The nub of the problem is the Aksai Chin. Most of it, lying between the Karakoram and Kuenlun ranges, is a desolate plateau at 17,000 feet. Jawaharlal Nehru, to diminish its relevance as an issue, described it as a useless bit of land where not a blade of grass grows! An opposition member responded, not without wit, that the prime minister's head did not have a strand of hair on it. Did that make it useless?

The Chinese ``claims'' in the north-east have evolved more as a way of putting pressure on India for a settlement on the basis of thestatus quo. The real differences relate to the alignment of the boundary and not to an entire region. China first began to claim all of the NEFA, now Arunachal Pradesh, only in 1960.

Our situation on the Aksai Chin is the same as Pakistan's on Kashmir. The object of our desires is in the possession of someone else and will remain that way for the foreseeable future. The big difference of course is that Jammu and Kashmir involves almost 40 lakh people and affects our core values whereas the Aksai Chin is an uninhabited desert.

To get to the roots of the Aksai Chin dispute one needs to go back to 1842 when the Tibetans and the Dogra rulers of Jammu and Kashmir signed a non-aggression pact on respecting the ``old, established frontiers''. The boundary was not specified. Some believe both sides realised that though they were neighbours their territories were not contiguous. In 1847 the British delineated a boundary from the Spiti river up to the Pangong lake. The area further north up to the Karakoram Passwas left out.

The first boundary alignment here was recorded in 1865 when W. H. Johnson of the Survey of India trekked across the Aksai Chin and drew a map including this in Jammu and Kashmir. This pleased the Dogra ruler no end. Johnson was soon appointed Kashmir's commissioner in Ladakh.

It is ironic that the ambitions of a later Dogra ruler were to be cause of our problems in Kashmir. This is how the Aksai Chin came to be included in India on the Survey of India maps. But in 1873 the India Office in London prepared a map for the Foreign Office that showed the boundary from the Karakoram Pass to the Changchenmo valley running along the Karakoram range.

The Foreign Office came to be of the view that the border should be pushed further to the Kuen Lun range to absorb Aksai Chin and to put a British controlled buffer in between to forestall the apprehended Russian advance. Nothing came of this.

In 1889 the Viceroy, Lord Lansdowne, put paid to this idea by recording that the Aksai Chin was ``of novalue... We might, I should think, encourage the Chinese to take it...''. In 1892 the Chinese put a boundary marker at the Karakoram Pass and told the British officer and adventurer, Capt.

Young husband, that their territory began there and that the boundary ran along the Karakoram range. The British welcomed this but noted that the boundary marker could not be regarded as having any value in international law because the boundary was not demarcated jointly. In 1927 the British finally decided that the border ran along the crest of the Karakoram range. But this did not find itself reflected in the Survey of India's maps.

We inherited a similar situation in the east but with one essential difference. The entire area with the exception of the Tawang tract, a wedge of territory running north to south along Bhutan was in our physical possession by the time the Chinese once again asserted their power over Tibet in 1950.

In 1949 Indian-controlled territory extended only up to Dirang Dzong. In 1951 Indiaasserted control over the rest of the Tawang tract and the Chinese tacitly acquiesced. However they have never formally acknowledged the area encompassed by Arunachal Pradesh to be Indian territory. But as the military balance stands there is little they can do.

Even in 1962, the terrain would have made it next to impossible for them to advance to the foothills if the Army was not politically interfered with and did not have incompetence foisted upon it. It is one of the great myths of our time that the Chinese troops were greatly better equipped and vastly outnumbered us. Nehru and Krishna Menon made untenable demands on the Army that were the real cause of the debacle.

Political and military objectives must be attainable and worth the price. The Aksai Chin as a part of India is neither. Its only value is the road running through it linking Sinkiang and Tibet, important for China. The road's only military value for us may lie in that it is there to interdict. The Aksai Chin in our possession will be anextraordinary military and financial burden. A settlement on the basis of a status quo suits us particularly as it holds the promise of a comprehensive border settlement.

This does not mean that we can then look forward to lasting friendship with China. George Fernandes' warning is valid. But to keep our relationship hostage to a historically untenable and militarily impossible aspiration would keep us in a permanently disadvantageous position.

Having said this one must express concern at the thinning out of troops on the northern borders. In the eastern sector it will mean pulling back our main forces to lower ground. Forward deployment in a crisis will be delayed because the troops will have to get acclimatised over at least three weeks.

Chinese troops, located on the high Tibetan plateau, will be at an advantage. We have simultaneously been cutting back on IAF deployments when the Chinese are building major airfields in Tibet to base their new SU27 fighter-bombers. These put a good part of the plainsof Assam and Northern India within their reach. The Chinese have built roads from Southern China into Myanmar giving them access to the Naga Hills.

The Chinese tend to use force to settle diplomatic problems. With the exception of North Korea, there is not a single neighbour against whom they have not used force. Peace with honour can only be assured by an ability to wage war successfully. There is a case for expanding defence capabilities.