ABSTRACT
The hardening of the line within the country during the Great Leap Forward was quickly extended abroad. The development of domestic affairs, the Tibetan revolt in 1959, the observance by Pandit Nehru and his country of the African and Asian policy of neutrality, and the rapprochement between India and the Soviet Union and between India and the United States all help to explain the behavior of China as regards the Indian subcontinent. A few minor frontier incidents occurred as early as the autumn of 1958, revealing certain weak points, but the Tibetan revolt was the start of a true deterioration in Sino-Indian relations. From the Chinese point of view, several converging explanations can be found for the Sino-Indian crisis of 1962. The difficulties between India and China inevitably brought Pakistan and China closer to each other, in spite of great differences in their systems of government, their ideologies, and their commitments toward the rest of the world.
