7/9/2017 Aksai Chin - Wikipedia

Coordinates: 357N 798E

Aksai Chin
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Aksai Chin (Chinese: ; pinyin: ksiqn; Uyghur:

) is the disputed border area between China and India. Aksai Chin
It is administered by China as part of Hotan County, which lies
in the southwestern part of Hotan Prefecture of Xinjiang
Autonomous Region, but is also claimed by India as a part of the
Ladakh region of the state of Jammu and Kashmir. In 1962,
China and India fought a brief war over Aksai Chin and
Arunachal Pradesh, but in 1993 and 1996, the two countries
signed agreements to respect the Line of Actual Control.[1]

Contents
1 Name
2 Geography
3 People
India - China border showing Aksai Chin
4 History
4.1 The Johnson Line Traditional Chinese
4.2 The MacartneyMacdonald Line
4.3 1899 to 1947
Simplified Chinese
4.4 Since 1947 Transcriptions
4.5 Trans Karakoram Tract
5 Strategic importance Standard Mandarin
6 Chinese terrain model Hanyu Pinyin ksiqn
7 See also
8 References
9 External links

Name
The etymology of Aksai Chin is uncertain regarding the word "chin". As a word of Turkic origin, aksai literally
means "white brook" but whether the word chin refers to Chinese or pass is disputed. The Chinese name of the
region, , is composed of Chinese characters chosen for their phonetic values,[2] irrespective of their
meaning.

Geography
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 Jammu and Kashmir state. China claims that Aksai Chin is part of the Xinjiang Uyghur
Autonomous Region. The line that separates Indian-administered areas of Jammu and Kashmir from Aksai Chin is
known as the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and is concurrent with the Chinese Aksai Chin claim line.

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Aksai Chin covers an area of about 37,244

square kilometres (14,380 sq mi).The area is
largely a vast high-altitude desert with a low
point (on the Karakash River) at about 4,300 m
(14,100 ft) above sea level. In the southwest,
mountains up to 7,000 m (23,000 ft) 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 The Tarim River Basin, 2008
Pass.[3]

Aksai Chin area has number of endorheic basins with many salt or soda lakes. The major salt lakes are Surigh yil
ganning kol, Tso tang, Aksai Chin Lake, Hongshan hu, 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.

People
Besides officials from the Chinese military, the inhabitants of Aksai Chin are, for the most part, members of
nomadic groups such as the Bakarwal who regularly pass through the area. The best known settlements are the
town of Tianshuihai and the village of Tielongtan.

History
Because of its 5,000 metres (16,000 ft) elevation, the desolation of Aksai Chin meant that it had no human
importance other than an as ancient trade route, which provided a temporary pass during summer for caravans of
yaks between Xinjiang and Tibet.[4]

One of the earliest treaties regarding the boundaries in the western sector was signed in 1842. The Sikh
Confederacy of the Punjab region in India had annexed Ladakh into the state of Jammu in 1834. In 1841, they
invaded Tibet with an army. Chinese forces defeated the Sikh army and in turn entered Ladakh and besieged Leh.
After being checked by the Sikh forces, the Chinese and the Sikhs signed a treaty in September 1842, which
stipulated no transgressions or interference in the other country's frontiers.[5] The British defeat of the Sikhs in
1846 resulted in transfer of sovereignty over Ladakh to the British, and British commissioners attempted to meet
with Chinese officials to discuss the border they now shared. However, both sides were apparently sufficiently
satisfied that a traditional border was recognized and defined by natural elements, and the border was left

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undefined.[5] The boundaries beyond the extremities of Aksai Chin near

Pangong Lake and near the Karakoram Pass were well-defined, but the
Aksai Chin area in between lay undefined.[4][6]

The Johnson Line

William Johnson, a civil servant with the Survey of India proposed the
"Johnson Line" in 1865, which put Aksai Chin in Kashmir.[7] 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.[7] Johnson presented this line
to the Maharaja of Kashmir, who then claimed the 18,000 square
kilometres contained within,[7] and by some accounts territory further north
as far as the Sanju Pass in the Kun Lun Mountains. Johnson's work was
severely criticized for gross inaccuracies, with description of his boundary
as "patently absurd".[8] Johnson was reprimanded by the
British Government and resigned from the
Survey.[7][8][9] The Maharajah of Kashmir constructed a
fort at Shahidulla (modern-day Xaidulla), and had troops
stationed there for some years to protect caravans.[10]
Eventually, most sources placed Shahidulla and the
upper Karakash River firmly within the territory of
Xinjiang (see accompanying map). 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.[11] The
abandoned fort had apparently been built a few years
earlier by the Kashmiris.[12] In 1878 the Chinese had
reconquered Xinjiang, and by 1890 they already had
Shahidulla before the issue was decided.[7] By 1892,
China had erected boundary markers at Karakoram
Pass.[8]

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.[10] At the time
Britain was concerned at the danger of Russian
expansion as China weakened, and Ardagh argued that
his line was more defensible. The Ardagh line was Map of Central Asia (1878) showing Khotan (near top
effectively a modification of the Johnson line, and right corner). The previous border claimed by the British
became known as the "Johnson-Ardagh Line". Indian Empire is shown in the two-toned purple and pink
band with Shahidulla and the Kilik, Kilian and Sanju
The MacartneyMacdonald Line Passes clearly north of the border.

In 1893, Hung Ta-chen, a senior Chinese official at

Kashgar, handed a map of the boundary proposed by China to George Macartney, the British consul-general at
Kashgar.[13] This boundary placed the Lingzi Tang plains, which are south of the Laktsang range, in India, and
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Aksai Chin proper, which is north of the

Laktsang range, in China. Macartney
agreed with the proposal and forwarded
it to the British Indian government. 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.[9] The British presented this line,
known as the MacartneyMacDonald
Line, to the Chinese in 1899 in a note by
Sir Claude MacDonald. The Qing
government did not respond to the note,
and the British took that as Chinese
acquiescence.[7] Although no official
boundary had ever been negotiated,
China believed that this had been the
accepted boundary.[1][14]

1899 to 1947

Both the Johnson-Ardagh and the

Macartney-MacDonald lines were used
on British maps of India.[7] Until at least
1908, the British took the Macdonald
line to be the boundary,[15] 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.[8] 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.[8] However, the maps
were not updated and still showed the Johnson Line.[8]

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.[13][14] The Peking
University Atlas, published in 1925, also put the Aksai Chin in India.[16] When British officials learned of Soviet
officials surveying the Aksai Chin for Sheng Shicai, warlord of Xinjiang in 1940-1941, they again advocated the
Johnson Line.[7] 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.[7][8]

Since 1947
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Upon independence in 1947, the government of India used the Johnson

Line as the basis for its official boundary in the west, which included the
Aksai Chin.[8] 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.[4]

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."[9]

During the 1950s, the People's Republic of China built a 1,200 km (750 mi) The map given by Hung Ta-chen to
road connecting Xinjiang and western Tibet, of which 179 km (112 mi) ran the British consul at Kashgar in 1893.
south of the Johnson Line through the Aksai Chin region claimed by The boundary, marked with a thin
dot-dashed line, matches the
India.[4][7][8] Aksai Chin was easily accessible to the Chinese, but was
Macartney-MacDonald line.
more difficult for the Indians on the other side of the Karakorams to
reach.[4] 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.[17]

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".[4]

The Chinese minister 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.[4]

Trans Karakoram Tract Postal Map of China published by the

Government of China in 1917. The
The Johnson Line is not used west of the Karakoram Pass, where China boundary in Aksai Chin is as per the
adjoins Pakistan-administered GilgitBaltistan. On 13 October 1962, China Johnson line.
and Pakistan began negotiations over the boundary west of the Karakoram
Pass. In 1963, the two countries settled their boundaries largely on the basis
of the Macartney-MacDonald Line, which left the Trans Karakoram Tract in China, although the agreement
provided for renegotiation in the event of a settlement of the Kashmir dispute. India does not recognise that
Pakistan and China have a common border, and claims the tract as part of the domains of the pre-1947 state of
Kashmir and Jammu. However, India's claim line in that area does not extend as far north of the Karakoram
Mountains as the Johnson Line.[4]

Strategic importance

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China National Highway 219 runs through Aksai Chin connecting Lazi and Xinjiang in the Tibet Autonomous
Region. Despite this region being nearly uninhabitable and having no resources, it remains strategically important
for China as it connects Tibet and Xinjiang. Construction started in 1951 and the road was completed in 1957. The
construction of this highway was one of the triggers for the Sino-Indian War of 1962. The repavement of the
highway taken up for first time in about 50 years was completed in 2013.[18]

Chinese terrain model

In June 2006, satellite imagery on the Google Earth service revealed a 1:500[19] scale terrain model [1] (https://ma
ps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=yinchuan,+china&ie=UTF8&t=k&om=1&ll=38.26568,105.953865&spn=0.0
14489,0.042915) of eastern Aksai Chin and adjacent Tibet, built near the town of Huangyangtan, about 35
kilometres (22 mi) southwest of Yinchuan, the capital of the autonomous region of Ningxia in China.[20] A visual
side-by-side comparison shows a very detailed duplication of Aksai Chin in the camp.[21] The 900 m 700 m
(3,000 ft 2,300 ft) model was surrounded by a substantial facility, with rows of red-roofed buildings, scores of
olive-colored 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.[19]

See also
2013 Daulat Beg Oldi Incident
Depsang Plains

References
1. "India-China Border Dispute" (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/india-china_conflicts.htm).
GlobalSecurity.org.
2. All these characters can be seen in Chinese Wikipedia's standard transcription table for foreign names, which in its turn
is based on the standard transcription guide, (The Great Dictionary of Foreign Personal Names'
Translations), 1993, ISBN 7-5001-0221-6 (first edition); 1997, ISBN 7-5001-0799-4 (revised edition)
3. Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region Road Atlas (), published by
Xingqiu Ditu Chubanshe, 2008, ISBN 978-7-80212-469-1. Map of Hotan Prefecture, pp. 18-19.
4. Maxwell, Neville, India's China War (http://www.scribd.com/doc/12249475/Indias-China-War-Neville-Maxwell), New
York, Pantheon, 1970.
5. The Sino-Indian Border Disputes, by Alfred P. Rubin, The International and Comparative Law Quarterly, Vol. 9, No. 1.
(Jan., 1960), pp. 96-125.
6. Guruswamy, Mohan (January 2006). Emerging Trends in India-China Relations (https://books.google.com/books?id=trA
b0KxP_ocC&pg=PA222). India: Hope India Publications. p. 222. ISBN 978-81-7871-101-0. Retrieved 2009-09-12.
7. Mohan Guruswamy, Mohan, "The Great India-China Game" (http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/jun/20spec.htm), Rediff,
23 June 2003.
8. Calvin, James Barnard (April 1984). "The China-India Border War" (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/repor
t/1984/CJB.htm). Marine Corps Command and Staff College. Retrieved 2011-10-14.
9. Noorani, A.G. (30 August 12 September 2003), "Fact of History" (http://frontlineonnet.com/fl2018/stories/200309120
02104800.htm), Frontline, Madras: The Hindu group, vol. 26 no. 18, retrieved 24 August 2011
10. Woodman, Dorothy (1969). Himalayan Frontiers. Barrie & Rockcliff. pp. 101 and 360ff.
11. Younghusband, Francis E. (1896). The Heart of a Continent. John Murray, London. Facsimile reprint: (2005) Elbiron
Classics, pp. 223-224.
12. 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.

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13. Woodman, Dorothy (1969). Himalayan Frontiers. London: Barrie & Rockliff, The Cresset Press.
14. Verma, Colonel Virendra Sahai. "Sino-Indian Border Dispute At Aksai Chin - A Middle Path For Resolution" (http://chi
naindiaborderdispute.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/virendravermapaperborderdispute.pdf) (PDF). Retrieved 28 August
2013.
15. Woodman (1969), p.79
16. Fisher, Margaret W.; Rose, Leo E.; Huttenback, Robert A. (1963). Himalayan Battleground: Sino-Indian Rivalry in
Ladakh (http://www.questia.com/read/10466588). Praeger. p. 101 via Questia. (Subscription required (help)).
17. China's Decision for War with India in 1962 by John W. Garver (http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~johnston/garver.pd
f) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20090326032121/http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~johnston/garver.pdf) 26
March 2009 at the Wayback Machine.
18. Ying, Li (24 September 2014). "A road from n the sky" (http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/883229.shtml). Global
Times.
19. "Chinese X-file not so mysterious after all" (http://www.theage.com.au/news/web/chinese-xfile-not-so-mysterious-after-
all/2006/07/23/1153593217781.html). Melbourne: The Age. 2006-07-23. Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/200901
13185611/http://www.theage.com.au/news/web/chinese-xfile-not-so-mysterious-after-all/2006/07/23/1153593217781.ht
ml) from the original on 13 January 2009. Retrieved 2008-12-17.
20. "From sky, see how China builds model of Indian border 2400 km away" (http://www.indianexpress.com/news/from-sky
-see-how-china-builds-model-of-indian-border-2400-km-away/9972/).
21. Google Earth Community posting (http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showthreaded.php/Cat/0/Number/859782/page/0/vc/1),
10 April 2007

External links
China and Kashmir (http://acdis.illinois.edu/assets/docs/222/articles/ChinaandKashmir.pdf), by Jabin T.
Jacob, published in The Future of Kashmir (http://acdis.illinois.edu/publications/207/publication-The-Future
-of-Kashmir.html), 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; (ht
tp://www.lib.berkeley.edu/SSEAL/SouthAsia/kashmir.html) University of California, Berkeley Library
Bibliographies and Web-Bibliographies list
Two maps of Kashmir (http://bigthink.com/strange-maps/629-the-beauty-of-duplicity-two-maps-of-
kashmir): maps showing the Indian and Pakistani positions on the border.

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Categories: Independent India History of Jammu and Kashmir Territorial disputes of China Kashmir
Geography of Xinjiang Territorial disputes of India ChinaIndia relations Hotan Prefecture

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