McMohan line was accepted as a border between Tibet and North East India in 1914 Shimla convention. China was also invited in that convention because British India wanted to talk about Inner Tibet and Outer Tibet so that only Britain could have influence over inner Tibet (same set up like Inner and Outer Mongolia between Russia and China).
In 1914, Burma was part of British India. Burma was carved out of British Raj in 1937 and was made a separate colony. Some portion of Tibet also borders Burma (now known as Myanmar). So technically McMohan line is the border between China and Myanmar as well.
Image Source — South Asian Journal.
China by and large recognized existing border between Myanmar and China in 1960 (detailed demarcation was complete by 1967). This meant that China virtually accepted Burmese sector of the McMahon Line along the same alignment. There were minor adjustment of the border in which China gave 85 sq. miles to Burma and Burma gave 132 sq. miles to China. Cleverly China ratified McMohan line as “Burma — China boundary”. But they didn’t accept the border between Republic of India (successor of British India) and Tibet. Their logic was and is that this border (McMohan Line in East and Johnson Line in Aksai Chin) was a border between imperialist British India & China and they don’t accept any imperialistic border. But at the same time they have accepted the same so called imperialistic border between Myanmar and China. There were many reasons for this -
- China desperately wanted Aksai Chin as this provided link between Tibet and Xinjiang (China illegally and secretly constructed a road inside Indian border in 1950s) and there were no such important piece of land in Myanmar. Their offer to India was that they will accept McMohan line in East and India should accept their capture of Aksai Chin. Apart from minor exchange of land there was no such exchange issue between Myanmar & China.
- China wanted to show to the world that India is not interested to solve the border issue. Chinese PM arrived in Delhi for border talks from Yangon (the Rangoon and capital of Myanmar) after signing border treaty with Myanmar in 1960. China wanted to demonstrate that China was flexible for border talks (as it has solved border issue with Myanmar) and India was not flexible. This was a Chinese ploy to put pressure on India.
- At the end of Chinese civil war in 1950, thousands of Kuomintang (Republic of China) fighters crossed over to Myanmar and they reused to go to Formosa(Taiwan). They decided to stay and fight with Communists. So, it was necessary for Communist China to get help of Myanmar Govt. in fighting Nationalist (Kuomintang) forces. That’s why Communist leadership by and large accepted status quo. Later Nationalist forces withdrew from Myanmar under pressure of Communist China & Myanmar.
- India was (and is) a bigger country and Chinese suspected that India wanted an independent Tibet (In my opinion it was a wrong assumption as Indian Govt. had sacrificed independence of Tibet much earlier for pleasing Chinese communists). There was no such threat perception from Myanmar. So they didn’t accept McMohan line in India but accepted same line in Myanmar.
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