Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 March 2011
The Sino-Indian boundary dispute provides an interesting test case to determine the willingness of mainland China, a revolutionary regime, to argue its position within the framework of traditional international law. Judging by Peking's official rationale for its claims in that dispute, one must conclude that its leaders demonstrated an awareness of the law's uses and limitations, and a willingness to rely upon it as an important support for its position. Thus, though the issue was viewed as a political question, Peking chose to argue that the correct answers to it should rest upon such legal or quasilegal considerations as: (1) the boundary had never been delimited through a process recognized by international law and (2) Chinese claims to contested territory were based upon historical evidence such as administrative control and official records. At the same time, China's diplomate skillfully interspersed nonlegal theses, e.g., that India was seeking to gain by the imperialist activities of the British, and underlined all of their propositions with a show of military strength on her southern frontier.
1 See: Hinton, Harold C., Communist China in World Politics (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1966), chapters 11, 12, and 16.Google Scholar
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3 The most important sources used in this paper are official publications of the two governments. Chinese documents are far less comprehensive than those published by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs and include no relevant items not found in the Indian position papers. As a result, only Indian sources are cited; the interested reader may wish examine the following Peking items:
Documents on the Sino-Indian Boundary Question, Peking, 1960.Google Scholar
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For a complete record of correspondence exchanged, see die following volumes published by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs:
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Notes, Memoranda and Letters exchanged between the Governments of India and China, September–November. 1959, and a Note on the Historical Background of the Himalayan Frontier of India. (White Paper II, 1959).Google Scholar
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Notes, Memoranda and Letters exchanged between the Governments of India and China, March 1960–November. 1960. (White Paper IV, 1960).Google Scholar
Notes, Memoranda and Letters exchanged between the Governments of India and China, November 1960–November. 1961. (White Paper V, 1961).Google Scholar
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Notes, Memoranda and Letters exchanged and Agreements signed between the Governments of India and China, July 1962–October. 1962. (White Paper VII, 1962).Google Scholar
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Hereafter, the citation will be: White Paper I, etc.
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