The long shadow of colonial cartography: Britain and the Sino-Indian war of 1962

ABSTRACT

This article examines British responses to the Sino-Indian border war of 1962. It illustrates how, in the years leading up to the war, Britain’s colonial legacy in the Indian subcontinent saw it drawn reluctantly into a territorial dispute between Asia’s two largest and most powerful nations. It analyses disagreements in Whitehall between the Foreign Office and Commonwealth Relations Office over the relative strength of India and China’s border claims, and assesses how these debates reshaped British regional policy. It argues that the border war was instrumental in transforming Britain’s post-colonial relationship with South Asia. Continuing to filter relations with India through an imperial prism proved unsatisfactory, what followed was a more pragmatic Indo-British association.

KEYWORDS:

• India
• China
• Sino-Indian border
• foreign office
• commonwealth relations office

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ Jawaharlal Nehru, India-China Relations, speech delivered in Lok Sabha, 27 Nov.1959 (New Delhi: Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India 1959).

² Aspects of the Sino-Indian border war have been addressed in work by Amit R. Das Gupta and Lorenz M. Luthi (eds.), The Sino-Indian War of 1962: New Perspectives (London: Routledge 2017); Steven A. Hoffmann, India and the China Crisis (Berkley: University of California Press 1990); Neville Maxwell, India’s China War (London: Cape 1970); Yaccov Vertzberger, Misperceptions in Foreign Policy Making: The Sino-Indian Conflict 1959–1962 (Boulder, CO: Westview Press 1984); Liu Xuecheng, The Sino-Indian Border Dispute and Sino-Indian Relations (Lanham, MD: University Press of America 1994); and Srinath Raghavan, War and Peace in Modern India: A Strategic History of the Nehru Years (Ranikhet: Permanent Black 2010), amongst others.

³ The Times, 23 Oct. 1962.

⁴ Kew, United Kingdom, The National Archives, Kew [henceforward TNA], F[oreign] O[ffice papers] 371/170669, FC 1061/20, Gore-Booth to CRO, 28 Dec.1962.

⁵ TNA, D[ominions] O[ffice] 196/75, Gore-Booth to Saville Garner, 26 Oct. 1962; Maxwell, India’s China War, 414; The Times, 27 Oct. 1962.

⁶ TNA, FO 371/170675, FC 1061/141, Emery (CRO) to Flack (FO), 12 Dec. 1963.

⁷ Ibid.

⁸ TNA, FO 371/170670, FC 1061/30, Norton minute, 8 Feb. 1963.

⁹ TNA, DO 133/148, ‘The Sino-Indian Border Dispute,’ undated c. Nov. 1959.

¹⁰ TNA, DO 133/148, Clutterbuck minute, 30 Oct. 1959.

¹¹ Nehru, India-China Relations.

¹² TNA, DO 133/148, Dalton (FO) to Twist (CRO), 3 Dec. 1959.

¹³ TNA, DO 133/148, Dalton to Twist, 3 Dec. 1959.

¹⁴ Recent scholarship examining China’s approach to border disputes has largely endorsed the FO’s judgment that Beijing was willing to make pragmatic territorial concessions to secure negotiated settlements. See, M. Taylor Fravel, Strong Borders, Secure Nation: Cooperation and Conflict in China’s Territorial Disputes (Princeton: Princeton University Press 2008). Similar arguments surrounding China’s approach to territorial disputes are repeated in, Eric Hyer, The Pragmatic Dragon: China’s Grand Strategy and Boundary Settlement (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press 2015). For a different perspective, but one that also underlines China’s pragmatic approach to border issues, see, Zhihua Shen and Julia Lovell, ‘Undesired Outcome: China’s Approach to Border Disputes during the Early Cold War’, Cold War History 15/1 (2015), 106–07.

¹⁵ A. Appadorai (ed.), Select Documents on India’s Foreign Policy and Relations, 1947–1972, vol. 1 (New Delhi: Oxford University Press 1982), 459–66.

¹⁶ TNA CAB[inet papers] 158/47, ‘Chinese Intentions against India,’ Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) report, 22 Nov. 1962; See also Sarvepalli Gopal, Jawaharlal Nehru: A Biography, vol. 3: 1956–1964 (London: Jonathan Cape 1984), 81, 89, and Robert J. McMahon, ‘U.S. Policy toward South Asia and Tibet during the Early Cold War’, Journal of Cold War Studies 8/3 (2006), 141. For a Chinese perspective on Sino-Indian relations see Chen Jian, Mao’s China and the Cold War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press 2001), 78–9.

¹⁷ TNA, DO 133/148, White to Dobbs and Anderson, 19 Nov. 1959.

¹⁸ See note 11 above.

¹⁹ TNA, DO 133/148, Delhi to CRO, No. 39, 9 Jan. 1960.

²⁰ N[ehru] M[useum] M[emorial] L[ibrary], Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit Papers, Subject File 62, 1^st Instalment, Pandit to Jawaharlal Nehru, 1 Oct. 1959.

²¹ TNA, DO 133/148, Dobbs to Anderson, 26 Feb. 1960.

²² Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College Cambridge (hereafter HCAC), Haly Papers, GBR/0014/HALY/15/2, Diary entry 15 Jan. 1960.

²³ TNA, DO 133/148, Record of Conversation between Home and Husain, 2 Feb. 1960.

²⁴ Ibid.

²⁵ HCAC, GBR/0014/HALY/15/2, Diary entry 10 Feb. 1960.

²⁶ TNA, DO 133/148, Dobbs to Anderson, 18 Feb. 1960. Richard Harris delivered a lecture entitled, ‘China and the World’, at Chatham House on 11 Nov. 1958. The address was reprinted in International Affairs, Vol. 35, No. 2 (April 1959), 161–169. There is nothing in the text of Harris’ speech to substantiate Gopal’s charge of anti-Indian bias. India is hardly mentioned by Harris, who does not, either explicitly or implicitly, claim superiority on the part of Chinese civilisation that India should accommodate.

²⁷ TNA, FO 371/164912, FC 1061/53, Belcher minute, 28 July 1962.

²⁸ TNA, FO 371/170669, FC 1061/20, Gore-Booth to CRO, 28 Dec. 1962.

²⁹ TNA, DO 133/148, Whitehead (Calcutta) to Smedly, undated, c. February 1960.

³⁰ TNA, FO 371/164914, FC 1061/86, ‘Expression of sympathy for India’, 21 Oct. 1962; TNA, FO 371/164914, FC 1061/92, Peck memorandum, 22 Oct. 1962.

³¹ Alistair Horne, Macmillan, 1957–1986 (London: Macmillan 1989), 415–16.

³² Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, Harold Macmillan Diaries, d. 47, entry for 23 October 1962; Foreign Relations of the United States (hereafter FRUS), 1961–1963, vol. XIX, Brubeck to Bundy, 15 Oct. 1962, (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office 1996), 341–2.

³³ TNA, FO 371/164914, FC 1061/94, Macmillan to Home, 22 Oct. 1962; TNA, DO 196/165, FO to British Embassies, 23 Oct. 1962.

³⁴ TNA, FO 371/164929, FC1063/13 (B), CRO to Delhi and Karachi, 15 Nov. 1962; Roger Hilsman, To Move a Nation: The Politics of Foreign Policy in the Administration of John F. Kennedy (New York: Delta 1967), 331–2; Chester Bowles, Promises to Keep: My Years in Public Life, 1941–1969 (New York: Harper 1971), 437.

³⁵ TNA, DO 191/99, Foreign Office Note, 23 Nov. 1962.

³⁶ TNA, FO 371/164929, FC1063/14/G, Ormsby Gore to FO, No. 2899, 19 Nov. 1962.

³⁷ FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. XIX, State Department to New Delhi, 20 Nov. 1962, 401.

³⁸ TNA, FO 371/164929, FC1063/1, E. H. Peck paper, 2 Nov. 1962; CAB 130/189, GEN.779, Meeting on Sino-Indian Conflict, 20 Nov. 1962; and DO 196/168, COS (62) 73, 20 Nov. 1962.

³⁹ Alistair Lamb, Britain and Chinese Central Asia: The Road to Lhasa 1767–1905 (London: Routledge & K.Paul 1960).

⁴⁰ TNA, FO 371/170670, FC 1061/30, McKenzie Johnston to Ledward (Washington), 4 Mar. 1963.

⁴¹ Ibid.

⁴² Ibid.

⁴³ TNA, FO 371/170673, FC 1061/95, Oliver minute, 18 Jun. 1963.

⁴⁴ TNA, FO 371/170670, FC 1061/30, Buxton minute, 28 Feb. 1963.

⁴⁵ TNA, FO 371/170670, FC 1061/30, McKenzie Johnston to Ledward (Washington), 4 Mar. 1963.

⁴⁶ TNA, FO 371/170670, FC 1061/30, Ledward (Washington) to McKenzie Johnston, 21 Mar. 1963.

⁴⁷ TNA, FO 371/170671, FC1061/55, Addis to Peck, 5 Mar. 1963.

⁴⁸ TNA, FO 371/170670, FC 1061/30, Ledward (Washington) to McKenzie Johnston, 21 Mar. 1963.

⁴⁹ TNA, FO 371/170671, FC1061/55(A), Addis to Peck, 14 Mar. 1963.

⁵⁰ TNA, FO 371/170671, FC1061/55(A), Peck to Addis, 22 Mar. 1963.

⁵¹ TNA, FO 371/17067, FC1061/83, Addis to MacLehose, 23 May 1963.

⁵² TNA, FO 371/170669, FC 1061/8, Conversation between Macdonald and Peck, 20 Dec. 1962.

⁵³ TNA, FO 371/170675, FC 1061/141, Emery to Flack, 12 Dec. 1963.

⁵⁴ TNA, FO 371/170671, FC1061/55, Norton minute, 23 Apr. 1963.

⁵⁵ TNA, DO 191/99, Kerr (New Delhi) to Bishop (CRO), 30 Oct. 1962.

⁵⁶ TNA, FO 371/170669, FC 1061/20, Gore-Booth to CRO, 28 Dec. 1962.

⁵⁷ TNA, FO 371/170670, FC1061/36, Le Quesne (Bamako) to Peck (FO), 26 Jan. 1963.

⁵⁸ TNA, FO 371/164924, FC1061/290, Fry (Djakarta) to Warner (FO), 28 Nov. 1962.

⁵⁹ TNA, FO 371/170670, FC1061/36, Moore minute, 21 Feb. 1963.

⁶⁰ TNA, FO 371/170669, FC 1061/20, Gore-Booth to CRO, 28 Dec. 1962.

⁶¹ TNA, FO 371/164871, ‘UK Brief for NATO Far Eastern Experts Meeting’, Paris, 14 Mar. 1962.

⁶² TNA, DO 196/4, Home to Sandys, 11 Jan. 1963. 


⁶³ TNA, PREM[iers files] 11/4301,‘The Indian War Machine,’ 29 Mar. 1963.


⁶⁴ TNA, FO 371/170671, FC1061/83, Addis to MacLehose, 23 May 1963.

⁶⁵ TNA, FO 371/170671, FC1061/55, Buxton minute, 24 May 1963.

⁶⁶ TNA, FO 371/170671, FC1061/55, MacLehose to Addis, 30 Apr. 1963.

⁶⁷ TNA, FO 371/170671, FC1061/55, Norton minute, 23 Apr. 1963.

⁶⁸ TNA, FO 371/170675, FC 1061/141, Emery to Flack, 12 Dec. 1963.

⁶⁹ TNA, FO 371/170675, FC 1061/141, Buxton minute, 15 Jan. 1964.

⁷⁰ FRUS, 1961–63, Vol. XIX, Kennedy/Macmillan talks, Nassau, 20 Dec. 1962, 451.

⁷¹ TNA, FO 371/170671, FC1061/55, Norton minute, 27 May 1963.

⁷² TNA, FO 371/170671, FC1061/55, Addis to Peck, 5 Mar. 1963.

⁷³ TNA, FO 371/170669, FC 1061/8, Conversation between Macdonald and Peck, 20 Dec. 1962.

⁷⁴ TNA, FO 371/170671, FC1061/55, Delhi to CRO, No. 1245, 1 May 1963.

⁷⁵ TNA, FO 371/170671, FC1061/55, CRO to Delhi, No. 1548, 4 May 1963.

⁷⁶ TNA, FO 371/170671, FC1061/55, MacLehose minute, 6 Apr. 1963.

⁷⁷ TNA, FO 371/170673, FC 1061/83, McKenzie-Johnson minute, 30 May 1963.

⁷⁸ TNA, FO 371/170673, FC 1061/83, Norton minute, 30 May 1963.

⁷⁹ TNA, FO 371/170671, FC1061/55, McKennzie Johnston to CRO, 29 May 1963.

⁸⁰ TNA, FO 371/170673, FC 1061/95, Lamb to Stevens, 15 May 1963.

⁸¹ TNA, FO 371/175929, FC 1061/2, Saville Garner to Emery, 6 Jan. 1964.

⁸² TNA, FO 371/175929, FC 1061/2, Younger to Lamb, 13 Jan. 1964.

⁸³ TNA, FO 371/175929, FC 1061/6, Delhi to CRO, No, 64, 8 Jan. 1964.

⁸⁴ TNA, FO 371/175929, FC 1061/6, MacLehose minute, 10 Jan. 1964.

⁸⁵ TNA, FO 371/175929, FC 1061/2, Saville Garner to Emery, 16 Jan. 1964.

⁸⁶ TNA, FO 371/175929, FC 1061/2, Emery to O’Brien (Delhi), 6 Mar. 1964.

⁸⁷ TNA, FO 371/175897, F1051/4, Petrie Minute, 4 Apr. 1964.

⁸⁸ TNA, FO 371/170675, FC 1061/141, Merrells (IRD) minute, 24 Apr. 1964.

⁸⁹ TNA, FO 371/170675, FC 1061/141, Dalton minute, 29 Apr. 1964.

⁹⁰ TNA, FO 371/170675, FC 1061/141, Francis (IRD) minute, 3 Apr. 1964.

⁹¹ TNA, FO 371/170675, FC 1061/141, Dalton minute, 29 Apr. 1964.

⁹² TNA, FO 371/170675, FC 1061/141, Buxton minute, 15 Jan. 1964.

⁹³ TNA, FO 371/170675, FC 1061/141, Buxton minute, 15 Jan. 1964.

⁹⁴ TNA, FO 371/175929, FC1061/33, Buxton minute, 12 Feb. 1964, FC1061/33, FO 371/175929.

⁹⁵ TNA, FO 371/175929, FC1061/33, Flack to Emery, 22 June 1964, FC 1061/33, FO 371/175929.

⁹⁶ TNA, FO 371/175929, FC1061/33, Buxton minute, 12 Feb. 1964, FC1061/33, FO 371/175929.

⁹⁷ TNA, DO 196/225, Johnson minute, 4 May 1966.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Paul M. McGarr

Paul M. McGarr is an Associate Professor in American Foreign Policy at the University of Nottingham in the UK and author of The Cold War in South Asia, 1945–1965 (Cambridge University Press, 2013). He is currently writing a book on the history of Anglo-American secret intelligence and security interventions in India and Pakistan.