The border India calls fiction

Nothing complicates a love triangle quite like two of your exes casually drawing strict boundaries behind your back. Just ask Ben Affleck.

You might also now ask India, given the big ‘Boundary Joint Commission’ that rivals China and Pakistan just formalised: the idea is to help Beijing and Islamabad manage their shared ~560km (350mi) border high up in the Himalayas. 

Sounds good, right? Choosing diplomacy to manage borders? Chef’s kiss.

But here’s the twist: according to India, “there is no boundary between Pakistan and China”!

And for that to make sense, you need to join us back in 1963, when JFK died, the Beatles debuted, and Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space.

It’s also when Pakistan and China signed their original Himalayan border agreement, provoking the original outrage in India: Delhi says Pakistan gave away India’s land in exchange for China backing Pakistan’s position over disputed Kashmir! For its part, Pakistan has always denied it gave up any territory under its control.

We’re not just talking about a few football fields here, btw, but Kashmir’s strategic 5,000 km² (1930mi² ) Shaksgam Valley, roughly the size of Bali.

Plus this land fight didn’t start in 1963, of course. In fact, it’s been raging since 1947, when India and Pakistan had their bloody break-up into today’s two countries.

Okay, so another contested border, what’s so special about this one?

First, timing. Regional giants China and India have spent the last six years trying to unfreeze ties after their 2020 border skirmishes, which saw troops — honouring a mutual ban on firearms — instead beat one another to death and shove foes off cliffs!

So they just shook hands at BRICS, where “the two leaders expressed commitment to a fair, reasonable, and mutually acceptable resolution of the boundary question”. Then immediately formalise a line Delhi insists doesn’t exist? Not subtle.

Second, strategy. This is not some random valley, but part of the front door for China’s entire $62B ‘China-Pakistan Economic Corridor’ connecting to the Arabian Sea — intended to dilute China’s energy reliance on Malacca, while encircling India.

Then third, there’s also just raw geography: by controlling Shaksgam, China now overlooks India’s most exposed Himalayan garrison on the Siachen Glacier.

So you can see how such a snooze-inducing new commission is not actually just routine border maintenance, but a pretty deliberate effort by India’s top rivals China and Pakistan to cement and legitimise China’s valley chokehold after 60+ years.