ABSTRACT
Meanwhile China was publishing claims to Himalayan mountain areas long regarded as belonging to India, Nepal and Burma. Its troops entered the Aksai Chin region in north-east Kashmir. There were also clashes on the Indian border north of Assam, where in 1914 the British, who then ruled India and Burma, had fixed (after negotiating with China and Tibet) the frontier called the McMahon Line. The border disputes worsened, and in 1962 the Chinese launched full-scale attacks. In north-east India their forces advanced almost to the edge of the Assam plains. Two months later these forces, whose supply lines were tenuous, withdrew to the McMahon Line; but the Chinese did not renounce their claims in that sector, and in Kashmir they kept their hold on Aksai Chin. When India and Pakistan went to war in 1965, China tried to strengthen Pakistan’s hand by threatening to invade India again.
