The McMahon Line is a line agreed to by Great Britain and Tibet as part of Simla Accord, a treaty signed in 1914.

Although its legal status is disputed by China , it is the effective boundary between China and India. The line is named after Sir Henry McMahon, foreign secretary of British India an d the chief negotiator of the convention. It extends for 550 miles (890 km) from Bhutan in the west to 160 miles (260 km) east of the great bend of the Brahmapu tra River in the east, largely along the crest of the Himalayas. Simla (along wi th the McMahon Line) was initially rejected by the British-run Government of Ind ia as incompatible with the 1907 Anglo-Russian Convention.[1] This convention wa s renounced in 1921. After Simla, the McMahon Line was forgotten until 1935, whe n British civil service officer Olaf Caroe convinced the government to publish t he Simla Convention and use the McMahon Line on official maps.[2] The McMahon Line is regarded by India as the legal national border, although pre vious Indian governments have made claims (and stationed soldiers and outposts) north of the McMahon Line, such as during the Forward Policy period under then P rime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru prior to the Sino-Indian War. The Dalai Lama's Ti betan government-in-exile also accepts the line as an official border. [3] China rejects the Simla Accord, contending that the Tibetan government was not s overeign and therefore did not have the power to conclude treaties.[4] Chinese m aps show some 56,000 square miles (150,000 km2) of the territory south of the li ne as part of the Tibet Autonomous Region, popularly known as South Tibet in Chi na. Chinese forces briefly occupied this area during the Sino-Indian War of 1962 -63. China does recognize a Line of Actual Control which includes a portion of t he "so called McMahon line" in the eastern part of its border with India, accord ing to a 1959 diplomatic note by Prime Minister Zhou Enlai.[5] Contents [hide] 1 History 1.1 Drawing the line 1.2 Britain attempts to enforce line 1.3 India and China dispute boundary 1.4 Britain revises position on Tibet 2 See also 3 Notes 4 References 5 Further reading [edit]History

Map from Imperial Gazetteer of India, Oxford University Press, 1909. It marks th e "Outer line" as border in the eastern section on the top right. [edit]Drawing the line Early British efforts to create a boundary in this sector were triggered by thei r discovery in the mid-19th century that Tawang, an important trading town, was Tibetan territory. In 1873, the British-run Government of India drew an "Outer L ine," intended as an international boundary.[6] This line follows the alignment of the Himalayan foothills, now roughly the southern boundary of Arunachal Prade sh. Britain concluded treaties with Beijing concerning Tibet's boundaries with B urma[7] and Sikkim.[8] However, Tibet refused to recognize the boundaries drawn by these treaties.[citation needed] British forces led by Sir Francis Younghusba nd invaded Tibet in 1904 and imposed a treaty on the Tibetans.[9] In 1907, Brita in and Russia acknowledged Chinese "suzerainty" over Tibet and both nations "eng age not to enter into negotiations with Tibet except through the intermediary of the Chinese Government."[10] British interest in the borderlands was renewed when the Qing government sent mi

litary forces to establish Chinese administration in Tibet (1910 12). A British mi litary expedition was sent into what is now Arunachal Pradesh and the North East Frontier Tract was created to administer the area (1912). In 1912-13, this agen cy reached agreements with the tribal leaders who ruled the bulk of the region.[ citation needed] The Outer Line was moved north, but Tawang was left as Tibetan territory.[11] After the fall of the Qing dynasty in China, Tibet expelled all C hinese officials and troops, and declared itself independent (1913).[12][13] In 1913, British officials conferred at Simla, India to discuss Tibet's status.[ 1] The conference was attended by representatives of Britain, China, and Tibet.[ 14] "Outer Tibet," covering approximately the same area as the modern "Tibet Aut onomous Region" would be under the administration of the Dalai Lama's government as well as the "suzerainty" of China.[14] Suzerainty was a colonial concept ind icating limited authority over a dependent state. The final 3 July 1914 accord l acked any textual boundary delimitations or descriptions.[15] It made reference to a small scale map with very little detail, one that primarily showed lines se parating China from "Inner Tibet" and "Inner Tibet" from "Outer Tibet." This map lacked any initials or signatures from the Chinese plenipotentiary Ivan Chen; h owever Chen had signed an earlier, similar draft of it from 27 April 1914. The two maps (27 April 1914 and 3 July 1914) illustrating the boundaries bear th e full signature of the Tibetan Plenipotentiary; the first bears the full signat ure of the Chinese Plenipotentiary also; the second bears the full signatures al ong with seals of both Tibetan and British Plenipotentiaries. (V. Photographic r eproductions of the two maps in Atlas of the North Frontier of India, New Delhi: Ministry of External Affairs 1960) Sinha (21 February 1966), p. 37 Both drafts of this small scale map extend the identical red line symbol between "Inner Tibet" and China further to the southwest, approximating the entire rout e of the McMahon Line, and thus dead ending near Tawang at the Bhutan tripoint. However, neither draft labels "British India" or anything similar in the area th at now constitutes Arunachal Pradesh. The far more detailed eight miles to the inch McMahon Line map of 24 25 March 1914 is signed only by the Tibetan and British representatives. This map and McMahon Line negotiations were both done without Chinese participation.[16][17] After B eijing repudiated Simla, the British and Tibetan delegates attached a note denyi ng China any privileges under the agreement and signed it as a bilateral accord. [18] [edit]Britain attempts to enforce line Official map from Imperial Gazetteer of India, namely The Indian Empire and surr ounding countries", shows the "Outer line" as the boundary between the British I ndia and the Chinese Empire. Simla was initially rejected by the Government of India as incompatible with the 1907 Anglo-Russian Convention. C.U. Aitchison's A Collection of Treaties, was p ublished with a note stating that no binding agreement had been reached at Simla .[19] The Anglo-Russian Convention was renounced by Russia and Britain jointly i n 1921,[20] but the McMahon Line was forgotten until 1935, when interest was rev ived by civil service officer Olaf Caroe.[2] The Survey of India published a map showing the McMahon Line as the official boundary in 1937.[2] In 1938, the Brit ish published the Simla Accord in Aitchison's Treaties.[19] A volume published e arlier was recalled from libraries and replaced with a volume that includes the Simla Accord together with an editor's note stating that Tibet and Britain, but not China, accepted the agreement as binding.[21] The replacement volume has a f alse 1929 publication date.[19] When the British demanded that the Tawang monastery, located south of the McMaho

n Line, cease paying taxes to Lhasa, Tibet protested. However, Lhasa raised no o bjection to British activity in other sectors of the McMahon Line. In 1944, NEFT established direct administrative control for the entire area it was assigned, although Tibet soon regained authority in Tawang. In 1947, the Tibetan governmen t wrote a note presented to the Indian Ministry of External Affairs laying claim to Tibetan districts south of the McMahon Line.[16] In Beijing, the Communist P arty came to power in 1949 and declared its intention to "liberate" Tibet. India , which had become independent in 1947, responded by declaring the McMahon Line to be its boundary and by decisively asserting control of the Tawang area (1950 51 ).[1] [edit]India and China dispute boundary In the 1950s, India-China relations were cordial and the boundary dispute quiet. The Indian government under Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru promoted the slogan Hindi-Chini bhai-bhai. (India and China are brothers). Zhou Enlai offered to ac cept the McMahon Line in 1956[citation needed], but only in the context of borde r negotiations as equals, because simply accepting the British boundary would le ave the stigma of the unequal treaty and hurt Chinese pride. But Nehru maintaine d his 1950 statement that he would not accept negotiations if China brought the boundary dispute up, hoping that "China would accept the fait accompli.[22] In 1 954, India renamed the disputed area the North East Frontier Agency. India acknowledged that Tibet was a part of China and gave up its extraterritori al rights in Tibet inherited from the British in a treaty concluded in April 195 4.[22] Nehru later claimed that because China did not bring up the border issue at the 1954 conference, the issue was settled. But the only border India had del ineated before the conference was the McMahon Line. Several months after the con ference, Nehru ordered maps of India published that showed expansive Indian terr itorial claims as definite boundaries, notably in Aksai Chin.[23] In the NEFA se ctor, the new maps gave the hill crest as the boundary, although in some places this line is slightly north of the McMahon Line.[5] The failure of the 1959 Tibetan uprising and the 14th Dalai Lama's arrival in In dia in March led Indian parliamentarians to censure Nehru for not securing a com mitment from China to respect the McMahon Line. Additionally, the Indian press s tarted openly advocating Tibetan independence. Nehru, seeking to quickly assert sovereignty in response, established "as many military posts along the frontier as possible", unannounced and against the advice of his staff.[22] On discoverin g the posts, and already suspicious from the ruminations of the Indian press, Ch inese leaders began to suspect that Nehru had designs on the region. In August 1 959, Chinese troops captured an Indian outpost at Longju, three miles south of t he McMahon Line according to the Geonames database (National Geospatial-Intellig ence Agency). In a letter to Nehru dated 24 October 1959, Zhou Enlai proposed th at India and China each withdraw their forces 20 kilometers from the line of act ual control.[24] Shortly afterward, Zhou defined this line as "the so-called McM ahon Line in the east and the line up to which each side exercises actual contro l in the west".[5] In November 1961, Nehru formally adopted the "Forward Policy" of setting up mili tary outposts in disputed areas, including 43 outposts north of Zhou's LAC.[5] C hinese leader Mao Zedong, at this time weakened by the failure of the Great Leap Forward, saw war as a means of reasserting his authority.[25][unreliable source ?] On 8 September 1962, a Chinese unit attacked an Indian post at Dhola on the T hagla Ridge, three kilometers north of the McMahon Line.[1] On 20 October China launched a major attack across the McMahon Line as well as another attack furthe r north. The Sino-Indian War which followed was a national humiliation for India , with China quickly advancing 90 km (56 mi) from the McMahon Line to Rupa and t hen Chaku (65 km southeast of Tawang) in NEPA's extreme western portion, and in the NEFA's extreme eastern tip advancing 30 km (19 mi) to Walong.[1] The Soviet Union,[26] United States and Great Britain pledged military aid to India. China

then withdrew to the McMahon Line and repatriated the Indian prisoners of war (1 963). NEFA was renamed Arunachal Pradesh in 1972 Chinese maps refer to the area as South Tibet. In 1981, Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping offered India a "package settlemen t" of the border issue. Eight rounds of talks followed, but there was no agreeme nt. In 1984, India Intelligence Bureau personnel in the Tawang region set up an obse rvation post in the Sumdorong Chu Valley just south of the highest hill crest, b ut a few kilometers north of the McMahon Line (the straight line portion extendi ng east from Bhutan for 30 miles). The IB left the area before winter. In 1986, China deployed troops in the valley before an Indian team arrived.[27][28] This information created a national uproar when it was revealed to the Indian public. In October 1986, Deng threatened to "teach India a lesson". The Indian Army air lifted a task force to the valley. The confrontation was defused in May 1987 tho ugh, as clearly visible on Google Earth, both armies have remained and recent co nstruction of roads and facilities are visible.[29] The Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi visited China in 1988 and agreed to a joi nt working group on boundary issues which has made little apparent positive prog ress. A 1993 Sino-Indian agreement set up a group to define the LAC; this group has likewise made no progress. A 1996 Sino-Indian agreement set up "confidence-b uilding measures" to avoid border clashes. Although there have been frequent inc idents where one state has charged the other with incursions, causing tense enco unters along the McMahon Line following India's nuclear test in 1998 and continu ing to the present, both sides generally attribute these to disagreements of les s than a kilometer as to the exact location of the LAC.[29]