Longju
Longju or Longzu is a disputed area
in the eastern sector of the China–India border, controlled by China but claimed by India. The village of Longju is located in the Tsari Chu Valley south of the town of Migyitun, considered the historical border of Tibet. The area of Longju southwards is populated by the Tagin tribe of Arunachal Pradesh.
India had set up a border post manned by Assam Rifles at Longju in 1959 when it was attacked by Chinese border troops and forced to withdraw. After discussion, the two sides agreed to leave the post unoccupied. India established a new post at Maja,
three miles to the south of Longju,
but continued to patrol up to Longju.
After the 1962 Sino-Indian War, the Chinese reoccupied Longju and brushed off Indian protests.
Since the late 1990s and early 2000s, China has expanded further south, establishing a battalion post at erstwhile Maja.
In 2020, China built a 100-house civilian village close to this location in disputed territory.
Location
Longju issouth of the Tibetan frontier town of Migyitun, along the Tsari Chu river valley. The area was historically populated by the Mara clan of the Tagin tribe of Arunachal Pradesh. The border between Tibet and tribal territory was at the Mandala Plain just outside the town of Migyitun.
There was a crossing on the river from its left bank to the right bank near Longju, which was needed to enter the tribal territory from the Tibetan side. When Bailey and Morshead visited the area in 1905, they found the bridge broken. The Tibetans were unable to repair it because it was built using tribal materials and techniques. Evidently, the Tibetan authority stopped at Migyitun.
On 28 August 1959, the Indian Prime Minister Nehru explained to the parliament that Longju was a five days march from Limeking which in turn was a 12 days march from the nearest road at Daporijo, a total of about three weeks. At the time the route passed through dense forests and consisted of indigenously built "ladder climbs" and bridges.
Administratively, for China, Longju is located in Shannan, Tibet, while for India, it is located in the Upper Subansiri district.
History
McMahon Line
During the negotiations for the McMahon Line in 1914, the British Indian negotiators were cognizant of the fact that Migyitun was Tibetan and also that the neighbouring Dakpa Sheri mountain was regarded by them as a holy mountain. Taking these factors into account, they promised that the border would be drawn short of the high ridge line and avoid including the annual pilgrimage route in Indian territory as far as practicable.These arrangements were confirmed in the notes exchanged between McMahon and Lonchen Shatra and the border line was drawn accordingly. The line avoided both the north–south ridge line and the east–west ridge line and cut across the region along a rough diagonal. A suitable buffer south of Migyitun was included within Tibet, but not so much as to include the confluence of the Mipa Chu river with Tsari Chu. McMahon believed that there was a "wide continuous tract of uninhabited country" along the south of the watershed.
As per the US Office of Geographer's "Large-Scale International Boundaries" database, the McMahon Line of the treaty puts Longju in Tibetan territory.
1930s
For various diplomatic reasons, the McMahon Line remained unimplemented for a couple of decades. It was revived in the 1930s by Olaf Caroe, then Deputy Foreign Secretary of British India. The notes exchanged between McMahon and Lonchen Shatra were published in a revised volume of Aitchison's Treaties and maps were revised to show the McMahon Line as the boundary of Assam. The Surveyor General of India made adjustments to the McMahon Line boundary "based on more accurate topographical knowledge acquired after 1914". However, he left certain portions approximate as he did not have enough information. Scholar Steven Hoffmann remarks that Migyitun, Longju and Thagla Ridge were among such places.The maps drawn from 1937 onwards show the boundary tend more towards the watershed near Migyitun than the original treaty map. The Dakpa Sheri mountain and the annual pilgrimage route are still shown entirely within Tibetan territory. But, at Migyitun, the border is immediately to its south, evidently putting Longju within Indian territory. This is the correct ethnic frontier, according to scholar Toni Huber.
1950s
After India became independent in 1947, it slowly extended its administration to all the remaining areas of the North-East Frontier. The Subansiri area was renamed Subansiri Frontier Division and officers were posted to remote areas. Schools and medical centres were opened. Verrier Elwin, an authority on Indian tribal communities, stated "Wars, kidnappings, and cruel punishments... have come to an end".In 1950, Tibet came under Chinese control but, at least initially, this made little difference to the relations between the Tibetans and Tagin tribes. In 1956, the Tibetans conducted the long pilgrimage of the Dakpa Sheri mountain called Ringkor as per their 12-year cycle. The procession went through the tribal territory. It passed without any incidents from the tribals. The Tibetans paid them the usual 'tribute' to let the procession pass unmolested but also armed Indian border troops were stationed in the Tsari Chu valley south of the Mandala Plain.
Scholar Toni Huber reports that there was a 'foreign presence' in Tsari in terms of several small Chinese medical teams sent by Chinese administrators in Lhasa. The medical teams set up camp in the Mandala Plain and other locations on the Tibetan side of the border. They treated any assembled pilgrims who were sick and dispensed medicines. After the procession departed, they left. Tibetans later suspected that these innocent medical teams represented reconnaissance teams sent in advance of the later Chinese encroachments in the border area in 1959.
By the beginning of 1958, China had completed the Aksai Chin Road and obtained the capacity for large-scale troop movement into Tibet. In March 1959, an uprising erupted in Tibet, and troops moved in to quell it. The PLA was deployed along the McMahon Line, and four regiments were deployed in the Shannan region bordering Subansiri and Kameng Divisions.
In response, India set up advance posts manned by Assam Rifles along the border. The two places where the map-drawn McMahon Line differed from the prevailing ethnic frontier, the Khinzemane post along the Nyamjang Chu Valley and Longju in the Tsari Chu valley, came in for contestation. The Chinese suppression of the Tibetan uprising and India's decision to grant asylum to the Dalai Lama inflamed the public opinion on both sides.
Longju incident
On 23 June 1959, China handed a protest note to the Indian embassy in Beijing, alleging that hundreds of Indian troops had intruded into and occupied Migyitun. Migyitun was said to have been "shelled" and the Indian troops were alleged to be working in collusion with "Tibetan rebel bandits". The Indian government denied that any such actions took place. There is no record of any Tibetan armed resistance operating in the Migyitun area. Evidently, the Chinese were highlighting the discrepancy between the map-marked McMahon Line and the Indian-claimed border.On 7 August, Chinese forces initiated hostilities at Khinzemane as well as Longju, pushing back the Indian post at the former and "actual fighting" at the latter. Reports state that a Chinese force of two to three hundred men was used to drive out the Indian border troops from Longju. On 25 August, they surrounded a forward picket consisting of 12 personnel,
and fired upon it killing one and wounding another. The rest were taken prisoner although some escaped. The following day, the Longju post itself was attacked with an overwhelming force. After some fighting, the entire Longju contingent withdrew to Daporijo. Chinese troops began to entrench themselves at the Indian Longju post, digging mines and building airfields, demarcating it as their territory.
When the Indian government protested about the incident, the Chinese replied that it was the Indian troops that opened fire and later "withdrew... on their own accord". They also said that Longju was in Tibetan territory according to the McMahon Line.
Aftermath
The Indian media reported the 25 August attack on Longju on 28 August 1959. Nehru faced questions in the parliament on the same day. He revealed that serious border incidents occurred between India and China along the Tibet border. Nehru went on to reference four cases: Aksai Chin Road, Pangong Lake area, Khinzemane and Longju. He also announced that the border would be the responsibility of the military from then onwards.The Longju incident came while numerous questions were already being raised in India based on leaks and news reports.To stem the "tide of criticism", Nehru decided to publish the entire correspondence with the Chinese government as a "white paper". The first of these appeared on 7 September. In due course, the white papers would severely restrict Nehru's room for diplomatic manoeuvre.
On 8 September, Nehru received a reply from the Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai to his letter from March 1959 inquiring about the Chinese maps claiming Indian territory. Until that point, Zhou had been claiming that the PRC was just reprinting old Kuomintang maps and had not had the time to examine the boundaries. In the letter, Zhou stated that the maps were "substantially correct", thereby laying claim to the entire state of Arunachal Pradesh as well as Aksai Chin.
In the same letter, Zhou also proposed that border differences should be settled through negotiations and that the "status quo" should be maintained until such settlement.
Nehru accepted the proposal in his response. He indicated that the Indian forces would withdraw from Tamaden—another location where the McMahon Line was contested—and invited Zhou to do the same at Longju, while reassuring him that the Indian forces would not reoccupy it. The Chinese forces are said to have subsequently withdrawn from the Indian post at Longju, but remained in force at Migyitun.
On 2 October 1959, a discussion took place between Soviet and Chinese delegations in which Khrushchev asked Mao "Why did you have to kill people on the border with India?" to which Mao replied that India attacked first. Zhou Enlai, also present at the discussion then asked Khrushchev "What data do you trust more, Indian or ours?" Khrushchev replied that there were no deaths among the Chinese and only among the Hindus.