The Great Divide: Chinese and Indian Views on Negotiations, 1959-62

When will states bargain while fighting and when will they evade intrawar negotiations? This article addresses this question with respect to the 1962 Sino-Indian War and provides insight into the question of why talks did not occur for the duration of the war. To do so, I analyse Chinese and Indian strategic thinking regarding the prospects of talks in the lead up and throughout the short war, with information gathered through archival work at the Chinese Foreign Ministry Archives, interviews with former Indian political and military leaders as well as scholars and secondary sources. This article seeks to explain why New Delhi set strict preconditions on the launching of talks and rarely, if at all, made offers to talk, while China was open about offering talks without preconditions.