However, before the 1962 border clash, Mao Zedong told his commanders that China and India had previously fought ‘One and a half wars’ and in both instances, India had been defeated convincingly. Nevertheless, there was no major war fought between the ruling Chinese dynasty and its contemporary power in India ever. Historian John Keay claims that the Himalayas have only been crossed once before 1962 by either of the armies and that too an insignificantly small incursion by the Chinese army into a remote corner of India. During this period, their armies had seldom crossed the Himalayas to challenge each other’s sovereignty or to annex a part of it.

Nevertheless, for more than 5000 years now, a great civilization has existed on both sides of Himalaya and have maintained some or other kind of cultural links, at least for the last 2000 years. Strategic affairs expert Brahma Chellaney says that China and India are ‘comparatively speaking, new neighbors’.

This has remained more or less unaltered for as far back as civilization goes, though it may not be right to view it as a buffer between India and China because Tibet, as an independent entity, has always been the actual buffer between India and China until the recent past. One of the most natural and identifiable buffer zones in the world is between that of India and Chin a in the form of the Himalayas.

Total war genghis khan