Word: ladakh
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Last spring, after Indian patrols had begun harassing Chinese posts in Ladakh, the Chinese expressed a willingness to negotiate the border dispute but rejected Nehru's demand that they withdraw from the disputed area before the talks opened...
...that time, the Chinese Communist government maintained that the McMahon Line boundary was also in dispute, and that Nehru should not expect the Chinese to allow Indians to occupy all the disputed territory as a prelude to negotiations. India still refused to negotiate while the Chinese were in Ladakh, and Indian patrols continued maneuvers against the Chinese posts there. It should, therefore, have caused little surprise when Chinese troops later crossed the McMahon Line and attacked the Indian North-East Frontier Agency...
...Some 20,000 burp-gun-toting infantry stormed over Thag La ridge and swept away a 5,000-man Indian brigade strung out along the Kechilang River. The surprise was complete, and dazed survivors of the Chinese attack struggled over the pathless mountains, where hundreds died of exposure. In Ladakh the Chinese scored an even bigger victory, occupying the entire 14,000 square miles that Peking claims is Chinese territory...
...prevailing theory now is that the Chinese had less ambitious aims to begin with: to take the high ground and the key military passes away from the Indians, and to finally establish, once and for all, Chinese control of the Aksai Chin plateau in Ladakh, so as to safeguard the vital military roads to Sinkiang province. The Chinese may have been unprepared to exploit the almost total collapse of India's armed forces and may even have been surprised by their swift success. On this reading, the terms of the Chinese cease-fire offer become intelligible...
Without Meaning. Even if Nehru were prepared to give away Ladakh in return for a Chinese pullback elsewhere...