China - India

INDIA - CHINA TERRITORIAL DISPUTES

Sovereignty over two separated pieces of territory was contested during the Sino-Indian War.

Aksai Chinis one of the two main border dispute areas between India and the People's Republic of China, the other dispute being the one over Arunachal Pradesh, which is administered by India and claimed by China as South Tibet. India claims Aksai Chin as the eastern-most part of the Jammu and Kashmir state.

The line that separates Indian-administered areas of Jammu and Kashmir from Aksai Chin is known as the Line of Actual Control (LAC)

Aksai Chin was historically part of the Himalayan Kingdom of Ladakh until Ladakh was annexed from the rule of the local Namgyal dynasty by the Dogras and the princely state of Kashmir in the 19th century. However the Chinese never accepted British negotiated Boundary in the north east area of the princely state of Kashmir.

The China National Highway 219 runs through Aksai Chin connecting Tibet and Xinjiang. Construction started in 1951 and the road was completed in 1957.

The construction of this highway was one of the triggers for the Sino-Indian War of 1962.

Aksai Chin is currently administered by the People's Republic of China as a part of Hotan County in the Hotan Prefecture in Xinjiang.

Tawangdistrict is an administrative district in the state of Arunachal Pradesh in India.

Tawang Monastery was founded by the Merak Lama Lodre Gyatso in 1681 in accordance with the wishes of the 5th Dalai Lama, Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso.

The sixth Dalai Lama, Tsangyang Gyatso, was born in Tawang.

Tawang was once a part of Tibet. The 1914 McMahon Line awarded Tawang to India, with Tibet relinquishing several hundred square miles of its territory, including the whole of the Tawang region, to the British.

It came under effective Indian administration on February 12, 1951.

During the Sino-Indian war of 1962, Tawang briefly fell under Chinese control.

After the voluntary withdrawal of Chinese troops, Tawang again came under Indian administration.

In recent years, China has routinely voiced its claims on most of Arunachal Pradesh, especially Tawang, and both nations have regularly accused the other of troop incursions of a few kilometers or less.

Manmohan Singh, India's prime minister, has stated categorically that Tawang is an integral part of India, repeating this to the Chinese prime minister when the two prime ministers met in Thailand in October 2009.

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, it is the effective boundary between China and India. The line is named after Sir Henry McMahon, foreign secretary of British India and the chief negotiator of the convention.

The McMahon Line is regarded by India as the legal national border. The Dalai Lama's Tibetan government-in-exile also accepts the line as an official border. China rejects the Simla Accord, contending that the Tibetan government was not sovereign and therefore did not have the power to conclude treaties.

Chinese maps show some 56,000 square miles (150,000 km2) of the territory south of the line as part of the Tibet Autonomous Region, popularly known as South Tibet in China. China does recognize a Line of Actual Control which includes the "so called McMahon line," according to a 1959 diplomatic note by Prime Minister Zhou Enlai.

The Line of Actual Control (LAC) is the effective border between India and China. The LAC is 4,057-km long and traverses three areas of northern Indian states: western (Ladakh, Kashmir), middle (Uttarakhand, Himachal) and eastern (Sikkim, Arunachal).

Chinese Prime Minister Zhou Enlai first used the phrase in a letter addressed to Indian Prime Minister Nehru dated 24 October 1959