The Johnson Line
Map of
Central Asia (1878) showing
Khotan (near top right corner). The previous border claimed by the
British Indian Empire is shown in the two-toned purple and pink band with
Shahidulla and the Kilik, Kilian and Sanju Passes clearly north of the border.
William Johnson, a civil servant with the
Survey of India proposed the "Johnson Line" in 1865, which put Aksai Chin in Kashmir.
[13] This was the time of the
Dungan revolt, when China did not control most of
Xinjiang, so this line was never presented to the Chinese.
[13] Johnson presented this line to the Maharaja of Kashmir, who then claimed the 18,000 square kilometres contained within,
[13] and by some accounts territory further north as far as the
Sanju Pass in the
Kun Lun Mountains. Johnson's work was severely criticized for gross inaccuracies, with description of his boundary as "patently absurd".
[14] Johnson was reprimanded by the British Government and resigned from the Survey.
[13][14][15] The Maharajah of Kashmir constructed a fort at Shahidulla (modern-day
Xaidulla), and had troops stationed there for some years to protect caravans.
[16] Eventually, most sources placed Shahidulla and the upper
Karakash River firmly within the territory of Xinjiang (see accompanying map). According to
Francis Younghusband, who explored the region in the late 1880s, there was only an abandoned fort and not one inhabited house at Shahidulla when he was there - it was just a convenient staging post and a convenient headquarters for the nomadic
Kirghiz.
[17] The abandoned fort had apparently been built a few years earlier by the Kashmiris.
[18] In 1878 the Chinese had
reconquered Xinjiang, and by 1890 they already had Shahidulla before the issue was decided.
[13] By 1892, China had erected boundary markers at
Karakoram Pass.
[14]
In 1897 a British military officer, Sir John Ardagh, proposed a boundary line along the crest of the
Kun Lun Mountains north of the
Yarkand River.
[16] At the time Britain was concerned at the danger of Russian expansion as China weakened, and Ardagh argued that his line was more defensible. The Ardagh line was effectively a modification of the Johnson line, and became known as the "Johnson-Ardagh Line".
The Macartney–Macdonald Line
Main article:
Macartney–MacDonald Line
The map given by Hung Ta-chen to the British consul at Kashgar in 1893. The boundary, marked with a thin dot-dashed line, matches the Johnson line
[19]p. 73, 78
In 1893, Hung Ta-chen, a senior Chinese official at
St. Petersburg, gave maps of the region to
George Macartney, the British consul general at Kashgar, which coincided in broad details.
[19]p. 73, 78 In 1899, Britain proposed a revised boundary, initially suggested by Macartney and developed by the Governor General of India
Lord Elgin. This boundary placed the Lingzi Tang plains, which are south of the Laktsang range, in India, and Aksai Chin proper, which is north of the Laktsang range, in China. This border, along the
Karakoram Mountains, was proposed and supported by British officials for a number of reasons. The Karakoram Mountains formed a natural boundary, which would set the British borders up to the
Indus River watershed while leaving the
Tarim River watershed in Chinese control, and Chinese control of this tract would present a further obstacle to Russian advance in Central Asia.
[15] The British presented this line, known as the
Macartney–MacDonald Line, to the Chinese in 1899 in a note by Sir
Claude MacDonald. The Qing government did not respond to the note, and the British took that as Chinese acquiescence.
[13] Although no official boundary had ever been negotiated, China believed that this had been the accepted boundary.
[2][20]
1899 to 1947
Both the Johnson-Ardagh and the Macartney-MacDonald lines were used on British maps of India.
[13] Until at least 1908, the British took the Macdonald line to be the boundary,
[21] but in 1911, the
Xinhai Revolution resulted in the collapse of central power in China, and by the end of
World War I, the British officially used the Johnson Line. However they took no steps to establish outposts or assert actual control on the ground.
[14] In 1927, the line was adjusted again as the government of British India abandoned the Johnson line in favor of a line along the Karakoram range further south.
[14] However, the maps were not updated and still showed the Johnson Line.
[14]
Postal Map of China published by the Government of China in 1917. The boundary in Aksai Chin is as per the Johnson line.
From 1917 to 1933, the
Postal Atlas of China, published by the Government of China in Peking had shown the boundary in Aksai Chin as per the Johnson line, which runs along the
Kunlun mountains.
[19][20] The
Peking University Atlas, published in 1925, also put the Aksai Chin in India.
[22] When British officials learned of Soviet officials surveying the Aksai Chin for
Sheng Shicai, warlord of
Xinjiang in 1940-1941, they again advocated the Johnson Line.
[13]At this point the British had still made no attempts to establish outposts or control over the Aksai Chin, nor was the issue ever discussed with the governments of China or Tibet, and the boundary remained undemarcated at India's independence.
[13][14]
Since 1947