Indian Foreign Policy

4	From friendship to ‘betrayal’ The India–China war

In 1962, India and China went to war over Aksai Chin, a mostly unpopulated high altitude desert along the western sector of the Himalayan border between India and China and the North East Frontier Agency (NEFA), now known as the state of Arunachal Pradesh in India and South Tibet in China, along the eastern sector of the Himalayan border. The conflict resulted in an overwhelming military victory for China which declared a unilateral cease-fire and claimed control of Aksai Chin but withdrew from NEFA. The origins of the India–China war are difficult to fathom from conventional IR perspectives. Both NEFA and Aksai Chin were resource poor, sparsely populated and located well away from major ...