It's all quite logical when you realise that the Indian refusal to negotiate is the A to Z of this problem. While that lasts, things will just get worse… It can never be resolved.
China had in the past informally proposed an east-west 'package deal' under which if India made territorial concessions in Aksai Chin (in the western sector), China would reciprocate and renounce its claims in the eastern sector (the area corresponding to Arunachal Pradesh)…
If India had acted on those indications, could the Sino-Indian boundary dispute have been solved?
Yes, I do believe that but for Nehru's folly of saying that India's boundary is non-negotiable, had India in the late 1950s acted as Burma (current-day Myanmar) and every other neighbour of China in due course was to act, and said ' Okay, let's sit down and negotiate', the boundary dispute could have been settled.
China would, I believe, have confirmed the McMahon alignment - not the McMohan Line - as more or less the boundary and then the joint boundary commission would have ironed out the minor differences on the ground. At that stage, I do not believe China would have demanded the retrocession of the Tawang monastery because there was no illwill towards India.
I believe that had India acted rationally, there would have been a Sino-Indian boundary settlement in 1959 or 1960 with mutual acclaim
— and a major alteration in world history.
Do you believe China will revert to that stage where it was willing to make those concessions?
If India were to say it will negotiate from the start and if the Chinese believed that it was being honest, the process will still be fairly protracted; it might take years. And it would be not easy because a lot of mutual mistrust has been built up now.
So, what's the way forward?
The answer remains what it has always been: India must reverse Nehru's position and say 'Let's sit down and negotiate'. The Chinese will be sceptical at first, but once they believe that India means business, the two sides could begin by inviting the Myanmar government in to fix that trijunction so that they have a starting point on which to anchor the McMahon alignment, and they could then proceed westward.
When they come up against a point of dispute that appears to be beyond compromise - that might be over Tawang, for example - they could put it aside for settlement at some future date and not let that deadlock disrupt the negotiations. That diplomatic tactic was the key to settling the Sino-Soviet dispute.
If I were to advice the Indian government, I would say: 'See if you can agree on confirming a Line of Actual Control.' That means a broad-brush agreement, not nitpicking. Get a cordon sanitaire that neither side will intrude upon. Then they can go on quietly talking.
But it's important to agree on a Line of Actual Control because otherwise there will be constant little clashes, with the military wondering why the other side sent a patrol onto that hilltop. And then the opposition will pick that up and say, 'We've been invaded again.'
Given goodwill on both sides, a settlement can be found. But the problem is that no Indian government is likely to be secure and committed for long enough to pursue this matter for several years of hard negotiations….
If an Indian government agrees to negotiate with China, the outcry would be clamorous. The opposition would say, 'You're selling out sacred Indian soil.'
In 1986, (Mikhail) Gorbachev reversed that position and said 'We will negotiate'. That was a brilliant act of statesmanship. India awaits its Gorbachev!
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