Talk:Longju

Clarification needed

@Kautilya3:
ONE
Current: China entrenched itself around Longju furthering its claim on the territory.
Source: Bérénice Guyot-Réchard, 2017, pg 187 — […] in the face of PLA’s entrenchment. [72] Chinese troops were digging mines and building airfields around Longju, underscoring their claim that the outpost lay in their territory. [73] (Attributed to Amrita Bazaar Patrika)
Proposed: Remove until other sources are found to back this up. DTM (talk) 15:55, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

I didn't read the comment:This contradicts the earlier claim that the Chinese withdrew. The timeline needs sorting. But as above, removing it would be better. DTM (talk) 16:06, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

I don't think so. This is a high quality academic source. This should be retained. Rather, the idea that the Chinese "withdrew" seems quite dubious. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 16:24, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

TWO
Current: The Longju incident...
Source: Vertzberger 1984, p. xvii–xviii. — […] August 1959, the Longju incident, (xvii)
Proposed: Replace with The August 1959 incident at Longju same source/ add something like henceforth referred to a the Longju incident in previous paragraphs/ else find replacement...
DTM (talk) 15:55, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

The problem is that the "incident" is not described. "Seizing" a post is not called an "incident". See here and here. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 16:29, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

THREE
Better sources as far as the location of Longju goes. DTM (talk) 15:55, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Doesn't umap give you the ability to measure distance? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 16:59, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Yes it does! DTM (talk) 16:36, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Migyitun to Longju distance via umap

The 1940 Survey of India map that I added shows the river crossing. That is exactly where you would expect Longju to be. In fact, there is still a bridge there right now, and a barracks on the right bank of the river [1]. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 17:30, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Now that you mention it! That is a really interesting observation! I wonder why it is still at that location even after all these years!

PAHAR has some really nice maps on which Longju is marked — d.1959, d.1960, d.1962 and others. DTM (talk) 16:36, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Indeed, those were the days when the Indian government was democratic and cared to inform the public.

As to the Chinese barracks, it is obviously there to guard the river crossing. The crossing is now defunct with the new road on the other side but the barracks will remain until China has a need to cut budgets. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 17:00, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Timeline box

I have added a timeline box for clarity. If it isn't suitable please let me know. DTM (talk) 09:45, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

The problem is not the timeline, but the fact that you are covering opinions in preference to facts. A 200-300 strong force came and attacked the post at Longju, killed one or two, and physically pushed the rest of them beyond their perceived border. For good measure, they had already claimed two days earlier that Indian forces had entered Migyitun. (Why would they?) This is not a "border clash" and "deteriorating relations". It was a pre-planned attack. And it was also a na koi ghusa hai moment for Nehru. The Indian public was outraged, lost trust in Nehru, and forced him to publish every piece of correspondence he had had with China and would have in future. The road to war had begun. Those are the facts. And no white-washing will be acceptable. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 13:13, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

And, by the way, the Thagla Ridge and Longju were the only two places in the McMahon Line that were wildly inaccurate (meaning they fell short of the ethnic frontier). And those were the only places where China attacked. Mere coincidence? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 13:22, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

I also think "deteriorating relations" is just a euphemism for the two countries shouting at each other. It does not necessarily imply that the relations had actually been good earlier. No doubt, the Nehruvian India made a show of good relations going on. But what did China actually contribute for the "good relations"? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 12:50, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

DiplomatTesterMan, the page numbers given for the Sandhu book don't match. I can't find anything related to Longju on page 142 for instance. Can you double check the page numbers? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 14:18, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

I found this bit on page 152:

• Sept 1959: PLA attacks Assam Rifles troops at Longju again.

I think it is clearly a typo. They meant to say August 1959. There is no evidence of Indian troops going back to Longju. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 14:26, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Ok, so, I am deleting the mention of September. There is no evidence that Indians went back to Lonju in September. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 23:57, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

References

Report of the Officials w.r.t. Longju

The report contains clarifications sought by the Chinese side. Among the Chinese questions some are related to Longju — 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18....
The answer India gave to: Q13—What was the distance between Longju and Migyitun?>>> A.- The distance between Longju and the alignment south of Migyitun was about two miles. Why is India using "miles"??? Doesn't India use km as standard? NH signposts show distances in KM. DTM (talk) 11:46, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Miles were British. Kilometres were French. But the decimal number system was Indian (even though the Indian measure systems were mostly non-decimal; remember the anna?). So India eventually saw the light. The US hasn't yet switched to kilometres.

On the distance between Migyitun and Longju, I can offer this diplomatic masterpiece:

As stated in Prime Minister Nehru's letter to Premier Chou En-lai dated September 26, 1959, the alleged distance between Longju and Migyitun is not 2 miles but 1 ½ miles. In his speech at the Indian Lok Sabha on April 3, 1961, Prime Minister Nehru again had something different to say about the location of Longju, stating: "A little part of the village (Longju) this side (of the "McMahon Line") and a part of it on that side." All these contradictions fully reveal the fact that the Indian Government, in an attempt to usurp Longju, has tried hard to push the so-called McMahon Line further north, arbitrarily separated Longju from the Migyitun area and fabricated a non-existent distance which can be prolonged or shortened at will. But the truth cannot be covered up by such clumsy tactics.

References

Allen Whiting and the "traditional boundary"

In Allen White's article, I found the passage:

On 8 September [1959], Chou defended the PLA actions as aimed at stopping remnant armed Tibetan rebels from crossing the border back and forth.[57] But he reiterated his proposal that the border differences be settled through negotiations and that until then both sides should observe the status quo.

Toni Huber has said that there is no record of any armed Tibetan rebels operating in Tsari. So we can dispense with the first part. It is the second part that is interesting, especially the status quo idea. The White Paper II has a memorandum dated 1 September (the same day that the Indian government protested).

The Chinese Government has also repeatedly pointed out that the so-called traditional boundary between India and the eastern. part of the Tibet Region of China as referred to by the Indian Government, i.e., the so-called McMahon Line was set forth in the past by the British imperialists unilaterally and has never been accepted by the Chinese Government; it of course cannot be regarded as legal. Nevertheless, even by documents and maps related to this so-called traditional boundary as set forth by the British, Longju is unquestionably within Chinese territory....

And then:

In Premier Chou En-lai's letter to Prime Minister Nehru dated January 23, 1959, the Chinese Government, in order to avoid any border incidents so far as possible pending the formal delimitation of the boundary between the two countries, proposed to the Indian, Government that, as a provisional measure, each side temporarily maintain the status quo of the border areas under its administration and not go beyond them. To this proposal Prime Minister Nehru expressed his agreement in his reply dated March 22, 1959. Yet the Indian Government claimed Longju to be Indian territory and occupied it by troops. This was an attempt to change the status quo of Longju by force. The Chinese Government cannot but lodge a strong protest against this.

This is pointing out two things. The McMahon Line doesn't cover Longju. Tough luck, India! Secondly, after agreeing to maintain status quo in March, you guys set up a post at Longju. This isn't the status quo. So, even though we didn't kick them out, the Longju guys withdrew voluntarily, which is a good thing. So, let us open some Champagne. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 01:18, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

An extract in the Claude Arpi article cited in the lead says June 1959 is when India established the Longju post. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 23:40, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

References

Luowa/Lowa village

The place where the new Chinese village was built is called Luowa (珞瓦) on OpenStreetMap. This is evidently named after the river Luo He (洛河), the Chinese name for Tsari Chu.

"Luo" is often written as "Lo", when Mandarin is translated into English. Hence, "Luowa" is "Lowa". -- Kautilya3 (talk) 23:46, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

The Chinese also renamed Migyitun as Tsari/Zhari (Chinese: 扎日乡). Both of these names appear to be branding exercises. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 14:00, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Lowa's orientation with respect to the McMahon Line (as per LSIB) is here. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 12:07, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Lowa literally means the people of Lo. Lo is currently being used as the name of the river ("Tsari Chu" during the British Raj times and Tsariwa for the Tibetans living there). Originally, Lo seems to have been a short form for Loyul (tribal land). -- Kautilya3 (talk) 12:14, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

According to Strachey, the Tibetans generally do not give names to rivers. They call them by the name of the place they come from. So, it is possible that the name Tsari Chu is used from the origin of the river up to Migyitun, and Lo Chu from there to Gelensiniak. Lo here refers not only to Loyul but also to Lo Mikyimdun, the full name of Migyitun. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 14:41, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Roi

The village of Roi is called "Ruyu" by the Chinese. Its orientation with respect to the McMahon Line (as per LSIB) is here. It is possible that there was a river crossing there from the beginning. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 11:45, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Bhargava is alone in stating that Roi was manned by a post of 50 Assam Rifles men. Neither Johri nor Sandhu et al. state anything like that. The claim is doubtful because the Assam Rifles post was set up at Maja, corroborated by numerous sources. So I am removing the claim. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 23:26, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Unresolved questions on the Longju incident

There are still a few issues that aren't clear:

1. Nehru's statement also says "8 riflemen" managed to escape. Given that there were 11 riflemen, of whom one was killed and one injured, there was only one other left in custody? There is no information about what happened to the body of the one killed, the injured rifleman and the NCO. Is it clear that they "escaped", rather than let off?
2. The page currently says the Longju men withdrew to Daporijo. But the base was at Limeking, along the way. So wer they given orders to retire to Daporijo?
3. If they did go off to Daporijo, it must have been a different contingent that set up a post at Majha. But why Majha? The map-drawn McMahon Line clearly included Luowa/Lowa in India.

-- Kautilya3 (talk) 13:54, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Withdrawn or not?

I am not confident any more that the Chinese actually withdrew from Longju. Please share what evidence there is for or against. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 14:34, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Patrolled or not?

The lead says that the Indian foces continued to patrol to Longju till the 1962 war. But there are various statements made by the Indian government in the White Papers that they did not go to Longju. There is an intriguing statement in the Indian official history:

Considering the enemy's threat on the border, ban on occupation of Longju, which was imposed in August 1959, was removed by the Army Headquarters on 16 November 1962.

Obviously "1962" is a typo because it was in the midst of the war. Did they mean 1961, or 1960? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 14:45, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Shiv Kunal Verma

So Verma writes:

For the first time the Prime Minister admitted to the people of India that serious disputes existed between China and India regarding the India Tibet border and that several thousand square kilometers of Indian territory in Ladakh was under Chinese control. He then disclosed the fact that the Chinese had built a highway across the Aksai Chin adding that the government had thought it fit not to make the disputes public as that would have made their settlement even more difficult. He then went on to talk of Khinzemane [...] and then finally talked of Longju where he said that even as he spoke the problem had yet to be resolved.

I see this as a distortion of Nehru's statement. He never mentioned any "square kilometers". He didn't use terms such as "serious disputes".

In contrast Steven Hoffmann explains:

Nehru took considerable care to define in public precisely those Chinese actions he considered harmful to Indian goals and possessions, as well as the actions he did not consider harmful. Intrusions and border incidents, he pointed out in response to hard parliamentary questioning, did not mean "any kind of a fixed occupation" of Indian territory. He sharply distinguished between incidents along the McMahon line, which he labeled a "clear case Of aggression," and the situation in Ladakh, where he seemed ready to concede that there might be some bona fide disagreement over title to the Aksai Chin. He urged restraint on feelings of injury by government officials and members of parliament alike, and he mentioned the emotional control that he himself was exercising when reacting to all the current difculties.

Srinath Raghavan is even more circumspect:

In keeping with his policy of not publicizing these issues, Nehru was evasive. Queried about the road through Aksai Chin, he conceded that China had built a road but said that though Indian maps showed the area within their territory the boundary was not clear. He distinguished between the McMahon Line and the boundary in Ladakh, which was not defined: “Nobody had marked it.” It was an issue for discussion between the two sides.

One is sensationalism. The other is careful analysis. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 09:45, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

References

Sources

• Hoffmann, Steven A. (1990), India and the China Crisis, University of California Press, ISBN 978-0-520-06537-6
• Raghavan, Srinath (2010), War and Peace in Modern India, Palgrave Macmillan, ISBN 978-1-137-00737-7
• Verma, Shiv Kumar, 1962: The War that Was't