Aksai Chin
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Aksai Chin is a region administered by China partly in Hotan County, Hotan Prefecture, Xinjiang,<ref name="cihai"/> and partly in Rutog County, Ngari Prefecture, Tibet, and constituting the easternmost portion of the larger Kashmir region that has been the subject of a dispute between India and China since 1959.<ref name=tertiary-kashmir> The application of the term "administered" to the various regions of Kashmir and a mention of the Kashmir dispute is supported by the tertiary sources (a) through (e), reflecting due weight in the coverage. Although "controlled" and "held" are also applied neutrally to the names of the disputants or to the regions administered by them, as evidenced in sources (h) through (i) below, "held" is also considered politicized usage, as is the term "occupied," (see (j) below).
(a) Template:Citation (subscription required) Quote: "Kashmir, region of the northwestern Indian subcontinent ... has been the subject of dispute between India and Pakistan since the partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947. The northern and western portions are administered by Pakistan and comprise three areas: Azad Kashmir, Gilgit, and Baltistan, the last two being part of a territory called the Northern Areas. Administered by India are the southern and southeastern portions, which constitute the state of Jammu and Kashmir but are slated to be split into two union territories.";
(b) Template:Citation (subscription required) Quote: "Aksai Chin, Chinese (Pinyin) Aksayqin, portion of the Kashmir region, at the northernmost extent of the Indian subcontinent in south-central Asia. It constitutes nearly all the territory of the Chinese-administered sector of Kashmir that is claimed by India to be part of the Ladakh area of Jammu and Kashmir state.";
(c) Template:Citation C. E Bosworth, University of Manchester Quote: "KASHMIR, kash'mer, the northernmost region of the Indian subcontinent, administered partlv by India, partly by Pakistan, and partly by China. The region has been the subject of a bitter dispute between India and Pakistan since they became independent in 1947";
(d) Template:Citation Quote: "Jammu and Kashmir: Territory in northwestern India, subject to a dispute between India and Pakistan. It has borders with Pakistan and China."
(e) Template:Citation Quote: "We move from a disputed international border to a dotted line on the map that represents a military border not recognized in international law. The line of control separates the Indian and Pakistani administered areas of the former Princely State of Jammu and Kashmir.";
(f) Template:Citation
(g) Template:Citation
(h) Template:Citation Quote: "J&K: Jammu and Kashmir. The former princely state that is the subject of the Kashmir dispute. Besides IJK (Indian-controlled Jammu and Kashmir. The larger and more populous part of the former princely state. It has a population of slightly over 10 million, and comprises three regions: Kashmir Valley, Jammu, and Ladakh.) and AJK ('Azad" (Free) Jammu and Kashmir. The more populous part of Pakistani-controlled J&K, with a population of approximately 2.5 million.), it includes the sparsely populated "Northern Areas" of Gilgit and Baltistan, remote mountainous regions which are directly administered, unlike AJK, by the Pakistani central authorities, and some high-altitude uninhabitable tracts under Chinese control."
(i) Template:Citation Quote: "Kashmir’s identity remains hotly disputed with a UN-supervised “Line of Control” still separating Pakistani-held Azad (“Free”) Kashmir from Indian-held Kashmir.";
(j) Template:Citation Quote:"Some politicised terms also are used to describe parts of J&K. These terms include the words 'occupied' and 'held'."</ref> It is claimed by India as part of its Nubra district, Ladakh Union Territory.
Name
[edit]Aksai Chin was first mentioned by Muhammad Amin, the Yarkandi guide of the Schlagintweit brothers, who were contracted in 1854 by the British East India Company to explore Central Asia. Amin explained its meaning as "the great white sand desert".<ref name="van Driem">Template:Cite book</ref> Linguist George van Driem states that the name intended by Amin was Aqsai Chöl (Template:Langx; Template:Lang-cyrl) which could mean "white ravine desert" or "white coomb desert". The word chöl for desert seems to have been corrupted in English transliteration into "chin".<ref name="van Driem"/>
Some sources have interpreted Aksai to have the Uyghur meaning "white stone desert", including several British colonial,<ref name="british_india_1862">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="asiatic_society">Template:Cite book</ref> modern Western,<ref name="Kaminsky">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="naval_war_college">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="HedinAmbolt1967">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Lintner2018">Template:Cite book</ref> Chinese,<ref name="cihai">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="gongbao">Template:Cite journal</ref> and Indian sources.<ref name="Kler1995">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Bhasin2006">Template:Cite book</ref> Some modern sources interpret it to mean "white brook" instead.<ref name="Butalia2015">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Kochhar2018">Template:Cite book</ref> At least one source interprets Aksai to mean "eastern" in the Yarkandi Uyghur dialect.<ref name="Kapadia2002">Template:Cite book</ref>
The word "Chin" was taken to mean "China" by some Chinese,<ref name="cihai"/><ref name="gongbao"/><ref name="rfa">Template:Cite web</ref> Western,<ref name="british_india_1862" /><ref name="HedinAmbolt1967"/> and Indian sources.<ref name="Kapadia2002"/> At least one source takes it to mean "pass".<ref name="Butalia2015"/> Other sources omit "Chin" in their interpretations.<ref name="asiatic_society"/><ref name="Kaminsky"/><ref name="naval_war_college"/><ref name="Lintner2018"/><ref name="Kler1995"/><ref name="Bhasin2006"/> Van Driem states that there is no Uyghur word resembling "chin" for China.<ref name="van Driem"/>
Amin's Aksai Chin was not a defined region, stretching indefinitely east into Tibet south of the Kunlun Mountains.<ref>Template:Harvp: "The name 'Aksai Chin' occurred on a map captioned 'Rough sketch of caravan routes through the Pamir steppes and Yarkand, from information collected' from Mahomed Ameen Yarkandi [Mohammed Amin], 'late guide' to the well-known Schlagintweit brothers. This was compiled in the Quartermaster-General's office in 1862. The sketch, which offered no details this side of the Kunlun, had 'Aksai Chin' written right across the blank space south of the Kunlun range. Mahomed Ameen had noted that 'beyond the pass (north of the Chang Chenmo) lies the Aksai Chin. ... it extends to Chinese territory to the East.'" </ref><ref> Template:Citation </ref> In 1895, the British envoy to Kashgar told the Chinese Taotai that Aksai Chin was a "loose name for an ill-defined, elevated tableland", part of which lay in Indian and part in Chinese territory.Template:Sfnp
The current meaning of the term is the area under dispute between India and China, having evolved in repeated usage since Indian independence in 1947.
History
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Because of its Template:Convert elevation, the desolation of Aksai Chin meant that it had no human importance.<ref name="Neville_Maxwell">Template:Cite book</ref> For military campaigns, the region held great importance, as it was on the only route from the Tarim Basin to Tibet that was passable all year round.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Ladakh was conquered in 1842 by the armies of Raja Gulab Singh (Dogra) under the suzerainty of the Sikh Empire.Template:Sfn<ref name="Rubin">The Sino-Indian Border Disputes, by Alfred P. Rubin, The International and Comparative Law Quarterly, Vol. 9, No. 1. (Jan. 1960), pp. 96–125, Template:JSTOR.</ref> The British defeat of the Sikhs in 1846 resulted in the transfer of the Jammu and Kashmir region including Ladakh to the British, who then installed Gulab Singh as the Maharaja under their suzerainty. The British appointed a boundary commission headed by Alexander Cunningham to determine the boundaries of the state. Chinese and Tibetan officials were invited to jointly demarcate the border, but they did not show any interest.Template:Sfn The British boundary commissioners fixed the southern part of the boundary up to the Chang Chenmo Valley, but regarded the area north of it as terra incognita.Template:Sfn
The Johnson Line
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Template:Main William Johnson, a civil servant with the Survey of India proposed the "Johnson Line" in 1865, which put Aksai Chin in Kashmir. This was the time of the Dungan revolt, when China did not control most of Xinjiang, so this line was never presented to the Chinese. Johnson presented this line to the Maharaja of Kashmir, who then claimed the 18,000 square kilometres contained within,<ref name="Guruswamy">Mohan Guruswamy, Mohan, "The Great India-China Game" Template:Webarchive, Rediff, 23 June 2003.</ref>Template:Unreliable source? and by some accounts territory further north as far as the Sanju Pass in the Kun Lun Mountains. The Maharajah of Kashmir constructed a fort at Shahidulla (modern-day Xaidulla), and had troops stationed there for some years to protect caravans.Template:Sfn Eventually, most sources placed Shahidulla and the upper Karakash River firmly within the territory of Xinjiang (see accompanying map).Template:Citation needed According to Francis Younghusband, who explored the region in the late 1880s, there was only an abandoned fort and not one inhabited house at Shahidulla when he was there – it was just a convenient staging post and a convenient headquarters for the nomadic Kirghiz.<ref>Younghusband, Francis E. (1896). The Heart of a Continent. John Murray, London. Facsimile reprint: (2005) Elbiron Classics, pp. 223–224.</ref>Template:Primary-source-inline The abandoned fort had apparently been built a few years earlier by the Kashmiris.<ref>Grenard, Fernand (1904). Tibet: The Country and its Inhabitants. Fernand Grenard. Translated by A. Teixeira de Mattos. Originally published by Hutchison and Co., London. 1904. Reprint: Cosmo Publications. Delhi. 1974, pp. 28–30.</ref>Template:Primary-source-inline In 1878 the Chinese had reconquered Xinjiang, and by 1890 they already had Shahidulla before the issue was decided.<ref name="Guruswamy"/>Template:Unreliable source? By 1892, China had erected boundary markers at Karakoram Pass.<ref name="Calvin">Template:Cite web</ref>
In 1897, a British military officer, Sir John Ardagh, proposed a boundary line along the crest of the Kun Lun Mountains north of the Yarkand River.Template:Sfn At that time, Britain was concerned about the danger of Russian expansion as China weakened, and Ardagh argued that his line was more defensible. The Ardagh line was effectively a modification of the Johnson line, and became known as the "Johnson-Ardagh Line".
The Macartney–Macdonald Line
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In 1893, Hung Ta-chen, a senior Chinese official at St. Petersburg, gave maps of the region to George Macartney, the British consul general at Kashgar, which coincided in broad details.Template:Sfn In 1899, Britain proposed a revised boundary, initially suggested by Macartney and developed by the Governor General of India Lord Elgin. This boundary placed the Lingzi Tang plains, which are south of the Laktsang range, in India, and Aksai Chin proper, which is north of the Laktsang range, in China. This border, along the Karakoram Mountains, was proposed and supported by British officials for a number of reasons. The Karakoram Mountains 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, and Chinese control of this tract would present a further obstacle to Russian advance in Central Asia.<ref name="Noorani">Template:Citation</ref> The British presented this line, known as the Macartney–MacDonald Line, to the Chinese in 1899 in a note by Sir Claude MacDonald. The Qing government did not respond to the note.Template:Sfn According to some commentators, China believed that this had been the accepted boundary.<ref name=middlepath>Template:Cite journal</ref>
McMahon line
[edit]Template:Main The line is named after Henry McMahon, foreign secretary of British India and the chief British negotiator of the conference at Simla. The bilateral agreement between Tibet and Britain was signed by McMahon on behalf of the British government and Lonchen Shatra on behalf of the Tibetan government.<ref name="Rao2003">Template:Cite book</ref>
1899 to 1947
[edit]Both the Johnson-Ardagh and the Macartney-MacDonald lines were used on British maps of India.<ref name="Guruswamy"/>Template:Unreliable source? Until at least 1908, the British took the Macdonald line to be the boundary,Template:Sfn but in 1911, the Xinhai Revolution resulted in the collapse of central power in China, and by the end of World War I, the British officially used the Johnson Line. However they took no steps to establish outposts or assert actual control on the ground.<ref name="Calvin"/> In 1927, the line was adjusted again as the government of British India abandoned the Johnson line in favor of a line along the Karakoram range further south.<ref name="Calvin"/> However, the maps were not updated and still showed the Johnson Line.<ref name="Calvin"/>
From 1917 to 1933, the Postal Atlas of China, published by the Government of China in Peking had shown the boundary in Aksai Chin as per the Johnson line, which runs along the Kunlun Mountains.Template:Sfn<ref name=middlepath /> The Peking University Atlas, published in 1925, also put the Aksai Chin in India.<ref name="HimalayanBground">Template:Cite bookTemplate:ISBN?</ref> When British officials learned of Soviet officials surveying the Aksai Chin for Sheng Shih-tsai, warlord of Xinjiang in 1940–1941, they again advocated the Johnson Line. At this point the British had still made no attempts to establish outposts or control over the Aksai Chin, nor was the issue ever discussed with the governments of China or Tibet, and the boundary remained undemarcated at India's independence.<ref name="Calvin"/><ref name="Orton p. 24">Template:Cite book</ref>
Since 1947
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After Jammu and Kashmir acceded to the newly independent India in October 1947, the government of India used the Johnson Line as the basis for its official boundary in the west, which included the Aksai Chin.<ref name="Calvin"/> From the Karakoram Pass (which is not under dispute), the Indian claim line extends northeast of the Karakoram Mountains through the salt flats of the Aksai Chin, to set a boundary at the Kunlun Mountains, and incorporating part of the Karakash River and Yarkand River watersheds. From there, it runs east along the Kunlun Mountains, before turning southwest through the Aksai Chin salt flats, through the Karakoram Mountains, and then to Panggong Lake.<ref name="Neville_Maxwell"/>
On 1 July 1954, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru wrote a memo directing that the maps of India be revised to show definite boundaries on all frontiers. Up to this point, the boundary in the Aksai Chin sector, based on the Johnson Line, had been described as "undemarcated."<ref name="Noorani"/>
Despite this region being nearly uninhabitable and having no resources, it remains strategically important for China as it connects Tibet and Xinjiang. During the 1950s, the People's Republic of China built a 1,200 km (750 mi) road connecting Xinjiang and western Tibet, of which 179 km (112 mi) ran south of the Johnson Line through the Aksai Chin region claimed by India.<ref name="Neville_Maxwell"/><ref name="Calvin"/> Aksai Chin was easily accessible to the Chinese, but was more difficult for the Indians on the other side of the Karakorams to reach.<ref name="Neville_Maxwell"/> The Indians did not learn of the existence of the road until 1957, which was confirmed when the road was shown in Chinese maps published in 1958.<ref name="Garver">China's Decision for War with India in 1962 by John W. Garver Template:Webarchive</ref> The construction of this highway was one of the triggers for the Sino-Indian War of 1962.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
The Indian position, as stated by Prime Minister Nehru, was that the Aksai Chin was "part of the Ladakh region of India for centuries" and that this northern border was a "firm and definite one which was not open to discussion with anybody".<ref name="Neville_Maxwell"/>
The Chinese premier Zhou Enlai argued that the western border had never been delimited, that the Macartney-MacDonald Line, which left the Aksai Chin within Chinese borders was the only line ever proposed to a Chinese government, and that the Aksai Chin was already under Chinese jurisdiction, and that negotiations should take into account the status quo.<ref name="Neville_Maxwell"/>
In June 2006, satellite imagery on the Google Earth service revealed a 1:500<ref name="age" /> scale terrain model of eastern Aksai Chin and adjacent Tibet, built near the town of Huangyangtan, about Template:Convert southwest of Yinchuan, the capital of the autonomous region of Ningxia in China.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> A visual side-by-side comparison shows a very detailed duplication of Aksai Chin in the camp.<ref>Google Earth Community posting Template:Webarchive, 10 April 2007</ref> The Template:ConvertTemplate:Citation needed model was surrounded by a substantial facility, with rows of red-roofed buildings, scores of olive-coloured trucks and a large compound with elevated lookout posts and a large communications tower. Such terrain models are known to be used in military training and simulation, although usually on a much smaller scale.
Local authorities in Ningxia claim that their model of Aksai Chin is part of a tank training ground, built in 1998 or 1999.<ref name="age">Template:Cite news</ref>
In August 2017, Indian and Chinese forces near Pangong Tso threw rocks at each other.<ref name="hket"/><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
On 11 September 2019, People's Liberation Army troops confronted Indian troops on the northern bank of Pangong Lake.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
A continued face-off in the 2020 China–India skirmishes of May and June 2020 between Indian and Chinese troops near Pangong Tso Lake culminated in a violent clash on 16 June 2020, with at least 20 deaths from the Indian side and no official reported deaths from the Chinese side. In 2021, Chinese state media reported 4 Chinese deaths.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Both sides claimed provocation from the other.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="hket">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Geography
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Aksai Chin is one of the two large disputed border areas between India and China. India claims Aksai Chin as the easternmost part of the union territory of Ladakh. China claims that Aksai Chin is part of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and Tibet Autonomous Region. The line that separates Indian-administered areas of Ladakh from Aksai Chin is known as the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and is concurrent with the Chinese Aksai Chin claim line.
The Aksai region is a sparsely populated region with few settlements such as Heweitan, Khurnak Fort, Tianshuihai and Dahongliutan and Kangxiwar which lays north of it, with the latter being the forward headquarters of the Xinjiang Military Command during the 1962 Sino-Indian War.
Aksai Chin covers an area of approximately Template:Convert.<ref name=area>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref> The area is largely a vast high-altitude desert with a low point (on the Karakash River) at about Template:Convert above sea level. In the southwest, mountains up to Template:Convert extending southeast from the Depsang Plains form the de facto border (Line of Actual Control) between Aksai Chin and Indian-controlled Kashmir.
In the north, the Kunlun Range separates Aksai Chin from the Tarim Basin, where the rest of Hotan County is situated. According to a recent detailed Chinese map, no roads cross the Kunlun Range within Hotan Prefecture, and only one track does so, over the Hindutash Pass.<ref name=xuar>Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region Road Atlas (中国分省公路丛书：新疆维吾尔自治区), published by 星球地图出版社 Xingqiu Ditu Chubanshe, 2008, Template:ISBN. Map of Hotan Prefecture, pp. 18–19.</ref>
Aksai Chin area has number of endorheic basins with many salt or soda lakes. The major salt lakes are Surigh Yilganing Kol, Tso Tang, Aksai Chin Lake, Hongshan Lake, etc. Much of the northern part of Aksai Chin is referred to as the Soda Plains, located near Aksai Chin's largest river, the Karakash, which receives meltwater from a number of glaciers, crosses the Kunlun farther northwest, in Pishan County and enters the Tarim Basin, where it serves as one of the main sources of water for Karakax and Hotan Counties.
The western part of Aksai Chin region is drained by the Tarim River. The eastern part of the region contains several small endorheic basins. The largest of them is that of the Aksai Chin Lake, which is fed by the river of the same name. The region as a whole receives little precipitation as the Himalayas and the Karakoram block the rains from the Indian monsoon.
The nearby Trans-Karakoram Tract is also the subject of ongoing dispute between China and India in the Kashmir dispute.<ref name=Time>Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref name="Neville_Maxwell"/>
Demographics and economics
[edit]Prior to 1950, the visitors of Aksai Chin were, for the most part, the occasional explorers, hunters, and nomads who passed through the area.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Hoffmann2018">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Lamb 1964">Template:Cite book</ref>
Prior to European exploration in the 1860s, there were some jade mining operations on the Xinjiang side of Aksai Chin.<ref name="Hoffmann2018"/><ref name="Shaw1871">Template:Cite book</ref> They were abandoned by the time European explorers reached the area.<ref name="Shaw1871"/> In the 1860s to 1870s, in order to facilitate trade between the Indian subcontinent and Tarim Basin, the British attempted to promote a caravan route via the western side of Aksai Chin as an alternative to the difficult and tariffed Karakoram Pass.<ref name="Kohli2000">Template:Cite book</ref> The route, referred to as the Chang Chenmo line after the starting point in Chang Chenmo River valley, was discussed in the House of Commons in 1874.<ref name="house_of_commons_paper">Template:Cite book</ref> In addition of being longer and higher elevation than Karakoram Pass, it also goes through the desolate desert of Aksai Chin.<ref name="Kohli2000"/><ref name="house_of_commons_paper" /> By 1890s, traders had mostly given up on this route.<ref name="Ward1896">Template:Cite book</ref>
In the 1950s, India collected salt from various lakes in Aksai Chin to study the economic feasibility of salt mining operations in the area.<ref name="VSM2015">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
By the end of the 1950s, in addition to having constructed a road, numerous PLA Ground Force outposts were constructed in a few locations, including at Tianwendian,<ref name="news18">Template:Cite web</ref> Kongka Pass,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Heweitan<ref name="chin_Keep">Template:Cite web</ref> and Tianshuihai.<ref name="army">Template:Cite web</ref> The road was later upgraded to the China National Highway 219. In the modern day, there are a few businesses along the highway serving motorists.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
In the 2010s, geological surveys were conducted in the Western Kunlun region, which Aksai Chin is part of.<ref name="cgs">Template:Cite web</ref> Huoshaoyun, a major lead-zinc deposit, and numerous smaller deposits were discovered in the region.<ref name="cgs"/> Huoshaoyun is a mountain located in Aksai Chin near the Tibetan border.<ref name="GaoYi2018">Template:Cite journal</ref> The mining development for Huoshaoyun started in 2017.<ref name="meta_Deve">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="news_TheP">Template:Cite web</ref>
Transportation
[edit]China National Highway 219 runs through Aksai Chin connecting Tibet (Ngari Prefecture) and Xinjiang (Hotan Prefecture).
In July 2022, Ministry of Transport of China published updated China National Highway Network Plan that includes China National Highway 695 which will go from Lhünzê Town, Lhünzê County, Tibet to Mazar Township, Yining County, Xinjiang travelling through Aksai Chin.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite wikisource</ref>
See also
[edit]- Annexation of Tibet by the People's Republic of China
- Arunachal Pradesh
- Changtang
- Demchok sector
- Depsang Plains
- Ladakh
- List of locations in Aksai Chin
- Nelang
- Rutog County
- Shaksgam Valley
- Trans-Karakoram Tract
- 2013 Depsang standoff
References
[edit]Bibliography
[edit]- Template:Citation
- Template:Citation
- Template:Citation
- Sino-Indian Border Defenses Chushul Area (CIA, 1963)
External links
[edit]Template:Library resources box Template:Wiktionary
- China and Kashmir, by Jabin T. Jacob, published in The Future of Kashmir, special issue of ACDIS Swords and Ploughshares, Program in Arms Control, Disarmament, and International Security, University of Illinois, winter 2007–8.
- Conflict in Kashmir: Selected Internet Resources by the Library, University of California, Berkeley, USA; University of California, Berkeley Library Bibliographies and Web-Bibliographies list
- Two maps of Kashmir: maps showing the Indian and Pakistani positions on the border.