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McMahon Line Wikipedia

image:Mcmohan Line.jpg|right|400px
The McMahon Line, originally created by the British during the colonial period, provides the basis for the eastern sector of the Line of Actual Control between the People's Republic of China and India, running from the border of Bhutan in the west to Myanmar in the east. It is regarded by India as a permanent national border, but is not recognized by China as anything more than a temporary line of control. China claims most of the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, which lies to the south of this line. Currently the two armies are posted on the two sides of the Line of Actual Control.

The two sides also disagree over the position of the line itself. The Sumdorong Chu valley, at the westernmost point of the line, is claimed by both sides to lie within their zone of control.

The McMahon Line was originally drawn up by Britain as the frontier between British India and Tibet during the Simla Conference of 1914, as Britain sought to advance its line of control and establish buffer zones around its colony in South Asia. The conference took part between Tibet, Britain, and China, which was acknowledged to have suzerainty over Tibet. The Tibetan and British representatives at the conference agreed to the line, which ceded Tawang and other Tibetan areas to British India; however the Chinese representative refused to accept the line owing to domestic pressures.

The Chinese position is that since China was suzerain over Tibet, the line was invalid without Chinese agreement. As a result, China has not accepted the validity of the McMahon Line, and even after the independence of India and the establishment of the PRC in the late 1940s, the issue of the border was never fully resolved. This border was disputed in the Sino-Indian War of 1962 and the Chinese forces advanced far beyond this frontier, though they later retreated back to it at the end of the war (either voluntarily as a gesture of goodwill, or due to overstretched supply lines, according to interpretation).

Category:Geography of China
Category:History of China
Category:Geography of India
Category:Borders
Category:History of India
fr:Ligne Mac-Mahon
zh:麦克马洪线

Last Modified:   2005-11-04