The mapping of the India-China border

For Preliminary Examination:  Current events of national and international things like the India-China border

For Mains Examination: GS II - International relations

Context:

In a three-part series on the India-China border issue that appeared in the columns of The Hindu from September 5-9, 2025, the author, Manoj Joshi, develops a narrative on the assertion that the India-China border was not properly defined. This article presents another view on the same.

Read about:

India-China border

Simla Conference (1913-14)

Key takeaways:

Official Manchu Maps

• During the Manchu dynasty’s 267-year rule (1644–1911), two significant maps of the empire were prepared with the technical assistance of European Jesuits. Both were drawn to scale with coordinate lines.
• The first, commissioned by Emperor Kangxi in 1721, depicted Tibet’s southern boundary as ending at the Himalayan crest. In this view, Tibet was never considered a trans-Himalayan entity, since Tibetans historically did not live south of the range. Thus, the Tawang region, though Buddhist, lay south of the divide and was not classified as Tibetan territory.
• This position was later reinforced by the Chinese representative at the Simla Conference (1913–14), who explicitly stated that Tibet had no claims over the tribal belt on the Assam side of the Himalayas (today’s Arunachal Pradesh), since those communities were neither Tibetan by ethnicity nor under Tibetan authority.
• Moreover, the Republic of China’s (RoC) delegate refrained from asserting sovereignty over this tribal belt, leaving it to the Indian side to incorporate it within Assam, which had long exercised influence there. Consequently, the Indo-Tibetan boundary settlement of March 1914—known as the 1914 alignment—was consistent with the Kangxi map.
• The second imperial map, ordered by Emperor Qianlong in 1761, recorded the Manchu bequest in the eastern Turkestan–Kashmir sector.
• It indicated that eastern Turkestan was not viewed as extending across the Kunlun mountains. Therefore, the barren lands stretching south to the Hindu Kush and Karakoram were not claimed by the Manchus.
• In 1899, a proposal was made to divide this territory according to watershed principles, producing the Kashmir–Sinkiang boundary line, later recognized as the 1899 alignment (linked to the Aksai Chin area).