(TibetanReview.net, Feb15’26) – China raised border disputes, laying claim to large swathes of Indian territory, the moment New Delhi formally recognized Tibet as part of that country in 1954, according to India’s Chief of Defence Staff, General Anil Chauhan, while delivering a lecture Feb 13.
Chauhan said the border dispute with China followed India’s recognition of Tibet as part of that country with the signing of Panchsheel Agreement, which underlined Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence, reported the PTI news agency Feb 14.
Chauhan has suggested that independent India was keen to build a good relationship with China, which also wanted stability in the area after its “so-called” liberation of Tibet, leading to the signing of the 1954 agreement.
Delivering a lecture on ‘Frontiers, Borders and LAC: The Middle Sector’ under the India Himalayan International Strategic Forum think tank at Lok Bhavan, Dehradun, Chauhan has said that following the Panchsheel agreement, “India considered itself to have settled its northern border. This was the only area that we believed had not been settled through a formal treaty.”
The top India Army officer has said the legitimacy of this border for India was based on the Panchsheel Agreement, which it believed demarcated by identifying six passes Shipki La, Mana, Niti, Kungri Bingri, Darma and Lipulekh through which trade and pilgrimage would take place.
However, Chauhan has continued, “China believed that this agreement was only for trade and nowhere reflected China’s position on any specific border dispute. Therefore, it became a border dispute.”
According to General Chauhan, “On independence, the British left, and it was for India actually to decide where a front is. Nehru probably knew that we had something, as the McMahon Line was in the east, and we had some kind of a claim in the Ladakh area, but it was not here. So that’s why he wanted to go in for a Panchsheel Agreement, probably.”
The 890-km McMahon Line is the de facto boundary between India and China in the Northeast. The international boundary in the Northeast was drawn at the tripartite Simla Convention of 1913-1914 by British India, Tibet and China. However, China now rejects this agreement and lays claim over Arunachal Pradesh.
Chauhan has highlighted the growing strategic importance of the Himalayan borders and the government’s focused efforts on infrastructure development in the border areas.
He has also said a holistic view of the Himalayan perspective was essential to address problems such as climate change, water security, border management, military modernisation and disaster management.