The Tulung-la Killing

On the way to Tulung la

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit China for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit to be held in Tianjin n August 31 and September 1. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun asserted that the Tianjin Summit will be the largest in scale since the establishment of the SCO.

Beijing already stated that it will seek closer ties with New Delhi, especially after global concerns over the tariffs imposed by US President Donald Trump.
While there is no harm to meet, a question remains: can Delhi fully trust Beijing? The past tends to show that it is difficult.
A recent visit to the remote Mago sector of Tawang district showed me that India should remain cautious.
This area has only recently been linked by a proper tar road to the rest of the district, which saw the brunt of the first military operations with China in October and November 1962. 
The villages of Thingbu and Mago are now easily reachable by road and are integrating fast into the country’s mainstream partly due to the Vibrant Village Program of the Central Government. The close collaboration between the Indian Army and the Central and State governments has also greatly helped.

The Tulung-la Pass
Driving further north on a track, one reaches the McMahon Line marking the border between India and Tibet (Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister, Pema Khandu rightly insists that his State has a border with Tibet only, not China).
The Tulung-la, the pass between the Tsona Dzong (County) in Tibet and Tawang district is located close to the Gorichen peak, on a watershed between the Tsona Chu (river) in Tibet and the Tawang Chu; the ridge clearly demarcates the border between the two countries.
During the 1914 Simla Convention conference, the British Indian Foreign Secretary Henry McMahon and the Tibetan Prime Minister Lonchen Shatra negotiated a mutual agreeable boundary, mainly based on the watershed principle. McMahon explained: “the boundary line ...follows the crest of the mountain range which runs from peak 21431 through Tulung-la ...To the north of it are people of Tibetan descent, to the south the inhabitants are of Bhutanese and Aka extraction. It is unquestionably the correct boundary.”
In fact, before 1975, the boundary was never disputed, though it was one of the routes used by the Chinese Army to bring reinforcements to Bomdila during the second phase of the Sino-Indian War (November 18-20, 1962).

The 1975 Incident
In 1975, a serious and uncalled-for incident took place forcing the official spokesman of the Ministry of External Affairs to make a statement: “On the October 20, 1975, an Indian patrol party consisting of one NCO and four men, while on a routine patrol along India’s northern border, were ambushed by a Chinese party of about 40 persons. The ambush was well within Indian territory and in an area which has been regularly patrolled by us for many years and where no previous incident had taken place. Following this incident, four men were missing and it was subsequently learnt through diplomatic channels that they had been killed. Their bodies have since been returned.”
While visiting the spot, we were told that the bodies of the four soldiers, all of Nepali origin and all called Chhetri, were repatriated a few days later, after the Chinese side informed the Indian post of the incident. The story also says that the fifth member of the patrol had gone around the corner when the killing took place and fate saved him.
The MEA statement continues: “The Government of India have taken a very serious view of this incident and have lodged a strong protest with the Chinese Government against the unprovoked and unjustified firing on the Indian personnel who were on routine duties within the Indian side of the border and against the deliberate killing of Indian personnel performing their routine duty.”
The question is, why did China deliberately kill these Assam Rifles jawans in this remote undisputed area?
I shall answer this later.

A CIA account
It is interesting to go through a CIA note on the incident; the note is entitled: “Peking restrained in denying Chinese crossed Indian border”. 
The US agency observes: “On 3 November PRC Foreign Ministry spokesman's statement used relatively restrained language in denying charges made in a 1 November statement by the Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman.”
Beijing obviously did not want the matter to be scrutinised further; it was satisfied with the mild protest from Delhi, despite the fact that the incident had clearly taken place on the Indian side of the boundary.
The CIA gives its own explanation: “The Chinese statement avoided the harsh invective against the Indian government and its China policy that have characterized Chinese statements on the border since the 1962 Sino-Indian war. China did not comment on the border incident until after the Indian statement made it public.”
It appears that Beijing waited to see Delhi’s reaction; the note just says: “Indian soldiers crossed into Chinese territory on 20 October despite repeated warnings from ‘Chinese civilian checkpost personnel’ and opened fire on the Chinese side, causing the latter to ‘fire back in self-defense.”
It was obviously a lie. 
A further untruth from Beijing is that the Tulung Pass is located on the eastern Sino-Indian border near Bhutan (which is factually incorrect) and that the Indian troops crossed "the line of actual control of November 7, 1959 ".
There is NO 1959 Line. Moreover, the CIA report notes that it is “a phrase used by Peking in the past to refer to the so-called McMahon line which delineates the eastern part of the Sino-Indian frontier,” the Chinese assertion is absolutely incorrect since till date China has never exchanged maps or given its perceptions of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the Eastern Sector of the boundary.
According to the US spy agency: “Peking's statement noted that a Chinese protest on the incident had been delivered to the Indian Embassy in Peking on 22 October, that the Indian Embassy had agreed on the 25th to accept China's offer of the 22nd to collect the bodies of the four dead soldiers, and that an Indian representative at Tulung had accepted the bodies and captured Indian weapons and ammunition from the Chinese side on the 28th and had signed a receipt." This chronology might be correct. 
The issue remains, why this sudden unprovoked on Indian territory?
The order to ‘kill’ the Indian soldiers probably came from a local commander in Tibet who wanted to remind the Indian Army (and government) of the 1962 border conflict. The incident took place on October 20, the exact day the war had started on the Namkha chu river 13 years earlier. Any China watcher knows that there are no coincidences with China.
While visiting the Chhetri Memorial built on the site of the incident, I realised that this was the objective of the PLA’s uncalled for shooting, a strong reminder to India that Beijing could strike anywhere, at any time. 
The CIA reports does not make the connection between 1962 and 1975, but notes:“Though accusing the Indian side of spreading ‘slander’ about the clash, the Chinese statement was far milder than China's last official protest over an armed border clash, in 1967. At that time a series of Chinese Foreign Ministry statements in September and October had scathingly labeled the Indian ‘aggressors’, denounced the ‘reactionary Indian government’ for its alleged hypocrisy in calling for a peaceful border settlement and normalization of relations with China, and accused New Delhi of working closely with the United States and the USSR to foster anti-China opinion in the world.”
It was clearly to show India that the Chinese Army were the masters of the Himalaya and that the 1967 clash in Sikkim would be avenged.
For the CIA: “this current statement concluded by giving unusual emphasis to Peking's repeated measures to maintain the border status quo, avoid armed conflict, and ‘preserve peace’ pending a final settlement of the frontier issue.”
Prime Minister Modi will hear similar arguments in Shanghai at the end of the month.
Interestingly, on November 1, 1975, TASS news agency reposted the reports of the Indian protest. Two days later, TASS carried Indian a press comment condemning the Chinese action as an affront to India's expressed desire for normal Sino-Chinese relations; it remarked that it was the latest evidence of "the great power, hegemonistic policy of the Chinese leaders in South Asia”. 
The same day, Moscow Radio spoke of China’s “interference in the Kashmir and Sikkim issue and support for subversion and insurrection in northeastern India.” Interesting in today’s context.
The fact that the Indian Army has built a memorial for the four Assam Rifle soldiers who lost their lives at 17,000 ft is praiseworthy. One can only hope that in the near future, more Indians will visit the spot.
It remains that the Indian negotiators in Shanghai or elsewhere should not be taken in by China.

Mago Village

Mago chu (river)

Cave

Thingbu Village in Mago Circle

On the way to Tulung la

War Memorial & the pass behind