What if Pakistan made an opportunistic attack/landgrab during Sino-Indian War

If Pakistan sucker punched India while Sino-Indian war of 62 was going on, what's in map could occur

  • Yes

    Votes: 6 22.2%
  • No

    Votes: 14 51.9%
  • Yes for Kashmir, but no for northeast India

    Votes: 7 25.9%

  • Total voters
    27

raharris1973

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Could the PRC increase its territorial gains (gaining the Northeast Frontier Agency, aka Arunachal Pradesh aka South Tibet) and could the Pakistanis make gains in Kashmir and northeastern India. And Sikkim becomes an independent buffer state like Bhutan.

As shown in map:

asia_east_pol_2004 - counterfactual-sml.jpg


Why or why not would such territorial outcome be plausible?
 

raharris1973

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Okay, I see the votes are three to one against the map.

What do you see as the implausible parts - Sikkim independence, Chinese gain of NEFA/Arunachal Pradesh/South Tibet, East Pakistan's gain of Assam and tribal areas (would add non-Muslims, but I don't know proportionately how many because of the population density in Bangladesh), Pakistani victory in Kashmir or all three elements?

Is the ability of Pakistan to join the fray and injure India at this time being questioned?
 
All three elements. The Sino-Indian war was barely more than two scouting missions fighting in a brief skirmish. The Chinese had come supplied and prepared while our troops had not. The little border flare in no way hampers India's ability to defend against Pakistan. It would be a repeat of the 1965 war, that is, a stalemate.
China in this time period had no supply routes or established highways that went to Aksai Chin or Arunachal Pradesh, they would not be able to send more men than the few thousand they already had and neither could India really. The PRC air force is inferior (read: barely existing) at that time and their navy is totally outclassed meaning it would just be a brief border war against the Chinese, Pakistani attack or no. China had no way at that time to escalate the conflict and Pakistan had no way to actually beat India.
 
No. A fully independent Sikkim and the "South Tibet" claim being ended in favour of China is possible, but Pakistan grabbing the Seven Sisters is totally implausible.

As for Jammu and Kashmir, I can see Pakistan occupying Kashmir proper if everything (and I mean everything) goes right for them, but occupying the Jammu or Ladakh divisions is impossible - I'm not even sure if the Pakistani leadership would want to rule over Hindu-majority Jammu or Buddhist-majority Ladakh.
 

raharris1973

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Umm, but didn't the Chinese actually occupy Arunachal Pradesh when the fighting stopped? Only to unilaterally give it up? Also, I've read the Indians were panicking about the northeast, the RAW direct saying he should resign and lead the guerrilla resistance in Assam and the tribal agencies, implying that he did not think resistance above a guerrilla level could last in the northeast.

I'm going to disagree on Aksai Chin - the Chinese occupied it precisely *because* they built a highway there in the late 1950s, to connect Xinjiang and Tibet. Now it may not have had much capacity to support anything more than it was doing, so maybe no further advances into Ladakh could be supported, but there was a road in Aksai Chin.

Fair enough on Pakistan not being able to make headway in Kashmir.
 
I think if China and Pakistan collaborated and prosecuted an actual war, and if both states had Western backing while the Soviets looked the other way, it could definitely happen. But the OTL war wasn't significant enough.
 

raharris1973

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No. A fully independent Sikkim and the "South Tibet" claim being ended in favour of China is possible, but Pakistan grabbing the Seven Sisters is totally implausible.

As for Jammu and Kashmir, I can see Pakistan occupying Kashmir proper if everything (and I mean everything) goes right for them, but occupying the Jammu or Ladakh divisions is impossible - I'm not even sure if the Pakistani leadership would want to rule over Hindu-majority Jammu or Buddhist-majority Ladakh.


That's still a big ole ass-whupping for India, several times worse than OTL's humiliation. I wonder if New Delhi could be truly compelled to accept a ceasefire on those lines, or if it would feel it has to delay ceasefire to give other desperate counterattacks a try.

Internationally, could this stretch out the timeline of the war so that it's still going on once the Cuban Missile Crisis is completely done? I wonder if Kennedy and Nehru, or Khrushchev and Nehru, would feel compelled to ally to at least restore "South Tibet", and the pre-war de facto territorial status quo, to India.
 
I think if China and Pakistan collaborated and prosecuted an actual war, and if both states had Western backing while the Soviets looked the other way, it could definitely happen. But the OTL war wasn't significant enough.

And with Western thought being divided on whether to support India or Pakistan (Nehru liked the US very much, for instance), I can't see the West back China and Pakistan so openly.
 

Ak-84

Banned
Pakistan in 1962 sees the PRC as at best a hostile power and at worst a threat. They actually suggested a joint defense pact with India against the PRC sometime in 1959-1960.
 
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