India and China have ended a three-week standoff on a windswept
Himalayan plateau where they fought a war 50 years ago by
agreeing to pull forces back to positions held before the
confrontation, India’s foreign ministry said on Monday. The two
countries packed up tents and left the disputed patch on the
5,000-metre-high (16,000-foot) Depsang Plain late on Sunday. But
it had not been clear how far they had withdrawn. Neither side
has given details of the terms of the deal. In 1950, the Survey
of India issued a map of India showing the political divisions
of the new republic. While the border with Pakistan was defined
as it is now, including the Pakistan-occupied Kashmir area, the
borders with China were depicted differently. In the east, the
McMahon Line was shown as the border, except in its eastern
extremity, the Tirap subdivision, where the border was shown as
“undefined.” In the Central sector of what is now Uttarakhand
and Himachal Pradesh and the eastern part of Jammu & Kashmir,
including Aksai Chin, the