INDO CHINESE DISPUTE

Story so far :-
1914, the British and Tibetans signed an agreement defining the eastern border through the MCMahon Line. The Chinese representative initiatted the agreement but did not sign.
February 1951, Maj. Bob Khating took over Tawang, the most important town in the then North-East Frontier Agency, now Arunachal Pradesh. China did not protest.
1954, Indian Maps showed Aksai Chin border as "undefined". Thereafter, India unilaterally changed its maps, claimed the area.
1956, China built a road in the region without India's knowledge and consolidated itself there. Staked claim only in 1958.
1960, 1981, a swap of claims was proposed, but the Chinese have maintained their claim to the Tawang tract, till the Se La Pass.
China is keen to retain a major portion of the Aksai-Chin region it already controls because the road linking Xinjiang with Tibet runs through it, India wants to hold on to the Tawang tract because there is a settled population of Indian nationals residing there.
The border between India and China is currently defined by a 4,056 km Line of Actual Control (LAC) which is neither marked on the ground nor on mutually acceptable maps. Efforts to have a recognized LAC since the mid 1980s through a joint working group (JWG) of officials and experts have made little headway.
China is still holding a large chunk of territory in Kashmir, 38000 sqkm (14,670 sqmiles) of Aksai Chin which it seized after the 1962 blatant invasion, and claims more .
Another 5, 180 sqkm (2000 sqmiles) of northern Kashmir was given by Pakistan to Beijing as price for an all weather friendship pact signed in 1963.
China had already built a road through Aksai Chin linking Tibet with its Xinjiang province before it laid an aggressive claim on it. Now it seeks a political solution, not a technical one, to the border problem. In other words, since Aksai Chin highway helps China to maintain control over the region, it is politically more important to China than to India.
The key guiding principles to be approved include one of not disturbing "settled populations" and the need to take into account each other's security concerns, including related logistical arrangements. A preliminary under standing of these principles applied along the existing Line of Actual Control (LAC) could persuade China to give up its claim to most of the Tawang tract, and India to do the same with a significant portion of Aksai Chin. These are the two most contentious areas on the disputed 4,056 km Indo-China border.
These parameters and guidelines have been the subject of intense behind the scenes negotiations since the June 2003 visit of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to Beijing.
It was during this visit that the two sides decided that their tangled border, currently marked only by an LAC, could only be resolved through political intervention and not through endless negotiations on claims and counter-claims.
Hindustan Times, 26 March 2005