China Occupied Kashmir: A historical reflection on Aksai Chin

Context: Following the abrogation of Article 370 and reorganization of the Indian Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), a China-Pakistan tandem has emerged to internationalize the issue, including in the UN Security Council.

Relevance:
Prelims: Indian and World Geography: Physical, Social, Economic Geography of India and the World- China-Occupied Kashmir geographical extent.
Mains: GS III: Security challenges and their management of border areas

• It is a historical fact that the dispute in Kashmir goes beyond the territory that is still under the illegal occupation of Pakistan, and includes both the territory measuring 5,180 square kilometres (sq km) in the Shaksgam Valley in the trans-Karakoram tract ceded by Pakistan to China under their so-called border agreement of March 02, 1963, as well as approximately 38,000 sq km of the territory of the erstwhile state of Jammu & Kashmir in Aksai Chin illegally occupied by China.
• Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan raised the Kashmir issue at the 75th session of the UN General Assembly on September 25, 2020.
• The Indian delegate, exercising the Right of Reply, rebutted Pakistan’s calumnious charges and rhetorical chicanery and stated inter alia that “The only dispute left in Kashmir relates to that part of Kashmir that is still under the illegal occupation of Pakistan”.
• After the seventh round of talks between India and China at the level of the Corps Commanders on October 12, 2020, the Chinese declared that “China doesn’t recognize the so-called ‘Ladakh Union Territory’ illegally set up by India or the ‘Arunachal Pradesh’”. 

• India first brought the issue of Pakistani aggression in Kashmir to the UNSC under Article 35 of the UN Charter, in a letter dated January 01, 1948, addressed to the UNSC President.
• The agenda item was titled “The Situation in Jammu & Kashmir” until the 230th meeting of the UNSC, held on January 20, 1948. However, after Pakistan addressed a “counter-complaint” to the UN Secretary-General on January 15, 1948, the item was re-designated as “The India-Pakistan Question” in the 231st meeting of the UNSC held on January 22, 1948, thereby obscuring the original issue of “aggression” by Pakistan that India had referred to the UN.
• The issue has since persisted as a bilateral one, disregarding subsequent developments on the ground including China’s active role in the territorial dispute.
• The legitimate frontiers of the Princely State of Jammu & Kashmir comprised a total area of 2,22,236 sq km, which rightfully belonged to the Maharaja of Kashmir.
• Upon the signing of the Instrument of Accession on October 26, 1947, the legality of which is indisputable, the territory belongs to India.
• Of the total territory, 78,114 sq km are under the illegal occupation of Pakistan, 37,555 sq km (official Indian statements refer to 38,000 sq km) under the illegal occupation of China, and a further 5,180 sq km in the Shaksgam Valley, illegally ceded by Pakistan to China under their provisional “border agreement” of March 02, 1963, have since also been under China’s occupation.
• The fact that China occupies approximately 42,735 sq km of the territory of Kashmir hardly figures in any reference to the Kashmir issue at the UN. It needs to be highlighted on every occasion, whenever the issue of Kashmir comes up.

• Colonial Phase: 
  • Historically, China played an insidious role in changing the frontiers of Jammu and Kashmir through fictitious claims and unscrupulous alliances with local chieftains.
  • China exploited the ‘Great Game’ between British India and Russia in the late 19th century.
  • It pitched territorial claims far beyond the traditional frontiers of Xinjiang. It gradually crept into areas in the Taghdumbash Pamirs and the Karakorams, well south of its frontier along the Kun Lun mountains.
  • While the British and the Russians were busy creating buffer zones along the frontiers of Xinjiang and Tibet, China was systematically stepping into the void.
  • By the 1890s, China had started asserting its presence in the valleys between the Kun Lun and the main Karakoram range.
  • The British eroded the traditional frontiers of the Maharaja of Kashmir in the region around Shahidullah and also those of his vassal, the Mir of Hunza.
  • After the Mir’s defeat in 1869 at the hands of the joint forces of the Maharaja and the British, the Chinese tried to co-opt him in their scheme while giving him refuge.
  • Till then, the Mir’s authority, ranging in the Taghdumbash Pamirs till Dafdar and eastward in Raskam, had never been contested by the Chinese.
  • The Chinese had started the practice of exchanging annual presents with the Mir of Hunza in recognition of his authority over the unruly nomadic tribes that inhabited these valleys.
  • The tradition of exchanging gifts with the Mir of Hunza was exploited to stake a retrospective claim to Hunza as a tributary of the Qing empire since 1762 AD.
  • This chicanery is contradicted by China’s own historical accounts and maps of the 18th and the 19th centuries which show the south-western frontiers of China extending barely up to the Kun Lun range.
  • By 1891, the Chinese had quietly moved south of the Kun Lun range to consolidate their presence at Shahidullah, which earlier marked the furthest outpost of the princely state of J&K.
  • They then moved further south to Suget, and thereafter, showed up at the Karakoram pass.
  • In 1936, the Mir of Hunza was asked by the British to abandon his rights in the Taghdumbash Pamirs as well as in the Raskam valley, but the Shaksgam valley to the south-west of Raskam and the Aghil range remained with the Mir of Hunza.
  • This remained the traditional frontier of British India until independence, inherited by India following J&K’s accession in 1947.
• The Border in 1947:
• Hence, in 1947, independent India inherited a boundary which included as Indian territory Hunza as well as the trans-Karakoram tract in Shaksgam, running along the Mustagh-Aghil-Qara Tagh-Kun Lun ranges.
• This line was compromised by Pakistan in its ‘agreement’ with the Chinese in 1963.
• Under the boundary agreement with Pakistan of March 02, 1963, China took for itself not only Raskam but also the entire Shaksgam area in return for relinquishing its specious claim over Hunza.
• By giving in to the Chinese claim to a boundary along the Karakoram Range, Pakistan not only compromised India’s position along the Kun Lun Range to the north-west of Karakoram Pass but, in effect, also gave the Chinese a chance to deny Kun Lun as India’s boundary with China east of the Karakoram Pass and to claim that it ran, instead, along the Karakoram Range.
• As such, China’s claims in the trans-Karakoram tracts to the west of the Karakoram Pass had absolutely nothing to do with its position to the east of the Pass since it had no historical presence at all in the area of Aksai Chin.
• Historically, the Chinese boundaries ended along the Kun Lun Range and China did not exercise any jurisdiction south of these mountains.
• The Chinese had begun to move into areas south of the Kun Lun in the Raskam Valley only as a result of the British policy in the closing decades of the 19th century. However, China had no justifiable claim to, or presence in, the Shaksgam Valley, south of the Aghil Range.

• Post-Colonial Phase: The Sino-Pak Deal
• From 1953, Chinese troops had started entering into territories in eastern Hunza.
• In October 1959, Pakistani media reported the illegal intrusion of Chinese troops into these lands claimed by the Mir of Hunza.
• In the late 1950s, with relations between India and China undergoing a sharp deterioration, Pakistan’s then-President Ayub Khan sensed an opportunity to appease China in order to externally balance souring relations with India.
• In the face of the Chinese ingress into the Hunza Valley, he chose to open a line of communication with Beijing to discuss the border issue.
• The failure of the India-China border talks during June-December 1960, the changed security situation in the region following the India-China war of 1962, as well as indications of Western military support for India, may have been instrumental factors in bringing China and Pakistan together.

• The China-Pakistan collusion was clearly evident in the process and China became a direct party to the Kashmir issue both by concluding the 1963 agreement with Pakistan and taking the trans-Karakoram tract and, earlier, by occupying Aksai Chin.
• India’s contention was, and is, that Pakistan did not have the sovereign authority to enter into a territorial agreement with China given India’s legal claim to the State of Jammu & Kashmir.
• Under international law, the right of entering into treaties and agreements is an attribute of sovereignty.
• Furthermore, a sovereign cannot presume to exercise sovereign functions in respect of territory other than its own.
• Having regard to the UN resolutions of January 17, 1948; August 13, 1948; and January 5, 1949 (UNCIP Resolutions), it is clear that Pakistan cannot (and does not) claim to exercise sovereignty in respect of Jammu & Kashmir.
• China’s actions in occupying Aksai Chin, and subsequently, in usurping the Shaksgam tract in 1963, did have a direct bearing on the territory of Jammu & Kashmir.
• Given that China had become a party to the territorial dispute in Jammu & Kashmir, it was naturally inclined towards the settlement of the issue in favour of Pakistan, in order to preserve its territorial gains from the 1963 agreement.
• On the basis of this agreement, China has carefully nurtured Pakistan as a quasi-colony over the years. 
• The Karakoram Highway and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) both use this contested frontier to bring the two countries together in a closer embrace and help China build an alternative lifeline to the Arabian Sea.
• India has consistently registered its protest at the route of the so-called economic corridor which traverses through terrain that legitimately belongs to India.

• Unfortunately, China’s entanglement in the Kashmir issue has not received adequate attention from the strategic analysts and commentators, both in India and externally.
• China has had a free run so far and feels comfortable raising the issue precisely because its own status as an occupier of territory in Jammu & Kashmir has not been adequately publicized.
• That China is an interested party to the dispute and has played an opportunistic historical role in adding to the complexity of the issue is a fact which should be brought to light in scholarly writings as well as in statements at the UN or any other international fora whenever the occasion presents itself in response to Pakistan raking up the issue of Jammu & Kashmir, singly or in tandem with China.
• This would be consistent with India’s position on Jammu & Kashmir in terms of its cartographic depictions as well as statements and resolutions in the Parliament over the years.