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Aksai Chin
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Aksai Chin is an area located in north eastern Kashmir in the Ladakh area, adjacent to East Turkistan and Tibet , both restive and seditious countries held by China. The cease-fire line that separates the rest of Ladakh from the Aksai Chin is known as the Line of Actual Control (LAC). Aksai Chin is one of the areas in India claimed by the Chinese controlling East Turkistan and Tibet.
Aksai Chin (according to a view, the name allegedly literally means "white (ak) brook (sai) pass (chin)" is a vast high-altitude desert of salt that reaches heights up to 5,000 metres.
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Encyclopedia
Aksai Chin is an area located in north eastern Kashmir in the Ladakh area, adjacent to East Turkistan and Tibet , both restive and seditious countries held by China. The cease-fire line that separates the rest of Ladakh from the Aksai Chin is known as the Line of Actual Control (LAC). Aksai Chin is one of the areas in India claimed by the Chinese controlling East Turkistan and Tibet.
Aksai Chin (according to a view, the name allegedly literally means "white (ak) brook (sai) pass (chin)" is a vast high-altitude desert of salt that reaches heights up to 5,000 metres. Geographically part of the highlands of Kashmir, a section of Aksai Chin is referred to as the Soda Plain. Lingzi Thang and Chang Thang are other areas in Aksai Chin. The region is almost uninhabited, has no permanent settlements, and receives little precipitation as the Himalayan and other mountains block the rains from the Indian monsoon. The rivers Karakash (Classical name Gomati) and Yarug Kash originate in the Aksai Chin area before crossing the Kuen Lun range on the edge of the highlands of Kashmir to enter Khotan.
History
Aksai Chin was historically part of the Himalayan Kingdom of Ladakh until Ladakh was annexed from the rule of the local Namgyal dynasty by the Dogras and the princely state of Kashmir in the 19th century. It was subsequently absorbed into British India. One of the main causes of the Sino-Indian War of 1962 was India's discovery of a road China had built through the region, which is historically part of Ladakh. The so called China National Highway 219, connecting Tibet and East Turkistan, passes through no sizable town in Aksai Chin, there are only some military posts and truck stops, such as (the very small) Thaldat (4850m) or Haji Langhar (4200m, see external Link below). The road in the Aksai Chin area is strategically important to China in order to control the two restive and seditious Countries .
The Aksai Chin area was traversed in 1865 by W. H. Johnson , Civil Assistant of the Trigonometrical Survey of India of the Survey of India. In July 1865, he was instructed to explore the country of Khotan. “He followed the familiar route from Leh as far as Kyam, and then broke news ground by marching in a northern direction. He travelled through NIschu, Huzakhar, and Yangpa, describuing these isolated places in the Aksai Chin in great detail. He was the first European to cross the Yangi Diwan Pass between Tash and Khushlashlangar, and to take a route which Juma Khan, ambassador from Khotan to the British Government, had travelled some time before. He waited at the source of the Kara Kash for someone to receive him at the first village on the northern side of the Kuen Lun. On the twelfth day his patience was rewarded; a bearer came from the Badsha of Khotan saying ‘he had dispatched his wazeer, Sarfulla Khoja, to meet me at Bringja, the first encampment beyond the Ladakh boundary, for the purpose of escorting me to Khotan. Three miles from Khotan, Khan’s two sons were waiting to welcome him. The Khan had a great deal to say. Four years before he had visited Mecca and on his return he was made the chief Kasi of Khotan. ‘Within a month,’ he said ‘he succeeded in raising a rebellion against the Chinese, which resulted in their massacre, and his election by the inhabitants of the country to be their Khan Badsha or ruler.’ When the Chinese were defeated in Khotan, Yarkand, Kashgar, and other places in Central Asia, Yaqub Beg set up an independent Muslim country which survived until 1877 when the Chinese troops recaptured Kashgar”. W.H. Johnson’s survey established certain important points. "Brinjga was in his view the boundary post" ( near the Karanghu Tagh Peak in the Kuen Lun in Ladakh ), thus implying "that the boundary lay along the Kuen Lun Range". Johnson’s findings demonstrated that the whole of the Kara Kash valley was “ within the territory of the Maharaja of Kashmir” and an integral part of the territory of Kashmir . "He noted where the Chinese boundary post was accepted. At Yangi Langar, three marches from Khotan , he noticed that there were a few fruit trees at this place which originally was a post or guard house of the Chinese". “The Khan wrote Johnson ‘that he had dispatched his Wazier, Saifulla Khoja to meet me at Bringja, the first encampment beyond the Ladakh boundary for the purpose of escorting me thence to Ilichi’… thus the Khotan ruler accepted the Kunlun range as the southern boundary of his dominion.” According to Johnson, “the last portion of the route to Shadulla (Shahidulla) is particularly pleasant, being the whole of the Karakash valley which is wide and even, and shut in either side by rugged mountains. On this route I noticed numerous extensive plateaux near the river, covered with wood and long grass. These being within the territory of the Maharaja of Kashmir, could easily be brought under cultivation by Ladakhees and others, if they could be induced and encouraged to do so by the Kashmeer Government. The establishment of villages and habitations on this river would be important in many points of view, but chiefly in keeping the route open from the attacks of the Khergiz robbers.”
The Chinese completed the reconquest of eastern Turkistan in 1878. Before they lost it in 1863, their practical authority, as Ney Elias British Joint Commissioner in Leh from the end of the 1870s to 1885, and Younghusband consistently maintained, "had never extended south of their outposts at Sanju and Kilian along the northern foothills of the Kuenlun range. Nor did they establish a known presence to the south of the line of outposts in the twelve years immediately following their return". Ney Elias who had been Joint Commissioner in Ladakh for several years noted on 21 September 1889 that he had met the Chinese in 1879 and 1880 when he visited Kashgar. “they told me that they considered their line of ‘chatze’, or posts, as their frontier – viz. , Kugiar, Kilian, Sanju, Kiria, etc.- and that they had no concern with what lay beyond the mountains” i.e. the Kuen Lun range in northern Kashmir where the Hindutash pass in Kashmir is situate. Hindutash which literally "Indian stone" in the Uyghur dialect of East Turkistan is a pass in the Kuen Lun range “which is the southern border of Khotan”.
In 1893, Hung Ta Chen , a senior Chinese official had given officially a map to the British Indian Counsel at Kashgar. It clearly shows the major part of Aksai Chin and Lingzi Thang in India. Besides, in 1917, The Government of China had also published the “Postal map of China”, published at Peking in 1917. "It shows the whole northern Boundary of India more or less according to the traditional Indian alignments". Actually, an map of China during the relevant period, besides the depiction of Aksai Chin as part of India, the map incidentally depicts all the pre-1947 Himalayan princely states in Pre-1947 India including inter alia Nepal, Sikkim, and what is now Arunachal Pradesh as integral parts of India.These maps prove that the Chinese Government had way back in 1893 recognised Aksai Chin as an inalienable part of Kashmir and also the same had also been reiterated in 1917, and that Aksai Chin is not a disputed territory.(the aforesaid maps provided in the article)
The renowned German geologist visited Aksai Chin in 1927. He called it the4 westernmost Plateaux of Tibet’ because, he writes, ‘geographically the Lingzithang and Aksai-chin are Tibetan, though politically they are situated in Ladakh. “His journal reveals that there were no Chinese in this part of the country, and that it was indeed within the boundaries of India”. "I must confess", he wrote "that I have rarely seen such utterly barran and desolate mountains".
Aksai Chin is currently under the occupation of the People's Republic of China. Most of it has been incorporated into the Khotan County, in the primarily Muslim East Turkistan which the Chinese have named as Xinjiang or New Possession, meaning it is not ab initio part of China but a recently annexed territory, to which it was transferred by China rather than to contiguous and adjacent Tibet. What little data exists suggests that the few true locals in Aksai Chin have Buddhist beliefs, although some Muslim Uyghurs may also live in the area because of the trade between Tibet and Xinjiang. India also claims the area as a part of the Ladakh district of the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Both sides in the dispute have at present agreed to respect the Line of Actual Control and there is a resolution of the Indian Parliament to liberate the area and the issue is very emotional in India.
Pakistan also has laid a claim on Jammu and Kashmir. However, border agreements between Pakistan and China in 1963 which transferred the Trans-Karakoram Tract and 1987 say that Pakistan acquiesces China's claims on the areas. No Pakistani Government has ever officially claimed this region. The Pakistani Government has given tacit approval of China by considering Aksai Chin as a part of China.
Maps
Google Earth Speculation
In June 2006, satellite imagery on the Google Earth service revealed a 1:500 scale terrain model of eastern Aksai Chin and adjacent Tibet, built near the town of Huangyangtan, about 35 kilometres South West of Yinchuan, the capital of the autonomous region of Ningxia in China. A visual side-by-side comparison shows a very detailed duplication of Aksai Chin in the camp. The 900m × 700m model was surrounded by substantial facility, with rows of red-roofed buildings, scores of olive-colored trucks and a large compound with elevated lookout posts and a large communications tower. Since terrain models are known to be used in military training and simulation (although usually on a much smaller scale), posters in the Google Earth online community advanced theories regarding the purpose of the model, including usage as
- a model for walk-through terrain visualization exercise in pilot training
- a model to study dispersal patterns of chemical or biological weapons
- a tank training facility.
- a model simulating water catchment areas of China's major river systems in climatology research.
Local authorities in Ningxia, however, maintain that the model is part of a tank training ground, built in 1998 or 1999.
External links
- .
- by Venkatesan Vembu, Daily News & Analysis, June 6, 2007
- Pakistan has solved its border problem with China, but India is caught in a prolonged dispute.
- An informative history of the always-ambiguous China-India border in Aksai Chin.
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- by Venkatesan Vembu, Daily News & Analysis, May 13, 2007
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