Sino-Indian War
Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.
- ADST - Trouble in the Mountains: The Sino-Indian War, 1962
- CORE - The Long Shadow of Colonial Cartography: Britain and the Sino-Indian War of 1962 (PDF)
- United States China Economic and Security Review Commission - Conflict on the Sino-Indian Border: Background for Congress (PDF)
- Harvard University - Invisible Histories - Coping with Defeat: Indian posters of the 1962 Sino-Indian War
- E-International Relations - Revisiting Inevitability and Misperceptions: The 1962 Sino-Indian War
- University of Denver - Digital Commons - Causes of the 1962 Sino-Indian War: A Systems Level Approach
- The Open University - 1962�s Sino-Indian border war lasted four weeks � internment of India�s Chinese community lasted years
- BBC - India-China dispute: Shadow of 60-year-old war at border flashpoint
- Hoover Institution - The 1962 Sino-Indian War and the Cuban Missile Crisis
Sino-Indian War, (October 20–November 20, 1962), conflict betweenIndia andChina, centered primarily on thedisputedAksai Chin region along those countries’ borders.
Thepartition of India (1947), which took place just as theCold War began transforming the landscape ofinternational relations worldwide, left a set of border disputes in theIndian subcontinent where India,Pakistan, and China converged. The regime inBeijing, after suppressing the buffer state ofTibet in 1950, began disputing the border with India at several points between the Himalayan countries ofNepal,Bhutan, and the state ofSikkim.
Aksai Chin in particular had been a long-ignored corner of the subcontinent because of its remoteness and isolation. However, this changed when the Chinese tried to connect Tibet withXinjiang by building a military road through the region. India objected to the Chinese presence in the sector, which it claimed as part of theLadakh region under Indian administration.
After a number of border skirmishes between 1959 and 1962, which began initially as aby-product of the uprising in Tibet, thePeople’s Liberation Army (PLA) of China forcefully attacked across the disputed boundaries on October 20, 1962. Indian forces were soundly defeated, 7,000 men having been killed or captured, and the lowlands ofAssam lay open to the invaders.
- Date:
- October 20, 1962 - November 20, 1962
- Location:
- Aksai Chin
The Chinese leadership chose the height of theCuban missile crisis as their moment of attack, apparently expecting a more drawn-out crisis in Cuba that would have distracted superpowers from intervening in India. But the swift resolution in Cuba in favor of theUnited States permitted Washington to respond to Indian Prime MinisterJawaharlal Nehru’s request for help. With a U.S.aircraft carrier en route, China announced aunilateral ceasefire on November 20 and soon afterward withdrew from most of the invaded area. It retained control of about 14,700 square miles (38,000 square km) of territory in Aksai Chin, and the area remained a point of contention between the two countries.