China swears by 1890 treaty with Britain: 

China swears by 1890 treaty with Britain

Context

Recently defence minister Ms. Nirmala Sitharaman’s had made first high-level visit to Nathu la post after the 73-day standoff at Dokalam which ended on August 28 following a mutual agreement.

Nathu La

Nathu La is a mountain pass in the Himalayas. It connects the Indian state of Sikkim with China’s Tibet Autonomous Region. The pass, at 4,310 m (14,140 ft) above mean sea level,forms a part of an offshoot of the ancient Silk Road. Nathu means “listening ears” and La means “pass” in Tibetan.On the Indian side, the pass is 54 km (34 mi) east of Gangtok, the capital of Sikkim. Only citizens of India can visit the pass, and then only after obtaining a permit in Gangtok.

Nathu La is one of the three open trading border posts between China and India; the others are Shipkila in Himachal Pradesh and Lipulekh (or Lipulech) at the trisection point of Uttarakhand–India, Nepal and China.

Sealed by India after the 1962 Sino-Indian War, Nathu La was re-opened in 2006 following numerous bilateral trade agreements. The opening of the pass shortens the travel distance to important Hindu and Buddhist pilgrimage sites in the region and was expected to bolster the economy of the region by playing a key role in the growing Sino-Indian trade. However, trade is limited to specific types of goods and to specific days of the week.

Nathu La is the last post separating the border between the Sikkim on the Indian side and Tibet on the Chinese side. Sitharaman’s trip was the first high-level visit to the area after the 73-day standoff between Indian and Chinese troops at Dokalam in the Sikkim sector of the border which ended on August 28 following a mutual agreement between India and China.

Of the 3,488-km India-China border which stretches from Jammu and Kashmir to Arunachal Pradesh, a 220-km section falls in Sikkim. The two

sides have so far held 19 rounds of Special Representatives’ talks to resolve the dispute

1890 U.K – China treaty

  • The treaty was signed in Calcutta on March 17, 1890.
  • Article I of the Treaty talks about the boundary of Sikkim and Tibet in physical detail. “The boundary of Sikkim and Tibet shall be the crest of the mountain range separating the waters flowing into the Sikkim Teesta and its affluents from the waters flowing into the Tibetan Mochu and northwards into other rivers of Tibet.”

China’s reaction

  • China referred to the 1890 U.K.-China treaty which it claims demarcated the Sikkim sector of the India-China border and urged India to abide by its provisions.
  • The Sikkim section of the China-India border has been demarcated by the historical boundary.
  • The 1890 Britain-China treaty which Beijing referred to during the Doklam standoff stating that as it had defined the Sikkim section of the boundary with Tibet, the border in that area had been settled.

Is it a valid treaty?

  • Nehru explicitly states in the letter that the 1890 treaty defined only the northern part of the Sikkim-Tibet border and not the tri-junction area that brings Bhutan into play.
  • Delhi has been unable to explain to the Indian public the background about the Chinese ‘trick’ regarding the 1890 Convention repeatedly quoted by the Chinese authorities.
  • The spokesperson of the Chinese ministry of foreign affairs in Beijing vociferously managed to convince many that it was a valid treaty.However, the fact that the main stakeholders, Tibet and Sikkim (and Bhutan for the trijunction), were not even consulted, made it an ‘Imperial Treaty’ with no validity (in any case, the survey of the trijunction was done several decades after the agreement was signed; so China can’t justify ‘fixing’ the trijunction by quoting this treaty).
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