On China's Terms?

India and Red China have exchanged more diplomatic notes than bullets in their territorial wrangle over the disputed Himalayan border between the two countries. Last week China passed India its 76th note in nine months--and clearly indicated that it thought its southern neighbor was the pawn in what Jawaharlal Nehru has described as a "game of military chess" along the ill-defined frontier.

Blandly the Chinese said that they were willing to arbitrate the boundary dispute peacefully. But it would be on their own terms. China rejected India's demand that before the start of negotiations it withdraw from the 14,000 sq. mi. of Indian territory it occupies in Ladakh (see map). "No force in the world could oblige us to withdraw," said Red China's Foreign Minister Chen Yi. The effect of the Chinese announcement was thus to tell India that any final settlement must irrevocably deed the disputed Ladakh territory to China.

Though Nehru termed the Chinese note "rather disappointing," he reaffirmed his desire "to settle our differences with China by peaceful discussions." Such apparent willingness to negotiate on Chinese terms stimulated cries of "appeasement" against Nehru's government. Attacks on Defense Minister Krishna Menon for his recent breakfast dates and cocktail party nattering with Chen Yi in Geneva have been stepped up, even though Nehru claimed that Menon was only acting under orders to probe China's real intentions in Ladakh. But Menon's contention that Ladakh was only "unoccupied territory" and Nehru's stance that he would be willing to make "minor" territorial concessions to the Chinese have raised fears in Parliament that India will yield on China's terms.

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