IASbhai Daily Editorial Hunt | 6th Nov 2020
“Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.” – Joshua J. Marine
Dear AspirantsIASbhai Editorial Hunt is an initiative to dilute major Editorials of leading Newspapers in India which are most relevant to UPSC preparation –‘THE HINDU, LIVEMINT , INDIAN EXPRESS’ and help millions of readers who find difficulty in answer writing and making notes everyday. Here we choose two editorials on daily basis and analyse them with respect to UPSC MAINS 2020-21.
EDITORIAL HUNT #227 :“Chinese Occupied Kashmir 1800-2020 | UPSC”
Sujan R. Chinoy
Chinese Occupied Kashmir 1800-2020 | UPSC
Sujan R. Chinoy, a former Ambassador and China expert, is currently the Director General of the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi.
HEADLINES:
The forgotten fact of China-Occupied Kashmir
CENTRAL THEME:
The anniversary of the Instrument of Accession last month is a reminder of China’s illegal territorial occupation
SYLLABUS COVERED: GS 2 : IR
MAINS QUESTION:
Chinese aggression towards India is not new. Since past 200 years Chinese have been deploying expansionist policy in south western frontier.Comment -(GS 2)
LEARNING:
- Pretended harmony
- Chinese perspective on Kashmir
- Historical demarcation between Mountains
- Pakistan’s Connection
INTRODUCTION:
- PRETENDED HARMONY : Pakistan has feigned(insincere) solidarity with the people of Kashmir and continues to train and fund separatists and terrorists.
- FATF GLOBAL WATCHDOG : The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the global watchdog that monitors terror financing, has retained Pakistan on its ‘Grey List’ for a good reason.
- CHINESE AMBITIONS : China’s support for Pakistan is motivated by a desire to perpetuate its own territorial grab in the trans-Karakoram Shaksgam Tract of Kashmir.
BODY:
LEGITIMATELY INDIA’S
- CHINESE PERSPECTIVE : China treats the J&K issue as a “bilateral dispute left over from history” to be resolved between India and Pakistan.
- CHINESE TURNING BLIND EYE : China has turned a blind eye to the constitutional shenanigans(mischeif) by which Pakistan’s has acquired Gilgit-Baltistan and completely swayed over Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK).
- OMITTED TERMS : China ignores Pakistan’s agenda of integrating Gilgit-Baltistan as its fifth province.
- MAINTAINING STATUS QUO : China has the temerity (boldness) to question the establishment of the Union Territory of Ladakh and to term it a ‘unilateral’ attempt to change “the status quo in the Kashmir region”.
- LEGAL STANDING : China has no locus standi to comment on India’s internal affairs since the erstwhile princely State of J&K acceded to India through the Instrument of Accession on October 26, 1947.
- TRANS KARAKORAM TRACT : The Shaksgam valley in the trans-Karakoram tract, part of PoK, was handed over on a platter by a supine Pakistan to China through an illegal border agreement on March 2, 1963.
- RAIL-ROAD CORRIDOR : China and Pakistan have colluded to obfuscate these facts, even as they brazenly promote the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) which runs through parts of Indian territory under their respective occupation.
HISTORY, UNDERHAND METHODS
- FAULTY AFFIRMATIONS : China played an insidious role in changing the frontiers of Jammu and Kashmir through fictitious claims and unscrupulous alliances with local chieftains.
- CHINESE AGGRESSION : It pitched territorial claims far beyond the traditional frontiers of Xinjiang.
- ACCEPTED BOUNDARIES : It gradually crept into areas in the Taghdumbash Pamirs and the Karakorams, well south of its frontier along the Kun Lun mountains.
- EXPANSIONIST POLICY : By the 1890s, China had started asserting its presence in the valleys between the Kun Lun and the main Karakoram range.
- ANGLO-BRUSHO WAR : The British eroded the traditional frontiers of the Maharaja of Kashmir in the region around Shahidullah and also those of his vassal, the Mir of Hunza.
- CONSEQUENCES OF THE WAR : After the Mir’s defeat in 1869 at the hands of the joint forces of the Maharaja and the British, the Chinese tried to co-opt him in their scheme while giving him refuge.
- CHINESE PRESENCE : The Chinese had started the practice of exchanging annual presents with the Mir of Hunza in recognition of his authority over the unruly nomadic tribes that inhabited these valleys.
- ACCESSION : The tradition of exchanging gifts with the Mir of Hunza was exploited to stake a retrospective claim to Hunza as a tributary of the Qing empire since 1762 AD.
- CHINESE 18TH CENTURY MAPS : This chicanery (deception) is contradicted by China’s own historical accounts and maps of the 18th and the 19th centuries which shows China extending barely up to the Kun Lun range.
- BRITISHERS CLAIMS : In 1936, the Mir of Hunza was asked by the British to abandon his rights in the Taghdumbash Pamirs as well as in the Raskam valley.
- FINAL BOUNDARIES : This remained the traditional frontier of British India until independence, inherited by India following J&K’s accession in 1947.
THE PAKISTAN CONNECTION
- CHINESE DEMARCATION : China’s expansionist designs and spurious claims ; Pakistan compromised India’s traditional frontier along the Kun Lun range to the north-west of the Karakoram Pass.
- EXTRAPOLATING BOUNDARIES : After Pakistan , China extrapolated a claim line eastwards along the Karakoram range in Ladakh.
- PATROLLING PARTY TRESPASSING : After the Partition of the Indian subcontinent, from 1953, Chinese troops actively started transgressing the frontier in eastern Hunza.
- TRANSFER OF POWER : Pakistan deliberately chose to downgrade the historical claims of the Mir of Hunza and eventually signed away the Shaksgam valley to China in 1963.
IASbhai Windup:
AS PARTY TO THE DISPUTE
- THE TERRITORIAL SETTLEMENT : The provisional nature of 1963 agreement between China and Pakistan is evident in Article 6 , which clearly states that -the two Parties have agreed that after the settlement of the Kashmir dispute between Pakistan and India.
- THE SOVEREIGN AUTHORITY : The authority concerned will reopen negotiations with the Government of the People’s Republic of China, on the boundary as described in Article Two of the present Agreement.
- CHINESE GAINS : In effect, this agreement has established China as a party to the dispute. It has a vested interest in legitimising its illegitimate gains in the trans-Karakoram tract.
The anniversary of the Instrument of Accession, on October 26, is a reminder of China’s illegal territorial occupation.
SOURCES: THE HINDU EDITORIAL HUNT | Chinese Occupied Kashmir 1800-2020 | UPSC
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