The Chinese moved their Eleventh and Fifty-fifth divisions to the front.
The Indian army had four brigades set up defensive positions along the only mountain road leading south through the harsh terrain.
At the same time, India was planning to attack the Chinese army.
In a risky flanking maneuver, the Chinese sent 1,500 troops along a dangerous mountain trail to attack India’s Army in the rear and cut them in half.
The Chinese troops succeeded, and the Chinese army launched an attack from the north along the road.
India’s Sixty-second Brigade collapsed the first day. Soon after, India’s Sixty-fifth Brigade abandoned their positions without a fight.
News of the Indian army’s defeat reached New Delhi. The Indian people panicked. Large numbers of refugees started to flow south.
Chinese army troops had advanced into India past the disputed territory. China declared a unilateral cease fire.
There were abandoned Indian weapons everywhere and the Chinese troops gathered the weapons, which were returned to India. Then the Indian troops that were prisoners of war were released.
China’s army withdraw to the 1959 border keeping the disputed territory. The war ended without a treaty to resolve the border dispute.
Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.
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In the embedded video are actual battle scenes from the China-Indian conflict of 1962. Since the Chinese shot this footage, it is obvious that the dialogue has been propagandized.
India’s Nehru government repeatedly rejected China’s requests to negotiate the border dispute over the McMahon Line, which British Explorer McMahon drew on a map during the 19th century.
Instead, the Indian army built bases and outposts in the disputed area.
Chinese troops then strengthened their defenses in the disputed area.
India sent patrols into territory occupied by Chinese troops and the Indian troops were captured.
On June 4, 1962, Indian troops set up outposts deep in the disputed territory.
On September 8, 1962, Chinese troops surrounded the Indian troops to stop further advances.
In the middle of September, Chinese intelligence reported that the Indian army would soon attack.
India’s Seventh Brigade was deployed to the area to launch Operation Leghorn.
On October 9, 1962, he Indian troops crossed the river that divided the two armies and attacked Chinese positions.
The resulting battle caused the Indian Seventh Brigade to collapse and a large number of Indian troops surrendered.
Chinese troops crossed the river and pushed south, but the Indian troops retreated faster.
Heavy Chinese artillery bombed Indian troop positions. Within days, there were many dead and wounded Indian troops.
Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.
If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.
In this series, I’ve stitched together three different videos in four parts to show the 1962 border war between India and China.
America is not the first country to attempt nation building (Iraq). The British Empire did it first and left behind a mess in India, the Middle East and Africa.
In the 19th century, with the reckless stoke of a pen or pencil, British Explorer McMahon drew borders on maps creating India.
Due to his arrogance, India has had border disputes and with China, Nepal and Pakistan. Source: Boundaries
In fact, before the British Empire established the Raj, India wasn’t a country and no Chinese government ever agreed to the changes McMahon made along the borders between Tibet and India. Source: Victorian Web
In 1947, soon after the end of World War II, India gained its independence from Britain, and the Indian government refused to negotiate over land that was once was part of Tibet.
After 1949, Mao’s government told India the land behind the McMahon line was part of China and wanted it back.
For the next thirteen years, China and India had many diplomatic conversations about this boundary issue. Zhou Enlai, the first prime minister of the PRC, attempted to convince Jawaharlal Nehru to resolve the boundary issue peacefully.
With the failure of peaceful negotiations, Chinese troops were sent to the McMahon Line.
Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.
If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.
Unlike India, China’s one party political system allows for quick decisions that often benefit the country.
Another important factor to remember is that China is still a collectivist nation as India is.
Due to this fact, China and India have more in common than India and America.
It does not matter that India is considered the world’s largest democracy, because to counter that, India also has a large bureaucracy that makes it difficult to get things done.
However, in India, the bureaucracy has a reputation for being tremendously arrogant. It is a truism that Indian bureaucrats are generally smug and supercilious… source: Open India
Indian bureaucracy has often been criticized for being cumbersome and stretching procedures to sanction projects. Source: Meri News
Unlike India, China’s one party political system allows for quick decisions that often benefit the country.
Another important factor to remember is that China is still a collectivist nation as India is.
Due to this fact, China and India have more in common than India and America.
It does not matter that India is considered the world’s largest democracy, because to counter that, India also has a large bureaucracy that makes it difficult to get things done.
However, in India, the bureaucracy has a reputation for being tremendously arrogant. It is a truism that Indian bureaucrats are generally smug and supercilious… source: Open India
Indian bureaucracy has often been criticized for being cumbersome and stretching procedures to sanction projects. Source: Meri News
A friend, Tom Carter, while shooting his next book in India, discovered that it was easier to travel and stay in China than India.
A study of Individualist and collectivist orientations across occupational groups in India by Anjali Ghosh where he refers to a study by Sinha & Verma (1994) … that master’s-level students express more idiocentric (individualist) orientations than allocentric (collectivist) due to Western influence, immediate life concerns and exposure to mass media.
However, Verma & Triandis (1999) observed that Indian students were more vertical collectivist than U.S. students were.
Another fact is that China and India both have ancient civilizations more than 5,000 years old and they are next-door neighbors as Canada and the US are.
A friend, Tom Carter, while shooting his next book in India, discovered that it was easier to travel and stay in China than India.
A study of Individualist and collectivist orientations across occupational groups in India by Anjali Ghosh where he refers to a study by Sinha & Verma (1994) … that master’s-level students express more idiocentric (individualist) orientations than allocentric (collectivist) due to Western influence, immediate life concerns and exposure to mass media.
However, Verma & Triandis (1999) observed that Indian students were more vertical collectivist than U.S. students were.
Another fact is that China and India both have ancient civilizations more than 5,000 years old and they are next-door neighbors as Canada and the US are.
Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.
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There appears to be an obsession in the West that India, since it is a democracy, is the country that will counter China’s economic and military growth.
The American Interest published a piece in their May/June 2010 issue – The Return of the Raj, which points out that where G. W. Bush failed to build an Indo-U.S. defense pact, Secretary of State Clinton in a visit to India in July 2009 did open the door to significant arms transfers from the U.S. to India.
If the United States and India can together rediscover and revive the Indian military’s expeditionary tradition, they will have a solid basis for strategic cooperation not only between themselves but also with the rest of the world’s democracies. Source: The American Interest
In another piece, A Himalayan rivalry, The Economist focuses on the 1962 conflict between India and China saying, “Memoires of a war between India and China are still vivid in the Tawang valley…”
However, memoires aren’t everything. There is also knowledge, and China is not the same country it was in 1962.
In 1962, some of the factors that led to the war between India and China were linked to Mao’s policies, the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.
The Maoists were removed from power in the 1980s, and China is not a socialist nation as it was then.
Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.
Subscribe to “iLook China” Sign up for an E-mail Subscription at the top of this page.
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