The short war waged in the autumn of 1962 between India and China for disputed territory in High Himalayas had a long-term devasting effect on the relations between the two Asian powers. The present first part of a study recapitulating the genesis of the dispute and subsequent road to military confrontation maps the origins of the problem in the colonial period of Indian history, with particular focus on changes in British cdecision making in the evolving international context. The one-sided furthering of territorial claims in the absence of a strong and determined adversary led, paradoxically, to parallel exdistence of several alternative frontier lines with no fixed and clearly demarcated border in existence along the extended Indo-Tibetan boundary. The second instalment will follow the developments in the dramatically changed conditions after the emergence in the 1950s of India and China as two strong independent nations., Jaroslav Strnad., and Obsahuje bibliografii
The new power configuration that emerged in the regions of South and East Asia in the wake of World War II and the following decolonization process introduced new players to the game of international politics; the roles played by them were orten inherited from the actors of the previous era. it was the general framework of the bipolar world system and the Cold War that represented a new element in traditional rivalries, and which had the capacity to exacerbate problems that had previously lain dormant. The genesis and escalation of the India-china border dispute, interconnected with the status of Tibet, which was viewed by China as part of her own territory and contemplated by India as a semi-independent buffer state, serves as a classic example. On the Indian side, the problem was further aggravated by the inability of the government to coordinate and fully control the activities of its iontelligence. The article follows the gradual development of the ambiguous approach of Indian foreign policy toward its northern neighbour and the silent Indian acquiescence of the involvement of the United States in the Tibetan issue up to the first bloody border clashes in 1959., Jaroslav Strnad., and Obsahuje bibliografii