As PoK rises in revolt against Pakistan, China continues infra-building in Shaksgam Valley

My article As PoK rises in revolt against Pakistan, China continues infra-building in Shaksgam Valley appeared in Firstpost

The new infrastructure could give a tremendous advantage to China in case of a new conflict with India in the region

Today, we are living in a world where everything can be seen from the sky, which often makes human intelligence (humint) irrelevant.
The latest case is a road illegally built by China in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). While in the old days, it would have taken months or years to discover the road passing close to India’s Siachen Glacier, satellite imagery of the new road was splashed over the Indian and foreign media.
The road, located in the Shaksgam Valley, branches out from an extension of Highway G219 (also known as the Aksai Chin road) and “disappears into mountains at a place approximately 50 km north of India’s northernmost point, Indira Col in Siachen Glacier,” according to India Today.
The construction that passes through Aghil Pass (India’s frontier with Xinjiang before 1947), was first flagged on X (formerly Twitter) by ‘Nature Desai’, an observer of the Indo-Tibetan boundary.
Tom Hussain, a Pakistani journalist who writes for The South China Morning Post, gave the Chinese motivation: “Pakistan is looking to develop new overland border crossings with China that would potentially boost the allies’ military interoperability against Indian forces in Ladakh and the rest of Kashmir.”
The Hong Kong newspaper asserted that the Gilgit-Baltistan region, today under Pakistan’s control, had proposed a new transit and trade route linking Xinjiang to Kashmir “[which] will increase Beijing and Islamabad’s military interoperability against Indian forces in the region”.
The spokesperson of the Indian Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) immediately asserted: “Shaksgam Valley is a part of the territory of India. We have never accepted the so-called China-Pakistan Boundary Agreement of 1963, through which Pakistan unlawfully attempted to cede the area to China. …We have registered our protest with the Chinese side against illegal attempts to alter facts on the ground. We further reserve the right to take necessary measures to safeguard our interests.”
It is, however, necessary to understand the history behind the Shaksgam Valley.

The Role of Western Powers
When China invaded northern India in October or November 1962, Delhi had no alternative but to ask for the help of Western nations, particularly the United States and Great Britain. At first, the United States seemed only too happy to offer support, thus gaining leverage over India, which until then had been ‘non-aligned’; this ‘neutrality’ often meant an alignment with Moscow, while Pakistan, a member of the SEATO and the Baghdad Pacts, always sided with the West.
When, at the end of November 1962, Washington realised that north India was in danger of being invaded by Chinese troops, it immediately declared its support for Delhi, but instead of helping India, London and Washington chose instead to try to settle the Kashmir dispute between their Pakistani ally and India.
On November 22, Averall Harriman, the American Under-Secretary of State, and Duncan Sandys, the British Commonwealth Secretary, visited the two capitals of the subcontinent to persuade the enemy brothers that it was time to bury the hatchet and find a solution to their fifteen-year-old dispute. Harriman and Sandys eventually signed a joint communiqué and asked the two countries to resume negotiations.
Although India, in an extremely weak position, had some doubts about the possibility of obtaining positive results from negotiations conducted in such particular circumstances, Nehru accepted.
On December 22, 1962, Nehru wrote to the Chief Ministers of the provinces: “I shall briefly refer to Indo-Pakistan problems, notably Kashmir. In another four days’ time, Sardar Swaran Singh will lead a delegation to Rawalpindi to discuss these problems. We realise that this is not a good time to have such a conference because the Pakistani press and leading politicians have vitiated the atmosphere with wild abuse and attacks on India. Nevertheless, we have agreed to go and to try our best to arrive at some reasonable settlement. It is clear, however, that we cannot agree to anything that is against our basic principles and ultimately injures the cause of Indo-Pakistan friendship.”
In the end, the two delegations held a series of six meetings, but nothing much came out of them. The first negotiations took place in Rawalpindi, where Swaran Singh and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the two foreign ministers, confined themselves to a historical presentation of the problem and a reiteration of their respective points of view.

Derailing Talks
But soon the negotiations went off on a tangent: the Pakistan government announced that it had reached an agreement in principle with China on its northern border problem (with Xinjiang). Hardly a month after the end of the Sino-Indian war, Pakistan was prepared to give China a piece of India’s territory (as per the August 1948 UN Resolutions).
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What a slap in the face for India!
This agreement between China and Pakistan was obviously meant to derail the Kashmir talks.
It is indeed surprising that Pakistan, an ally of the United States and the Western world, should have chosen this moment to make the announcement. It was yet another proof that Pakistan expected nothing from the talks with Delhi, even though they had been initiated by their mentor, the US; at the same time, the support expected by India from the US for India’s northern borders had gone in smoke.
Nehru remained optimistic all the same, or perhaps, like the ostrich, preferred not to see anything. In a letter to the Chief Ministers, he remarked: “The talks have produced no results as far as our problems are concerned, except that they have reduced, to a small extent, the barriers of fear and mistrust that make it difficult to approach these problems.”
Negotiations continued, without tangible results, between 16 and 19 January in Delhi and 8 and 11 February in Karachi. Pakistan was only interested in a plebiscite for Kashmir, but India insisted on prior demilitarisation of the regions occupied by Pakistan.

The Treaty Discussed
On February 25, 1963, the government was asked in Parliament if the Note of Protest sent by Delhi to Pakistan regarding the Sino-Pakistan border treaty drew any response; if yes, what it said; and if the text of the agreement was available.
Dinesh Singh, the Deputy Minister in the MEA, answered: (a) No formal reply has been received to our protest note so far. (b) Does not arise. (c) No Sir.
At that time, Delhi did not even have a copy of the agreement.
Later, on the same day, Harish Chandra Mathur of the Congress asked again about the government’s reaction. Nehru answered: “The Government of India’s reaction is obviously unfavourable.” That was all.

The Treaty Cedes India’s Territory
China and Pakistan signed the agreement on March 2, 1963, by Bhutto and Chen Yi, the foreign ministers of the two countries. According to the two parties, this agreement was intended to promote “the development of good neighbourly relations and friendly relations and the safeguarding of peace in Asia and the world.”
In Article 1, it was acknowledged that the border had never been formally demarcated, and that the two countries wanted to draw it on the basis of “the traditional and customary border.”
As the Pakistani and Chinese maps did not match exactly, it was decided that the topographical features on the ground would be decisive.
It should be noted that in its description of the border, the agreement mentions the Karakoram Pass as the eastern end of the border. In practice, this seems to mean that the Siachen Glacier was occupied by Pakistan at the time. This was, of course, not the case. In fact, the Siachen glacier, long unexplored, has never been occupied by Pakistan, and it was only in 1984 that India took control of it.

Article 6
More interesting is Article 6, in which Pakistan and China agreed that after the settlement of the Kashmir dispute between Pakistan and India, “the sovereign authority concerned will reopen negotiations on the boundary with the Chinese Government so as to sign a formal boundary treaty to replace the present agreement.”
It means that even if the 1963 agreement was considered ‘legal’, which it is not, China is today building a road on a territory that is only temporarily with China. It is clearly a provocation in retaliation for India refusing to budge in Depsang and Demchok in Ladakh.
It remains that the new infrastructure could give a tremendous advantage to China in case of a new conflict with India in the region.
After maps of the new roads were published, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar reasserted that Pakistan-occupied Kashmir is part of India; he also mentioned the resolution of the Indian Parliament, which states that PoK is part of the country, and observed, “So, what will happen in the future? Very difficult to tell. But, I always tell people one thing, today PoK is in the consciousness once again of the people of India.”
In the meantime, the people of Gilgit-Baltistan have started revolting against the Pakistani state. The game is certainly not over.

Tail End: India will soon have the occasion to protest again; Pakistan and China plan to ‘realign’ the Karakoram Highway to avoid Attabad Lake, which is prone to landslides.

LAC vs IB: Why India's assessment of the length of border along China is misleading

My article LAC vs IB: Why India's assessment of the length of border along China is misleading appeared in FirstPost.

 Here is the link...

The length given by India's Ministry of Home Affairs (3,488 km) is unfortunately wrong

What is the length of India’s border with China?
You may think that it is easy to answer this question, but unfortunately, it is not.
The Ministry of Home Affairs states: “India has 15,106.7 Km of land border and a coastline of 7,516.6 Km including island territories.” It then gives the length of India’s land borders with neighbouring countries; Bangladesh has the longest border (4,096 km), then China (3,488 km) and Pakistan (3,323 km).

India’s International Border (IB) with China is 4,056 km.
Let me explain why.
The length given by the MHA (3,488 km) is the length of the Line of Actual Control (LAC), not the IB.
The concept of LAC was introduced by the Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai, during a press conference in Delhi in April 1960 (he had earlier vaguely mentioned it at the end of 1959 in a letter to Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru).
Zhou proposed six points to solve the border issue; the first two points were:

•     There exist disputes with regard to the boundary between the two sides.
•     There exists between the two countries a line of actual control (LAC) up to which each side exercises administrative jurisdiction.

The fact that the Indian government then rejected the Premier’s proposal is irrelevant to the present argument.
Zhou had come to Delhi to set up talks with India on the boundary dispute. Subsequently, the officials of India and China met for several months during which Delhi made its position clear: “The India-China boundary starts from the tri-junction of the boundaries of India, China and Afghanistan and runs eastward through the Kilik Pass, Mintaka Pass, Kharchanai Pass, Parpik Pass, and the Khunjerab Pass. These passes lie on the watershed between the Hunza river flowing into the Indus system in India and the Qara Chukar river flowing into the Yarkand system in Sinkiang. From the Khunjerab Pass the boundary lies along a spur down to the north-western bend of the Shaksgam or Muztagh river which it crosses at that point and ascends the crest line of the Aghil mountains. It then runs along the crest of the Aghil watershed through the Aghil Pass the Marpo Pass and the Shaksgam Pass to the Karakoram Pass.” The coordinates for each of these places were given.
Historically, there is no doubt that Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) was part of the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir’s territory and that the IB presently starts at the trijunction with Afghanistan while the LAC begins at the Karakoram Pass.

Rajnath Singh’s declaration
On 28 October, 2022, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, while addressing a function in Srinagar to mark 75th year of induction of the Indian Army in Kashmir, reiterated that GB was part of India, though presently under occupation. “India’s development march towards the North will be complete after reaching GB,” he stated.
The minister also referred to the 1994 Resolution passed in the Indian Parliament to recover the territories under illegal occupation of the ‘neighbouring country’. “We have only started our northward journey. Our journey will be complete when we fully implement the unanimous resolution passed by the Parliament on February 22, 1994, and we reach our remaining areas like GB,” said Singh.

A little bit of history
In 1935, the viceroy prevailed upon Maharaja Hari Singh of Kashmir, ‘in the interests of the security of the British empire’ to lease the Gilgit Agency as well as the hill-states Hunza, Nagar, Yasin and Ishkoman for 60 years to the British. Thereafter, Gilgit was administered by the Political Department, with a Political Officer reporting to the viceroy.
The British Paramountcy lapsed on 1 August, 1947, and Gilgit reverted to the Maharaja’s control. Lt Col Roger Bacon, the British Political Agent, handed his charge to Brig Ghansara Singh, the new governor appointed by the Maharaja. A British officer, Maj Brown remained in-charge of the Gilgit Scouts.
On 26 October 1947, after the brutal tribal invasion of Jammu and Kashmir organised by Pakistan, Maharaja Hari Singh signed an Instrument of Accession and joined the Union of India. However, Maj Brown refused to acknowledge the orders of the Maharaja, under the pretext that some leaders of the Frontier Districts Province (in GB) wanted to join Pakistan. He took it upon himself to hand over the entire area to Pakistan on 1 November, 1947.
An interesting announcement was published in the 1948 London Gazette which mentioned that the King “has been graciously pleased… to give orders for… appointments to the Most Exalted Order of the British Empire…” The list included “Brown, Major (acting) William Alexander, Special List (ex-Indian Army).”
Why awarding Brown? Simply because Brown had just ‘offered’ to Pakistan this strategically important area for London.

A British Article
In 2017, an IANS article, When the British poured scorn over Gilgit, explained the background of the 1947 rebellion in Gilgit: “A carefully chosen force capable of rapid movement in the mountainous territory controlled by British officers, the Gilgit Scouts, provided the muscle to the administration.”
The article continued: “The bloodless coup d’etat was planned by Brown to the last detail under the code name ‘Datta Khel’, which was also joined by a rebellious section of the J&K 6th Infantry under Mirza Hassan Khan.”
In his memoirs, Gilgit Rebellion: The Major who Mutinied over the Partition of India, Brown described his encounter with Pakistan prime minister Liaquat Ali Khan in November 1947: “Colonel Bacon, Colonel Iskander Mirza, and I were called into the ante-room. The Pakistan Premier was seated at a desk, poring over a large-scale map of Kashmir and Central Asia. …Mr Liaquat Ali Khan started by congratulating me and thanking me for all I had done in preserving peace in the Gilgit Agency.”
Liaquat then said: “Brown, give me your ideas [for Gilgit] from a military point of view.” The major explained in detail his plans to defend the area by reorganising the Scouts. “Right” said the Premier: “That disposes of the military angle.”
Though there is no doubt about the illegality of the mutiny, one paramount question remains: was the British Headquarters informed?
At the time, the entire Pakistani Army hierarchy was British. So, the answer can only be that Maj Brown’s British bosses were aware of his ‘gift’ to Pakistan. The fact that he was nominated to the OBE is further proof. The King usually does not appoint ‘deserters’ or ‘rebels’ to the august Order.

The length of the IB
Even today, this has serious implications for India, though it does not change the length of the IB (4,056 km), beginning at the trijunction with Afghanistan in the West and ending at the trijunction with Burma (Myanmar) in the east. The report of the officials cited above gives the Indian position in the East: “The boundary crosses the Yonggyap Pass and the Kangri Karpo Pass in this sector. It then crosses the Lohit river a few miles south of Rima and joins the tri-junction of the India, Burma and China boundaries near the Diphu Pass.”

The UN Resolutions
The UN resolutions of 17 January, 1948, and 13 August, 1948, and 5 January, 1949, (UNCIP Resolutions) made it clear that “Pakistan cannot claim to exercise sovereignty in respect of J&K.” In 1963, a secret note from the MEA clarified further that according to the term of the UN Resolutions, “Pakistan cannot purport to exercise even ‘actual control’ over the defence of these areas.”
Practically, it also means that the agreement signed on 2 March, 1963, between Pakistan and China about the Shaksgam Valley of the Gilgit Agency being transferred to China is legally invalid.
Another logical conclusion is that inhabitants of the area if they want to move to India, should be entitled to Indian citizenship.

A British Resolution
Amazingly, in 2017, the British Parliament passed a resolution confirming GB was part of Jammu and Kashmir.
The motion was tabled on 23 March, 2017, by Bob Blackman of the Conservative Party. It reads: “GB is a legal and constitutional part of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, India, which is illegally occupied by Pakistan since 1947, and where people are denied their fundamental rights including the right of freedom of expression.”
Two years later, the new maps released by the Government of India showing the Leh district of Ladakh including the districts of Gilgit, Gilgit Wazarat, Chilhas and Tribal Territory of 1947, made this clear.
Interestingly, the Indian media reported last month: “Amidst news of flour and food crisis across Pakistan, the Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK), GB is again making headlines as residents are furious over the discriminative policies of the Pakistan government that has exploited the region for several decades and are now demanding a reunion with India in Ladakh”, noted India Today, adding: “Several videos on the internet show the extent of the discontent among residents.”
Let us hope that the correct length of India’s border with China will soon be obvious to all.