The Semo-Nepalese Border Should Be Peaceful And Friendly Forever

Date: 1960-03-18
Source: en:FLP-Diplomacy
THE SINO-NEPALESE BORDER SHOULD BE
PEACEFUL AND FRIENDLY FOREVER*
(March 18, 1960)
Chairman Mao Zedong (hereinafter referred to as Mao): We and India
have been at odds. Never mind. It will be over soon. We have common
interests, because we are both undeveloped countries. It is a false charge that
China invaded India. We do not want an inch of others' land. We have a vast
land of 9.6 million square kilometers, with a large part uncultivated. It is
committing a crime to take others' land and not run one's own country well.
Have we invaded Nepal? We do not want a single inch of Nepalese land. Can
we sign a border treaty and erect boundary markers?
Prime Minister B. P. Koirala (hereinafter referred to as Koirala): Yes, we
can. I have discussed it with Premier Zhou Enlai.
Mao: Do you agree?
Koirala: An official marking of the boundary is needed.
Mao: It is necessary to mark the boundary. Once it is drawn, there can
be an unpatrolled zone. The length of the unpatrolled border can be decided
through consultation. India and Pakistan have such a treaty and they have a
very short border without patrol by either side, just one kilometer. We once
suggested to India a 20-kilometer border without patrol by either side. Neither
we nor they would go there. They did not agree. If you like, we can have a
clause in the treaty stipulating an unpatrolled border area, the length of which
can be worked out through consultation. It will be 40 kilometers altogether if
each side has 20 kilometers, 20 kilometers if each side has ten kilometers, ten
kilometers if each side has five kilometers. It is up to your convenience. How
about it?
Koirala: It is worth considering.
Mao: You may think about it. The administration can be local civilians
from both sides. Some police and militia may be formed by the local people.
Koirala
These are excerpts from Mao Zedong's talk with Nepalese Prime Minister B. P.
There should be no formal military force. If military troops from both sides
keep quite a distance from the area, both sides will be at ease. Boundary
drawing and nonpatrol are intended to maintain peace and friendship on the
border, so that both sides are at ease and not worried about invasion from the
other side. If you are interested, we can sign a friendly treaty of nonaggression
as we did with Burma. We shall do wrong if we violate the treaty after we
have signed it. We are a big country and we never suspect you will invade us,
but you may suspect that we shall invade you. We would commit a blunder if
we broke the treaty after it was signed.
Koirala: During our talks Premier Zhou Enlai put forward a draft for a
friendly treaty. We shall take it back to the cabinet for decision; there may
be some revisions. It may be signed at Kathmandu when Premier Zhou Enlai
visits Nepal after his trip to India at the end of April.
Mao: Very good. We have received two of your prime ministers separately
and our premier should visit you, making it equal. We thank you very much.
It is excellent that we are to set up an embassy in your capital this year. You
may set up an embassy here without many people, three or four, maybe seven
or eight. It won't be very expensive. It is not difficult to find people out of
eight million people.
Koirala: When we are ready to send them, it will not be too many, because
we cannot afford it.
Mao: We heard that you are building a highway directly to our country.
Koirala: No. We wanted to build a highway two years ago. It could not
go on because of lack of funds. Now technicians from the Soviet Union are
helping survey, in preparation for an east-west highway.
Mao: You have to go via another foreign country if you come to our
country.
Koirala: No, we can go through a mountain pass between Nepal and
Tibet, but it is not a formal road.
Mao: In one year, ten years, or 20 years, sooner or later we shall have a
direct road.
Koirala: In our country we are building roads in places that have good
prospects for economic development. We are planning to build 900 miles of
roads (about 1,300 kilometers) throughout the country.
Mao: Excellent.
Koirala: I invited Jawahalal Nehru^^^ and Premier Zhou Enlai to hold talks
in our capital, Kathmandu, but they could not.
Mao: It was because Nehru wanted our premier to go to his capital, Delhi.
At first we suggested Rangoon, but Nehru did not agree. Now we have agreed
to go to Delhi, so he cannot go to Nepal. Thank you for your kindness. You
have very good intentions; so did the Burmese prime minister, who wanted
the Chinese premier and Indian prime minister to go to Rangoon. When
Nehru said that it was not convenient for him, we had to make concessions
to him.
Now the Burmese prime minister has invited our premier to Rangoon,
and Your Excellency has invited him to go to your country. Premier Zhou
Enlai will first go to Burma, then to India to hold talks with the Indian prime
minister, and then to your country. The fourth country for him to visit is
Cambodia, which has invited us several times and we owe them a debt. There
is a fifth country he has to go to, that is, Ho Chi Minh's country. Altogether
there are five countries to go to. So, last year's anti-China wave may gradually
calm down.
We have had quarrels with India for about a year, but we are still friends.
There are often quarrels between friends, between husband and wife, and
between brothers. We have had no quarrels with you, Burma, Ceylon^^^ and
Cambodia. We have serious quarrels with only one country in the world, the
United States. It has occupied our Taiwan and has called us "aggressor." We
shall call it aggressor, too. We have not occupied a single inch of the land of
the United States, even though between China and Honolulu there is Midway
Island. Neither have we occupied Japan, while the United States has occupied
our Taiwan. I just don't know how we could have become an aggressor.
Now there is one country that wants to have "joint defense" with you
against us. I learned that you did not agree. We are pleased. You said that
Sino-Indian relations should be solved by themselves and you would not
interfere. India alleged that we had invaded you and you made a statement
declaring there was no invasion. There is a rumor about our troops intruding
into your country. Is there any intrusion, after all?
Koirala: Because there isn't, we made the statement.
Mao: Countries like ours have to take self-reliance as our main principle
and seeking external assistance as subsidiary. We are to seek foreign aid, but
have to consider which is the main point. You will have the initiative and run
things more easily by relying on yourselves.
Your policy is not much different from ours. Our big enterprises were
designed and established with the help of the Soviet Union during the ten years
from 1950 to 1959. In those ten years we made some progress and now we are
relying on ourselves. We had to copy everything from the Soviet Union in the
First Five-Year-Plan period because we knew little. For the Second Five-YearPlan period we gave up copying and worked out a series of our own methods

in 1958 and 1959. You may have to go through the same process. It is
necessary to copy from a foreign country, then stop copying after a certain
period. Students copy teachers when they are educated in schools. They will
become teachers upon graduation after several years of education. Certainly
you will be teachers in some realms. I mean what I say. It is true that no one
will be a student for 100 to 1,000 years. We were students in the past and we
are still students. The Soviet Union, the United States and Britain have
sophisticated sciences, while we do not. We have to learn from them. Every
nation has its forte and foible. It is the same with your country, and Cambodia
has many strong points. Every nation, big or small, should learn from other
nations' strong points. It is quite good to exchange experience with these
countries. We Orientals have a sense of inferiority, feeling inferior to the
whites. It is a kind of blind faith that should be breached. It is essential to
break the blind faith in them as much as to learn from the West. It is not
contradictory to breach the blind faith and learn from them. For instance, we
may send students to their countries and import equipment, etc., from them.
I am not against everything from the West; I am only against what the
imperialists do to oppress and bully others. We need to learn from their culture
and science. Orientals should learn from the West, but thus learning should
be carried out without blind faith.
Koirala: On the question of the Nepalese-Chinese border, there are still
differences. In our view, there are disputes in four places, based on the
historical situation in the past 50 years. Now it is time to settle the disputes.
Mao: Good.
Koirala: In our talks with Premier Zhou we have worked out several
principles: first, draw the boundary based on the existing traditionally accepted boundary line; second, take into consideration the practical situation
of jurisdiction by either side at the border; third, try to solve the dispute on
the few places; if some cannot be solved, hand them to a joint committee.
Mao: That's good.
Koirala: The principles are good so long as there are disputes between our
two sides in specific places, which make us feel uneasy. When I went to
Hangzhou, I told Premier Zhou Enlai that I had come to Hangzhou with an
uneasy mind. Premier Zhou said I should absolutely feel at ease.
Mao: You should absolutely feel at ease. Burma feared us, but now we
have set its mind at rest. The Burmese now know our heart.
Koirala: I met with Prime Minister Ne Win^^^ before I came. He asked
me to speak frankly with Chairman Mao and Premier Zhou Enlai, so I have
spoken about all these things.
Mao: Good. Those disputes are easy to resolve. There are no human beings
in the mountain passes. As for disputes over the Himalayas, a joint committee
may be established to solve them.
Koirala: To you, the currently disputed places are of no importance, while
they matter to us. It is a question of prestige.
Mao: Don't worry; they can be solved.
Koirala: There is another question, a question of sentiment. We call it
Sagarmatha, the West calls it Everest and you call it Qomolangma. This place
has always been within our boundary, but Premier Zhou Enlai said it was
within yours.
Mao: You should not feel uneasy about it.
Koirala: It is a sentimental question.
Mao: It can be solved, half for each side. The southern part is yours and
the northern part is ours.
Koirala: How about the mountain top?
Mao: Half for each side as well. Will that be all right?
If it cannot be solved now, we may postpone it as well. The mountain is
very high and it can safeguard our security at the border. Neither of us will
suffer losses. If all of it is given to you, sentimentally we shall feel sorry. If
all of it is given to us, sentimentally you will feel sorry. We can have a
boundary marker on top of it.
Shailendra K. Upadhayaya:^^^ Who is to do it?
Mao: Difficult to do! We may have a written record of it. We shall
inform you when our people are to climb it from your side and you will inform
us when your people are to climb it from our side.
Upadhayaya: In the past, mountain climbers had to have a Nepalese visa.
Mao: A mountain climber from a third country intending to climb from
your side may obtain a visa from your country.
Pan Zili:^^^ In the past, mountain climbers had to have a permit from the
local government of Tibet when they wanted to climb it from Tibet.
Luo Guiho:^^^ In the past, some foreign mountain climbers obtained visas
from our embassy in Switzerland.
Koirala: No.
Mao: The long-time practice is that to climb it from Tibet, one has to
get a permit from the local government of Tibet.
Koirala: There are other disputes.
Mao: It is easy to solve them. It is easy to solve them with you, unlike
the resolution of disputes with India. Our disputes with India involve scores
of thousands of square kilometers.

Koirala: Ours involve only several square kilometers.
Mao: The mountain can be renamed. We shall not call it Everest; that
was a name given by Westerners. Neither shall we call it Sagarmatha, nor shall
we call it Qomolangma. Let's name it Mount Sino-Nepalese Friendship.
This mountain has the highest summit in the world, with a height of over
8,800 meters. The United States, the Soviet Union, and India have no
mountain of this height. Only our two countries have. You may hold an
internal meeting to discuss the question and air your suggestions. It may be
put off for settlement in the future if no agreement is reached.
Koirala: All right. There are five other places in dispute, three of them
major ones.
Upadhayaya: The question is to draw the boundary one mile to the north
or one mile to the south.
Mao: That is not hard to solve. With no population, it is easy to solve
it.
Koirala: How can we put it to you if it cannot be solved in our talks in
Beijing?
Mao: You do not have to talk with me, but continue to talk with Premier
Zhou Enlai. You may continue the talks when he visits your country. We shall
keep in communication through telegram. The two sides have to reach
agreement in the joint committee. If you do not agree, you should insist. If
you insist, what can we do? Can we fight a battle? We are optimistic.
Koirala: So are we.
Mao: We want friendship from you, and you from us. This is the crux
of the matter. With this central point, everything will fall into place. Isn't
that so?
Koirala: Upadhayaya: Yes.
Mao: We want to set our minds at ease so that we can make China a
country with modernized industry, agriculture, science and national defense.
You also need to feel at ease, so as to modernize industry, agriculture, science
and national defense. That's good, isn't it?
(From the verbatim record)