British and Russia were affianced in a tug of war. Therefore, in the post independence period, borders of the two Asian giants have never been officially delimited under a mutually accepted treaty. For the last seven decades borders of the two countries remained unsettled and proved as an elusive monster affecting their relations. This paper explains the post independence scenario of both states as far as their territorial disputes are concerned and shed light on their conflicting approaches.