Why pakistan ceded to china

The inhabitants of these areas recognised the feudatory role of the Mir of Hunza. The Chinese claim, nonetheless, that Hunza became a tributary of the Chinese empire in the twenty-fifth year of the reign of Qing emperor Qian Long in A.

This self-serving interpretation was a common Chinese practice regarding states on its periphery with which it exchanged gifts. Except for a short period between and , when Yakub Beg ruled a part of Turkestan, the Mir of Hunza exercised control over Taghdumbash and Raskam areas.

During this time, an agreement was also signed with the help of the Chinese Taotai at Kashgar, laying down the northern limits of Hunza that included the Taghdumbash Pamir and the Raskam Valley areas. By then, Hunza had actually become a vassal of Kashmir. In , the Mir had recognised the feudatory overlordship of the Maharaja of Kashmir and had started paying tribute to him.

In , when the Mir of Hunza revolted, the British assisted the Maharaja in defeating the Mir and re-establishing suzerainty over Hunza. The Mir sought refuge in Yarkand in Xinjiang and quietly submitted himself to the Chinese authority in the hope of getting external patronage. During this period, the fear of a Russian advance over the Pamirs and into British India had started worrying the British authorities.

Their familiar strategy of establishing buffers led them, both directly and indirectly, to invite the Chinese into these areas lying between the Kun Lun and Karakoram mountain ranges. Spotting an opportunity, the Chinese began to step in and the British obliged them by disregarding their gradual physical assertions in the territory along the Taghdumbash Pamirs, which rightfully belonged to the Mir of Hunza, and by consequence of his vassal status, to the Maharaja of Kashmir.

Interestingly, the strategic inputs from Elias and Younghusband during the late s and early s also attest to this, though British policy then was to downplay any facts that might antagonise China and push it into the arms of the Russians.

Quite predictably, the Chinese were encouraged by the British position. In October , the Chinese showed up at the Karakoram Pass to set up a border pillar. At the instance of the self-exiled Mir, the Chinese were further emboldened to lay fictitious claims to Hunza. Between and , the strategic contours of the region changed in such a manner that the Russians too encouraged the Chinese to establish their control over the region and develop it as a buffer. Thus, a memorandum sent by Maharaja of Kashmir with convincing evidence of his claims to Shahidullah on March 16, was ignored, despite the fact that his administration had erected structures about thirty years earlier in the Shahidullah area, which had passed off as a cantonment.

The British Resident at the Kashmir court argued on the contrary that the area was inhabited traditionally by the Kyrgyz who were now paying tribute to the Chinese and it would not be wise for the British to raise this issue. Thus, strategic British lapse as well as active Russian encouragement 16 emboldened the Chinese to assert their claims in the form of active patrolling by in the area traditionally claimed by Hunza, and even to the extent of brazenly staking their claims over Hunza itself.

The Chinese were thus allowed to assert that the southern limit of the Yarkand territory was the main Karakoram Range and not the Kun Lun as was traditionally the case. Such self-deceiving arguments led the British finally to propose, through soldier-diplomat Claude Macdonald 21 , a line that offered to give away areas lying north of the Mustagh-Karakoram range in return for China relinquishing its shadowy claims over Hunza.

Thus, progressively, the genuine historical claims of the Mir of Hunza over the Taghdumbash area were relinquished. Article 6 of the agreement envisages its revision after the conclusion of the Kashmir settlement. However, this is arid legality for India has repeatedly offered a settlement of Kashmir on the basis of the status quo.

We must deal with the merits of the Sino-Pak agreement. In internal debates in India two lines were suggested; one was the Karakoram boundary and the other was the Kuen Lun boundary to the north.

The viceroy Lord Elgin sent a dispatch to the secretary of state for India, Lord Hamilton, on Oct 27, defining the line to be offered to China. The line included two tracts beyond the watershed. On March 14, Britain's ambassador Sir Claude MacDonald gave a note to China's foreign office, offering a precise boundary line to China as a basis for a settlement.

Matters were brought to a head by the viceroy, Lord Curzon, in a dispatch to the secretary of state for India John Brodrick on March 24, Curzon reminded him that the March 14, note on the boundary proposal had not been answered to China. The people of Shimshal depended for their grazing almost entirely on the valley between the Shimshal Pass and Darwaza. Curzon also sent to Brodrick, on Aug 10, , a map indicating both the and the lines.

He recommended and ex plained the difference between the two. In when the question of which line to show on the maps arose, the secretary of state for India's cable of Aug 1, to the viceroy gave clear orders.

Next post ». Latest Updates. Classroom Super 50 batch starting on 15th July. Shaksgam Valley lies to the north-west of Siachen glacier, north of Baltistan, east of Gilgit and south of Chinese province of Xinjiang. Towards its south is the Karakoram range and to the north is Kunlun mountain range, and as such Shaksgam is surrounded by some of the highest mountains in the world.