Himalayan tin hut is latest flashpoint in India's border dispute with China.

Now, I've long talked about the possibility of India and the PRC going back to war over their disputed border in the Himalayas.   They last fought over in 1962 and have never signed an actual peace treaty and hold large swathes of each other's territory (China in the West, India in the East), which is very remote and largely inaccessible.    What makes it interesting is that this entire conflict was based on a lie created by the British when they controlled India under the Raj.  The Raj was in the late 19th/early 20th centuries trying to gain control of Tibet from China, which had a much better claim to the largely independent kingdom based upon past imperial associations with it.   As part of the "Great Game", Britain wanted to prevent Tsarist Russia getting control of Tibet and using it as a "gateway" into Northern India, bypassing the British defences on the North West Frontier which were designed to stop their feared invasion from Afghanistan through the passes.  As part of that, the Raj draw up some maps of the border, which the Tibetans disputed and the British were forced to back down over.  They were placed in the Raj's archives where they were rediscovered by the Indian government after Independence and it attempted to claim they were legitimate.  By the end of the 1950s, the PRC had invaded and taken over Tibet.   They of course disputed the border and claimed what had traditionally been the Tibetan view of the border.   They acted as if their view was correct and built a road along a valley in remote Ladakh which the Indians claimed.  The Indians attempted to move their border posts to the line they claimed on the otherside of the valley and demolish the road, which they claimed was on their territory, The Chinese didn't back down and a shooting war resulted.  The Indians got badly beaten on the Western end of the border (Ladakh) and lost not only up to the original border line but some of their own territory.  In response they had an offensive on the Eastern end of the border (Arunachal Pradesh) and grabbed a slice of Chinese territory which was undefended.   Up till this day, both have held these territories.    Under the current BJP Government, it is obvious things will once again get tense as the Indians assert their sovereignty.

Now, there is a remote possibility that this might drag us into the conflict.   As things are so stalemated in the Himalayas, both sides might decide to utilise their newly built naval power to outflank the other.   The obvious defensive point is the Straits of Malacca.  Unless one or the other can force that and get around the Isthmus of Kra, the stalemate would continue.  Obviously both sides would attempt that.  A naval battle could occur there or further East in the Indonesian Archipelago.  We are directly allied to Malaysia by the Five Power Defence Agreement and to Singapore and Indonesia via bilateral treaties.   Neither Malaysia, Singapore or Indonesia would welcome a massive naval campaign in and around their waters.  Two thirds of the world's commerce, including a large slice of ours traverses those waters.   This would have interesting ramifications for us, particular with someone as equally belligerent as The Dear Leader in charge.

We obviously live in "interesting times", indeed.

Brian Ross wrote on Sep 27^th, 2014 at 1:33am:


The Chinese are our friends now and they don't like Muslims either. They have some in XinJiang province, you know, terrorists, all of them.

I always thought religion of any kind other than the little Red Book  was a No No in China anyway...

Hong Kong also seems a hot spot....

The demonstrators are angry that Beijing's political reforms promised for 2017 will not guarantee them the right to freely elect their leaders


CY Leung has said the government will not change its policy and that the protests are illegal

China has warned foreign countries not to get involved and is closely censoring coverage on the mainland

maybe our Belligerent Leader in  charge will take notes.