Amendments to Zhou Enlai’s Draft Reply to Nehru on the Sino-Indian Boundary Question [1] (November 7, 1959)  Since the boundary between China and India has never been demarcated, and given its great length as well as its considerable distance from both countries’ political centers, if the two governments fail to devise a thoroughly sound settlement, I fear that border clashes—clashes neither side wishes to see—may yet recur in the future.
And once such clashes occur, even minor ones, they will inevitably be exploited by those who harbor hostility toward the friendship between our two nations for their own ulterior purposes.
Printed in the People’s Daily of November 10, 1959. (A manuscript copy bearing Mao Zedong’s handwriting is extant.)
Note [1] This is a passage added by Mao Zedong to Zhou Enlai’s draft letter, dated November 7, 1959, replying to Indian Prime Minister Nehru on the Sino-Indian boundary question.
In addition, Mao made several other textual revisions to the letter.
On November 10, 1959, the People’s Daily published Zhou Enlai’s letter.