Abstract
There are three areas in which China and India share a border that we can call the western sector, the middle sector and the eastern sector. These borders are unstable and they were the sources of many disagreements because there were no clear natural geographical borders and China and India disagreed on who had jurisdiction on the population around these borders. The question of Tibet, on the south-eastern border, was part of the disagreement.
It seemed necessary to clearly demarcate the border and Chinese and British-Indian delegations were sent and in 1914, the Simla agreements determined an official boundary: the McMahon line. It is important to note that with this line the British government tried to undermine Chinese sovereignty over Tibet and China never recognized this treaty, because China has always claimed an historical sovereignty over Tibet. In fact, only Tibet ratified this agreement. However it was not really an issue until the 1940s.
