Doklam standoff: Indian Army prepares to beat back more Chinese incursions

With China getting more aggressive with its salami slicing policy in the Himalayas, the Indian Army must prepare for what General Bipin Rawat described as more Doklam-like incidents.

• Indian and Chinese troops are in standoff at Doklam for over two months.
• China keeps transgressing into Indian territories in three pockets of borders.
• Bipin Rawat warned of more Doklam-like incidents in future.

By Prabhash K Dutta

Delivering the General BC Joshi Memorial Lecture in Pune yesterday, Indian Army chief General Bipin Rawat warned that standoffs with China like that at Doklam are likely to "increase in future".
"The recent stand-off in the Doklam plateau by the Chinese side attempting to change the status quo are issues which we need to be wary about, and I think such kind of incidents are likely to increase in the future," General Bipin Rawat said.
Indian and Chinese troops are in eyeball encounter at Doklam plateau of Bhutan for over two months. Standoff began when Indian troops, after formal request by the Royal Army of Bhutan, stopped the People's Liberation Army of China from constructing a highway through Doklam area.
Doklam plateau is governed by Bhutan and has long been inhabited by the Bhutanese shepherds. China has been eyeing this piece of hilly terrain because of strategic significance.
Doklam lies very close to the Silliguri Corridor that connects the northeastern states of India with rest of the country.
It is the sole passage for supply of materials and transport to and from the northeastern states.

CHINA'S SALAMI SLICING IN HIMALAYAS
General Bipin Rawat has underlined what many geostrategic experts have been saying for long. China is the only country post-World War II that has been engaged in territorial expansion by poaching lands and maritime areas of its neighbours.
This Chinese policy is widely known as Salami Slicing through which it cuts into the territories of its neighbours and then stakes claim over the same.
Furthering the Salami Slicing policy China has captured the entire Tibetan kingdom in 1949 forcing the Buddhist government of the plateau state flee to India and seek asylum.
The Dalai Lama has headed the Tibetan government in-exile since 1950s with its headquarters at Dharamshala in Himachal Pradesh.
Later, India recognised Tibet as part of China.
China captured Aksai Chin area in Ladakh of the state of Jammu and Kashmir in 1962 war with India and has illegally governed it since then.
Aksai Chin is roughly of the size of Switzerland in area.
China also forced Pakistan to cede almost 6,000 sq km area north of Karakoram mountain ranges in Pakistan-occupied parts of Jammu and Kashmir state.

CHINESE BORDER POLICY WITH INDIA
Apart from Aksai Chin and the area in northern Kashmir, China stakes claim on Indian territories in two more pockets.
It claims Arunachal Pradesh to be its own territory calling it South Tibet and several patches along international borders falling in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh.
The borders between India and China are not properly demarcated and the demarcation done during the British colonial regime is contested by Beijing as per its suitability.
During his lecture on India's Challenges in the Current Geo-Strategic Construct at the Department of Defence and Strategic Studies of Savitribai Phule Pune University in Pune, General Bipin Rawat said, "Pockets of dispute and contested claims to the territory continue to exist. These are due to differing perceptions on the alignments of the Line of Actual Control (LAC)."
"Transgressions across Line of Actual Control do happen and sometimes they do lead to some kind of misunderstanding between the forward troops," General Rawat said, adding, "However, we do have joint mechanisms in place to address such situations."
But, Chinese Salami Slicing policy stands in the way of resolving issues.
Even in the case of Doklam standoff, it has been reported that during all flag meetings with Chinese counterparts, the Indian Army has insisted on restoring pre-June 16 positions of the troops.
But, no resolution has been found yet.

DOKLAM AS SALAMI SLICE
The Doklam standoff is a classical example of Chinese border policy with India.
Chinese policy towards Indian borders has three well defined contours.
China invests heavily to strengthen its infrastructure in the regions where it is in stronger position.
It pursues Salami Slicing policy more aggressively where both troops are on equal footing strategically while China needles India where Indian Army is in stronger position to test water.
At Doklam plateau, Indian Army has been patrolling for decades while Chinese troops used to visit there occasionally and never stayed for long.
As it is a disputed area between China and Bhutan, and is very close to the Indian borders, PLA attempted to alter status quo.

WHY THERE MAY BE MORE DOKLAMS
China has invested in its defence forces and infrastructure more than any other Asian country over past several decades.
Even General Bipin Rawat underlined that the PLA has made significant progress in enhancing its "capabilities for mobilisation, application and sustenance of operations" particularly in the Tibet.
Xi Jinping has overhauled the entire military structure and divided the PLA commands in more reasonable units.
Their force reorganisation along with developing capabilities in space and network-centric warfare is likely to provide them greater synergy in force application," General Rawat noted in his speech.
China is also working on other aspects of geostrategy vis-a-vis India.
China is increasing its military and economic partnership with Pakistan and has also been trying to win over Maldives, Sri Lanka and even Bangladesh in India's neighbourhood.
On the other hand, while Doklam standoff continues, China has not yet confirmed about the annual joint military exercises with India.
India and China conduct joint exercise every year on reciprocal basis.
Named "Hand-in-Hand", Indian team goes to China one year followed a visit by Chinese troops next year.
Responding to a question whether Doklam standoff is affecting India-China annual military exercise, General Bipin Rawat said, "It could be, but we are not sure."
The ground realities leave no doubt that China's approach towards India is adversarial than friendly and General Bipin Rawat seems to have delivered the right message by saying, "It is always better to be prepared and alert than think that this will not happen again. So my message to troops is that do not let your guard down."

The Necessary War

This is how it could go down when China and India went to war

By Blake Stilwell

For more than a month, Indian and Chinese troops have been locked in a standoff on a remote but strategically important Himalayan plateau near where Tibet, India, and Bhutan meet.

A war between the world’s largest democracy and the world’s largest communist state may not seem likely to the casual observer. 

But not only is it possible, it’s happened before. Only things were very different back then.

China was facing an economic collapse in the early 1960s in the years following the Great Leap Forward. 

The country was struggling to feed its people, let alone support an all-out war.
India, on the other hand, was on an economic upturn. 

Militarily, however, India was unprepared and could only field 14,000 troops, compared to China’s exhaustive manpower.
In 1962, Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong invaded India for granting asylum to the Dalai Lama and not supporting the Chinese occupation of Tibet (Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was an outspoken critic of the occupation). 

The Chinese won the harsh mountain war, fought without navies or air forces, at 14,000 feet.
Mao later told Sri Lankan and Swedish delegations the war was essentially to teach India a lesson.

Potential causes of a new Sino-Indian war

The 1962 war only lasted a month, resulting in slight border changes and a now-ongoing dispute on just where the border is — namely in two areas called Aksai Chin and Arunachal Pradesh, which could re-spark a conflict today. 

But any border disputes could turn the mountainous region hot.
The most recent standoff in August 2017 was about an obscure plateau in the Himalayan Doklam Plateau region, which borders India, China, and Bhutan. 

India supports Bhutan’s claim to the area, while both major powers have scores of troops in the region.
The spark for that standoff is an unfinished road from China.
China also supports India’s arch rival Pakistan, turning any conflict into a potential two-front war. But India doesn’t take it all laying down. 

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi confronted China’s assertiveness from his first day in office — when he invited the exiled Tibetan government to his swearing-in ceremony.

A map of Doklam, a disputed area between China, India, and Bhutan.

The two countries clashed along their border several times, including one incident over Tibet in 1967 and another near miss 1987 over Arunachal. 

There were also smaller incidents in 2013 and 2014 in Ladakh, where India has since loaded the area with infantry, tanks, and reserves to be prepared for any potential aggression from China.
But the very likely spark that could drive the two Asian giants to war could come from a clash over resources. 

In this case it wouldn’t be over oil, it would be over water. 

Both countries have an eye on the fresh water and hydroelectric power from the Brahmaputra River.
Water is not the only resource in question, though. 

Earlier in 2016, China prevented India’s membership in the Nuclear Suppliers Group, which controls the trade of nuclear material and tech.

Technology and numbers

A pilot in the cockpit of a Jian-10 fighter jet at Yangcun Air Force base on the outskirts of Tianjin municipality, April 13, 2010, during a media trip to the 24th Air Force Division of the People's Liberation Army.

China and India are now economic powerhouses, 2nd and 7th (respectively) in world GDP rankings. Militarily, India is number four on the GlobalFirepower rankings and boasts the largest standing volunteer army at 1.13 million troops with 21 million in reserve. 

Ranked number three on the same scale, China’s armed forces have 2.3 million active troops with another 2.3 million in reserve.
China’s technology is superior to India’s, but not by much. 

The Chinese air forces also vastly outnumber India’s somewhat antiquated air force. 

The Chinese also have a homegrown version of the F-35, which can outmatch India’s 50-year-old MiG-21s. 

The Chinese J-20 is currently the best for Chinese air superiority, if it’s operational in time for such a conflict.
India is working with Russia on developing a 5th-generation Sukhoi fighter with capabilities similar to the American F-22. 

But the Indian air force has been outnumbered and outclassed on many occasions and still came up with a win. 

Training and experience count for a lot. More on that in a minute.
The Indian Navy's Scorpene submarine INS Kalvari escorted by tugboats as it arrives at Mazagon Docks Ltd, a naval-vessel ship-building yard, in Mumbai, India, October 29, 2015.

India’s Navy matches China’s with two aircraft carrier groups but China still edges India in technological capability — barely. 

China also dwarfs India’s tank and submarine corps, with five times as many of each. China also has twice as many warships and military aircraft.
India’s advantage is that, despite China’s superiority in merchant marine, its sea lanes come very close to Indian waters. 

This would force the Chinese to divert ships used for a blockade to protect their shipping. 

This is why both countries invest in developing submarines and anti-sub technology.
No matter what, the air and sea war would be a slugfest. 

Even so, the primary conflict would likely be between two land armies. 

Or three if Pakistan decides to take advantage of the situation.

Joota on the ground
Chinese paramilitary policemen take an oath ahead of the 96th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in Kunming, Yunnan province, China.

The problem with the major border disputes is that the border in question is high in the Himalayas, making quick thrusts and land grabs unlikely. 

A large disparity in ground troops between the opposing forces will decide who advances. 

China may have the manpower to make taking the disputed provinces possible.
A significant difference in India’s favor is that its troops are battle-hardened and have a long tradition of fighting to defend India’s borders. 

The Indian Army has been fighting Pakistan, terrorism, and a host of insurgencies for decades. 

Its last war ended in 1999, and it has employed significant paramilitary and special operations forces ever since.
The Chinese haven’t seen real fighting since the 1979 war with Vietnam. 

That war lasted just shy of four weeks, with each side claiming victory. 

The Chinese wanted to punish Vietnam for being in the Soviet sphere while proving to the world the USSR could not protect its allies. 

It didn’t work. 

The Vietnamese repelled the Chinese People’s Liberation Army using only border militias.
India's Rapid Action Force (RAF) personnel pose for pictures inside their base camp in New Delhi, November 6, 2014.

The truth is, the Chinese PLA, for all its growth and advances in technology, has not truly been tested since the Korean War. 

China’s biggest equalizer is its ballistic missile force, capable of hitting well inside India.
China’s biggest advantage is its economy. 

If it suffers no sanctions as a result of an invasion, it could sustain a protracted war much longer than India. 

In this instance, India’s best hope is to strangle Chinese shipping using its sizable submarine force. India sits with its boot on the neck of the Chinese economy.
If it came to a nuclear exchange, India would not fare well. 

China has a stockpile of ballistic missiles and with major Indian cities so close to the Chinese border, it doesn’t even need longer-ranged weapons to annihilate major urban centers. 

Conversely, India has few of these and primary targets in China are much further away. 

Luckily, both countries have a “no first use” policy, making a nuclear exchange unlikely.

How it plays out
An officer from the Indian Central Reserve Police Force during preparations for Republic Day parade, near the Presidential Palace in New Delhi, India, January 12, 2016. India marks Republic Day on January 26.

India invading China is highly unlikely. 

The Indian Army would not have the ground force necessary to drive through the Himalayas and sustain such a push.
This war would be fought with light infantry, mountain troops, and light armor. 

China has the advantage in numbers, but India has experienced veteran soldiers. 

Even aircraft would have trouble fighting in these mountains, but the Indian Army has developed specialized attack helicopters just for this purpose: the HAL Druv and HAL Light Attack helicopters.
China has very few airfields in the area, which would limit its ability to provide air cover, whereas India’s Air Force maintains considerable assets in the area.
India also has multiple layers of anti-air and anti-missile defense and is developing more. 

China would have to get the bulk of its ground forces across the Himalayas as fast as possible, or the war would grind to a halt.
Any halt to the Chinese advance would be a de facto win for India. 

China would have to completely capture the disputed territories and move into India to be able to claim victory. 

China’s only real chance to progress into the subcontinent is to perform an Inchon landing-style maneuver from the sea, but that would require going through India’s submarine force unopposed.
Soldiers from a special unit of the People's Armed Police in Xinjiang at a training session in Kashgar, Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, China.

Frankly, any conflict between the two would be explosive and bloody, requiring a lot of manpower and ending with a massive loss of life. 

The geography and population density between the two countries makes both of them unconquerable.

Chinese Aggressions

India Steps Up Alert Amid Heightened Tensions With China
By SCOTT NEUMAN

Exiled Tibetans shout slogans during a protest to show support for India on the Doklam standoff in New Delhi, India, on Friday. Tsering Topgyal/AP

India has increased a military alert along its eastern border with China, moving troops and weapons into the region amid a weeks-long standoff between the two countries that shows no signs of resolution.
As NPR's Julie McCarthy reported last month, New Delhi and Beijing have been at odds over a strategic region called the Doklam Plateau, which is claimed both by China and by India's tiny ally, Bhutan.
In June, China began construction to extend a road there in an apparent effort to press its claim. 

In response, India sent troops as a show of force, sparking anger from China which says the affair is none of its business.
Beijing demanded that Indian forces withdrawal, but Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has refused.
India's Defense Minister Arun Jaitley told parliament this week that the country's armed forces are "fully prepared" in the event of conflict with China.
Meanwhile, Reuters reports that Indian troops in Sikkim, south of Doklam, have been put on heightened alert, although the news agency quoted an unnamed source as saying it was "out of caution."
In 1962, India and China fought a bloody month-long border war. 

The neighbors also have a continuing dispute over the sovereignty Aksai Chin, a Himalayan region on their extreme western border.
Doklam is strategically close to a sliver of land called the "Chicken's Neck" that is India's only land corridor to its frequently restive northeast.
The two countries have also long been at odds over India's hosting of Tibet's government-in-exile and their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, considered by China to be subversive.

The Necessary War: India vs. China

If 2.6 Billion People Go To War
By Kyle Mizokami

A hypothetical war between India and China would be one of the largest and most destructive conflicts in Asia. 

A war between the two powers would rock the Indo-Pacific region, cause millions of casualties on both sides and take a significant toll on the global economy. 

Geography and demographics would play a unique role, limiting the war’s scope and ultimately the conditions of victory.
India and China border one another in two distinct locations: Aksai Chin in India’s north, and Arunachal Pradesh in the country’s northeast. 

China has made claims on both locations, which from China’s perspective belong to the far western East Turkestan and China-occupied Tibet. 

China invaded both Aksai Chin and Arunachal Pradesh in 1962, with both sides fighting a monthlong war that resulted in minor Chinese gains on the ground.

Both countries have such large populations, each over 1.3 billion, that they are essentially unconquerable. 

Like all modern wars, a war between India and China would be fought over land, sea, and air; geography would limit the scope of the land conflict, while it would be the air conflict, fought with both aircraft and missiles, that would do the most damage to both countries. 

The trump card, however, may be India’s unique position to dominate a sea conflict, with dire consequences for the Chinese economy.
A war between the two countries would, unlike the 1962 war, involve major air action on both sides. Both countries maintain large tactical air forces capable of flying missions over the area. 

People’s Liberation Army Air Force units would fly from the Lanzhou Military Region against Aksai Chin, and from the expansive Chengdu Military Region against Arunachal Pradesh. 

The Lanzhou district is home to J-11 and J-11B fighters, two regiments of H-6 strategic bombers, and a grab bag of J-7 and J-8 fighters. 

A lack of forward bases in Xinjiang means the Lanzhou Military Region could probably only support a limited air campaign against northern India. 

The Chengdu Military Region is home to advanced J-11A and J-10 fighters, but there are relatively few military airfields in Tibet anywhere near India.
Still, China does not necessarily need tactical aircraft to do great damage to India. 

China could supplement its aerial firepower with ballistic missiles from the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Forces. 

The PLARF overseas both nuclear, conventional and dual-use ballistic missiles, and could conceivably move up to two thousand short- and medium-range DF-11, DF-15 and DF-21 ballistic missiles into positions adjacent to India. 

These missiles could be used to blitz Indian strategic targets on the ground, at the cost of making them unavailable for contingencies in the South and East China Seas.
Meanwhile, India’s air forces are in a better position to contest the skies than their Chinese counterparts. 

While the war would take place on China’s sparsely manned frontier, New Delhi is only 213 miles from the Tibetan frontier. 

India’s air fleet of 230 Su-30Mk1 Flankers, sixty-nine MiG-29s and even its Mirage 2000s are competitive with or even better than most of China’s aircraft in theater, at least until the J-20 fighter becomes operational. 

India likely has enough aircraft to deal with a two-front war, facing off with Pakistan’s Air Force at the same time. 

India is also fielding the Akash medium-range air defense missile system to protect air bases and other high-value targets.
While India could be reasonably confident of having an air force that deters war, at least in the near term, it has no way of stopping a Chinese ballistic-missile offensive. 

Chinese missile units, firing from Xinjiang and Tibet, could hit targets across the northern half of India with impunity. 

India has no ballistic-missile defenses and does not have the combined air- and space-based assets necessary to hunt down and destroy the missile launchers. 

India’s own ballistic missiles are dedicated to the nuclear mission and would be unavailable for conventional war.
The war on the ground between the Indian and Chinese armies might at first glance seem like the most decisive phase of the war, but it’s actually quite the opposite. 

Both theaters, the Aksai Chin/Xijiang theater and the Arunachal Pradesh/Tibet theater are in rugged locations with little transportation infrastructure, making it difficult to send a mechanized army through. 

Massed attacks could be easily stopped with artillery as attacking forces are funneled through well-known valleys and mountain passes. 

Despite the enormous size of both armies—1.2 million for India and 2.2 million for China—fighting on the ground would likely be a stalemate with little lost or gained.
The war at sea would be the decisive front in a conflict between the two countries. 

Sitting astride the Indian Ocean, India lies on China’s jugular vein. 

The Indian Navy, with its force of submarines, aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya and surface ships could easily curtail the the flow of trade between China and Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. 

It would take the Chinese Navy weeks to assemble and sail a fleet capable of contesting the blockade. Even then, the blockade would be hard to break up, conducted over the thousands of square miles of the Indian Ocean.
Meanwhile, shipping to and from China would be forced to divert through the western Pacific Ocean, where such diversions would be vulnerable to Australian, Japanese, or American naval action. 

87 percent of the country’s petroleum needs are imported from abroad, particularly the Middle East and Africa. 

China’s strategic petroleum reserves, once completed sometime in the 2020s, could stave off a nationwide fuel shortage for up to seventy-seven days—but after that Beijing would have to seek an end to the war however possible.
The second-order effects of the war at sea would be India’s greatest weapon. 

War jitters, the shock to the global economy, and punitive economic action by India’s allies—including Japan and the United States—could see demands for exports fall, with the potential to throw millions of Chinese laborers out of work. 

Domestic unrest fueled by economic troubles could become a major problem for the Chinese Communist Party and its hold on the nation. 

China has no similar lever over India, except in the form of a rain of ballistic missiles with high-explosive warheads on New Delhi and other major cities.
A war between India and China would be nasty, brutal and short, with far-reaching consequences for the global economy. 

The balance of power and geographic constraints means a war would almost certainly fail to prove decisive. 

World War III Casualties
	2016 Population	Killed		Survivors
CHINA	1 373 541 278	1 057 119 689	77%	316 421 589
UNITED STATES	323 995 528	19 089 783	6%	304 905 745
EUROPEAN UNION	513 949 445	371 356 958	72%	142 592 487
RUSSIA	142 355 415	30 924 816	22%	111 430 599
INDIA	1 266 883 598	1 158 499 174	91%	108 384 424
PAKISTAN	201 995 540	175 747 473	87%	26 248 067
JAPAN	126 702 133	114 241 889	90%	12 460 244
VIETNAM	95 261 021	84 340 688	89%	10 920 333
PHILIPPINES	102 624 209	92 732 902	90%	9 891 307
KOREA, NORTH	25 115 311	21 141 050	84%	3 974 261
KOREA, SOUTH	50 924 172	47 636 302	94%	3 287 870
TAIWAN	23 464 787	22 278 490	95%	1 186 297
	4 246 812 437	3 195 109 214	75%	1 051 703 223

Chinese Paranoia

China’s outrageous offer to India for settling the border dispute: Give us all the territory
By Mohan Guruswamy

Dai Bingguo is a Chinese politician and diplomat. 

Many in India will be familiar with him as a long-time interlocutor with a string of Indian National Security Advisors in the Sino-Indian border discussions. 

He has served as a State Councillor and as the director of the General Offices of Foreign Affairs and the National Security Group of the Communist Party of China’s Central Committee. 

A senior Chinese official once described him to me as China’s Kissinger. 

He retired in 2013 but his voice is still heard in the higher echelons of the Chinese Communist Party, and his voice is also often their voice. 

Hence it is as important to have him hear you, as it is to hear him.

Dai returned to headlines in India on March 2 when he told the Beijing-based magazine China-India Dialogue that: “The disputed territory in the eastern sector of the China-India boundary, including Tawang, is inalienable from China’s Tibet in terms of cultural background and administrative jurisdiction. The major reason the boundary question persists is that China’s reasonable requests [in the east] have not been met. If the Indian side takes care of China’s concerns in the eastern sector of their border, the Chinese side will respond accordingly and address India’s concerns elsewhere.”
Dai was clearly alluding to a new package deal on the border issues between India and China, quite different from an old package deal offered several times in the past. 

That package deal entailed India recognising the Aksai Chin plateau in the North as Chinese territory in lieu of China recognising Arunachal Pradesh as Indian. Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai first offered this package deal in 1960. 

But this was not acceptable to New Delhi and India and China went on to fight the 1962 war over the border issue. 

We have been eyeball-to-eyeball since.
In the interview, Dai said that the deal was offered to Foreign Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 1979. 

The last time it was reportedly offered was during Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s meeting with Deng Xiaoping in 1988.
At an interaction with Indian journalists in Beijing in 2015, Yang Wencheng, President of the Chinese People’s Institute for Foreign Affairs said: “As a diplomat in the late 1980s, I was witness to a chance to solve the problem with Prime Minister Rajiv and Deng. Deng said, ‘We do some compromise on the West wing, you do some on the East wing, then we can have a new border.'”
Yang added: “We offered but Prime Minister Gandhi didn’t have a response. After that I felt very sad we lost the chance.”

What China wants
The goalposts have since changed. 

The Chinese now clearly want the populated Tawang tract in Arunachal Pradesh and want to go beyond the old Macartney-MacDonald line in Ladakh. 

This proposal requires India to cede territory it holds at present.
Though the Simla Conference of 1913 between British India and an independent Tibet agreed upon the McMahon Line as the effective boundary between India and China in the North East, the border was only notified by Delhi in 1935 at the insistence of Sir Olaf Caroe, then deputy secretary in the Foreign Department. 

China disputes the legal status of this line.
In 1944, civil servant JP Mills established British Indian administration in the North East Frontier Agency up till the McMahon Line, but excluded the Tawang tract, which continued to be administered by the Lhasa-appointed head lama. 

In 1947, the present Dalai Lama wrote to newly-independent India laying claim to these parts.
On October 7, 1950, the Chinese attacked the Tibetans in Qamdo and asserted control over all of Tibet within a year. 

In anticipation, on February 16, 1951, Major Relangnao ‘Bob’ Khating of the Indian Frontier Administration Service, at the head of a column of Indian forces, raised the India tricolour in Tawang and took over the administration of the tract. 

Clearly India’s claim over Arunachal Pradesh does not rest on any long historical tradition or cultural affinity. 

But then the Chinese have no basis whatsoever to stake a claim on the area either besides a few dreamy cartographic enlargements of the notion of China among some of the hangers-on in the Qing emperor’s court. 

The important thing now is that the McMahon Line is over 100 years old and India has been directly administering the territory for almost eight decades. 

China was never there, either in 1913 or before or after.

A tribal girl looks on during the second day of the three-day Tawang festival in Tawang, near the Indo-China border in north eastern Arunachal Pradesh state on October 22, 2016.

The case of Aksai Chin
India’s claims on Aksai Chin in the North rest on the “advanced boundary line” formulated in 1865 by WH Johnson, a civil sub-assistant in the Survey of India. 

Johnson proposed this line after claiming to have surveyed the territory. 

The authorities in Delhi and London waited three decades before rejecting this alignment, now called the Ardagh-Johnson line.
Viceroy Lord Lansdowne wrote on September 28, 1889: “The country between the Karakoram and Kuen Lun ranges is, I understand, of no value, very inaccessible and not likely to be coveted by Russia. We might, I should think, encourage the Chinese to take it, if they showed any inclination to do so. This would be better than leaving a no-man’s land between our frontier and that of China.”
Lord Curzon, who was Secretary of State for India in London, wrote: “We are inclined to think that the wisest course would be to leave them in possession as it is evidently to our advantage that the tract of territory between the Karakoram and Kuen Lun mountains be held by a friendly power like China.”
In 1893, Hung Ta-chen, a senior Chinese official at Kashgar in China’s western-most province of Xinjiang, handed a map of the boundary proposed by China to George Macartney, the British consul-general there. 

This boundary placed the Lingzithang plains, which are South of the Laktsang range, in India, and Aksai Chin proper, which is North of the Laktsang range, in China. 

Macartney recommended and forwarded this to the British Indian government. 

There were good reasons for the British to support this border along the Karakorum mountains. 

The Karakorums formed a natural boundary, which would set the British borders up to the Indus river watershed while leaving the Tarim river watershed in Chinese control.
The British presented this line, known as the Macartney-MacDonald Line, to the Chinese in 1899 in a note by Sir Claude MacDonald, the British minister to the Qing dynasty, China’s last imperial dynasty. 

China believed that this then was the accepted boundary. 

But post-1962, the Chinese are ahead of this too.
In 1941 after military intelligence in Delhi got reports of Soviet troops garrisoning in Xinjiang, it was decided to push the existing boundary outwards to the old Ardagh-Johnson line. 

Thus, Aksai Chin once more became part of India. 

This late incorporation appeared in few maps only. 

The India map of the original Constitution of India adopted in 1950 leaves the boundary between India and China at Aksai Chin as an airbrushed blank without indicating any line.

Chinese claims exaggerated
There are doubts in China too about its border claims. 

Professor Ge Jianxiong, director of the Institute of Chinese Historical Geography at Fudan University in Shanghai wrote in China Review that prior to 1912 when the Republic of China was established, the idea of China was not clearly conceptualised. 

Even during the late Qing period the term China would on occasion refer to the Qing state including all the territory that fell within the claimed boundaries of the Qing Empire. 

At other times it would be taken to refer to only the 18 interior provinces excluding Manchuria, Inner Mongolia, Tibet and Sinkiang (now Xianjiang).
Professor Ge added that the notions of Greater China were based entirely on the “one-sided views of Qing court records that were written for the court’s self-aggrandisement.” 

Ge criticised those who felt that the more they exaggerated the territory of historical China the more patriotic they were deemed to be.
Both, India and China are now experiencing new levels of nationalism. 

Territory is at the core of this nationalism, making the exchange of territories unpalatable to public opinion in both countries. 

If the package entails the withdrawal of the two territorial claims, it might win a modicum of support in both countries. 

But this is clearly not so. 

What Dai Bingguo is now suggesting is that India gives up its claim on Aksai Chin, and also cede the strategically vital Tawang tract.
What is feasible is for India and China to find acceptable lines of actual control based on sound strategic principles. 

Claims and counter-claims on territories is clearly not the way to go about it.