raharris1973
Well-known member
What if China's unilateral ceasefire in 1962's Sino-Indian war did not yield back the disputed land in Northeast India, aka 'Southern Tibet', aka NEFA, aka Arunachal Pradesh?
In the course of the war, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Indian_War, the Chinese Army had captured all the land it claimed, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Indian_border_dispute, and mastered its Indian foe at every turn until the fighting stopped. In OTL it stopped with a unilateral Chinese ceasefire, followed by Chinese persistence in holding all its forward claims in northwest India - Aksai Chin, aka Ladakh salient, and pulling back from the part of northeast India it claimed (then called by India the NEFA, now called Arunachal Pradesh) while demanding the Indians stay 20 km away from Chinese lines. The Indians officially refused the Chinese terms, but tacitly and privately complied with them. The position China held to at the end of the war and enforced was consistent with a compromise proposal Zhou Enlai proposed before the war and in the middle of the war that India had refused.
What if Mao and the CCP leadership writ large had decided, "We earned every of that land - which we were entitled to anyway - in blood. We offered two times, maybe more, get by with less than what we were entitled to in south Tibet for the time being. Encouraged by the capitalists and revisionists, Nehru's bourgeois nationalist Brahmin clique and its so-called 'forward policy' forced war on us. The People's Army triumphed and taught the running dogs a lesson, the people's land cannot be given back."? China's unilateral cease-fire does not involve a pull-back from its claimed and now occupied disputed land in northeast India.
What happens next?
Does Nehru, who is out of immediate, unilateral, practical military options to force the Chinese out, informally accept the ceasefire and let the war end or peter out, even if he publicly denies it and raises anti-Chinese rhetoric? Does the history of Sino-Indian relations then proceed afterward along OTL lines, with episodic border clashes, mutual suspicion and criticism, Indian covert support to Tibetans, India building up its military, with the only difference for the last sixty years being China sits on its winnings in possession of the disputed land?
Or does something else happen?
Like Nehru feeling compelled to send his air force to bomb Chinese ground forces, or mount ground attacks, even with little hope of success?
Or does Nehru appeal for and receive US intervention, likely in the form of air support and SOF? And how effective is that?
Or does he appeal for and receive Soviet intervention on his side?
Or both US and Soviet?
As for the Chinese, they were facing a domestic mess, with the worst effects of post-Great Leap Forward famine hitting them, significant unrest in Tibet and Xinjiang, and even some military mutiny in Henan province. Chiang Kai-shek was upping his posture of 'Project National Glory'. The US of course was saying, 'Don't even dream of it'. None of this all seemed to be dulling the 'pointy end of China's spear' at the border with India though, probably given that it was such a small and likely elite portion of PLA forces engaged in the Himalayan fighting.
In the course of the war, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Indian_War, the Chinese Army had captured all the land it claimed, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Indian_border_dispute, and mastered its Indian foe at every turn until the fighting stopped. In OTL it stopped with a unilateral Chinese ceasefire, followed by Chinese persistence in holding all its forward claims in northwest India - Aksai Chin, aka Ladakh salient, and pulling back from the part of northeast India it claimed (then called by India the NEFA, now called Arunachal Pradesh) while demanding the Indians stay 20 km away from Chinese lines. The Indians officially refused the Chinese terms, but tacitly and privately complied with them. The position China held to at the end of the war and enforced was consistent with a compromise proposal Zhou Enlai proposed before the war and in the middle of the war that India had refused.
What if Mao and the CCP leadership writ large had decided, "We earned every of that land - which we were entitled to anyway - in blood. We offered two times, maybe more, get by with less than what we were entitled to in south Tibet for the time being. Encouraged by the capitalists and revisionists, Nehru's bourgeois nationalist Brahmin clique and its so-called 'forward policy' forced war on us. The People's Army triumphed and taught the running dogs a lesson, the people's land cannot be given back."? China's unilateral cease-fire does not involve a pull-back from its claimed and now occupied disputed land in northeast India.
What happens next?
Does Nehru, who is out of immediate, unilateral, practical military options to force the Chinese out, informally accept the ceasefire and let the war end or peter out, even if he publicly denies it and raises anti-Chinese rhetoric? Does the history of Sino-Indian relations then proceed afterward along OTL lines, with episodic border clashes, mutual suspicion and criticism, Indian covert support to Tibetans, India building up its military, with the only difference for the last sixty years being China sits on its winnings in possession of the disputed land?
Or does something else happen?
Like Nehru feeling compelled to send his air force to bomb Chinese ground forces, or mount ground attacks, even with little hope of success?
Or does Nehru appeal for and receive US intervention, likely in the form of air support and SOF? And how effective is that?
Or does he appeal for and receive Soviet intervention on his side?
Or both US and Soviet?
As for the Chinese, they were facing a domestic mess, with the worst effects of post-Great Leap Forward famine hitting them, significant unrest in Tibet and Xinjiang, and even some military mutiny in Henan province. Chiang Kai-shek was upping his posture of 'Project National Glory'. The US of course was saying, 'Don't even dream of it'. None of this all seemed to be dulling the 'pointy end of China's spear' at the border with India though, probably given that it was such a small and likely elite portion of PLA forces engaged in the Himalayan fighting.