Posts tagged ‘Himalayas’

14/04/2013

* China Makes Inroads in Nepal, Stemming Tibetan Presence

NY Times: “The wind-scoured desert valley here, just south of Tibet, was once a famed transit point for the Tibetan yak caravans laden with salt that lumbered over the icy ramparts of the Himalayas. In the 1960s, it became a base for Tibetan guerrillas trained by the C.I.A. to attack Chinese troops occupying their homeland.

Prayer wheels at a temple in the Mustang area of Nepal. The Chinese are trying to restrain the flow of disaffected Tibetans fleeing to Nepal and to enlist the help of the Nepalese authorities.

These days, it is the Chinese who are showing up in this far tip of the Buddhist kingdom of Mustang, northwest of Katmandu, Nepal. Chinese officials are seeking to stem the flow of disaffected Tibetans fleeing to Nepal and to enlist the help of the Nepalese authorities in cracking down on the political activities of the 20,000 Tibetans already here.

China is exerting its influence across Nepal in a variety of ways, mostly involving financial incentives. In Mustang, China is providing $50,000 in annual food aid and sending military officials across the border to discuss with local Nepalese what the ceremonial prince of Mustang calls “border security.”

Their efforts across the country have borne fruit. The Nepalese police regularly detain Tibetans during anti-China protests in Katmandu, and they have even curbed celebrations of the birthday of the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader, according to Tibetans living in Nepal.

via China Makes Inroads in Nepal, Stemming Tibetan Presence – NYTimes.com.

29/07/2012

* Thirsty South Asia’s river rifts threaten “water wars”

WSJ: “As the silver waters of the Kishanganga rush through this north Kashmir valley, Indian labourers are hard at work on a hydropower project that will dam the river just before it flows across one of the world’s most militarised borders into Pakistan.

The loud hum of excavators echoes through the pine-covered valley, clearing masses of soil and boulders.

The 330-MW dam shows India’s growing focus on hydropower but also highlights how water is a growing source of tension with downstream Pakistan, which depends on the snow-fed Himalayan rivers for everything from drinking water to agriculture.

Islamabad has complained to an international court that the dam in the Gurez valley, one of dozens planned by India, will affect river flows and is illegal. The court has halted any permanent work on the river for the moment, although India can still continue tunneling and other associated projects.

In the years since their partition from British India in 1947, land disputes have led the two nuclear-armed neighbours to two of their three wars. The next flashpoint could well be water.

“There is definitely potential for conflict based on water, particularly if we are looking to the year 2050, when there could be considerable water scarcity in India and Pakistan,” says Michael Kugelman, South Asia Associate at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington.”

via India Insight

06/03/2012

* China, India hold border talks, pledge to safeguard peace

Extracted from Xinhua: “China and India concluded a border meeting in Beijing on Tuesday with a joint pledge to safeguard peace and tranquility along their border, according to a Chinese Foreign Ministry statement released Tuesday.

This was the first meeting on the bilateral working mechanism for consultation and coordination over border affairs, which was launched in January this year. …

Both sides agreed to further enhance communication, trust and cooperation in accordance with the consensus reached by the two countries’ leaders, and to give full play to the role of the working mechanism, said the statement. They agreed to hold the next meeting for the working mechanism in India. …

China and India share a 2,000-km-long border that has never been formally delineated. The two countries began to discuss border issues in the 1980s. To maintain peace and stability in their border areas, the two sides signed two agreements in 1993 and 1996, respectively. In 2005, the two countries signed a political guideline on border demarcation during Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao‘s visit to India.”

via China, India hold border talks, pledge to safeguard peace – Xinhua | English.news.cn.

The Indo-Chinese border was unilaterally set under British Raj by Surveyor MacMohan. Although agreed by the Tibetan authorities, it was not ratified by the Manchu or later Chinese government. It was the intransigence of India when other neighbours like Pakistan, Burma, Nepal were willing to re-negotiate, that caused China to invade India in the autumn of 1962 with tanks rolling over the Himalayas. Since then the border has still not been formally agreed.

China’s borders with Russia and Vietnam were settled after some military incidents.

These latest talks hold hope that India is finally seeing that the way forward is to negotiate and not stand on unilateral definitions set by the British.

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