CCCL & CPLR International Online Symposium on Sino-Indian Border Disputes: A Dialogue between International Law and International Relations

The unresolved Sino-Indian Border Dispute (SIBD) remains a primary cause of tension between China and India. A face-to-face clash in mid-June 2020 resulted in 20 Indian soldiers losing their lives and 76 being wounded, as well as four Chinese soldiers died, becoming the deadliest conflict between the two nations since the 1962 Sino-India War.

This conflict has had a profound impact on the geopolitical situation and the development of international law, as well as Third Word solidarity on a wide range of issues, including regional peace and security, South-South cooperation, development, and regional economic integration in Asia.

While both countries’ agreement to the setting up demilitarized areas along their Himalayan border in February 2021 has temporarily cooled down the recent tensions, various deep-rooted factors remain affecting Sino-Indian relations, thus another round of conflicts may be triggered at any time.

Taking a forward-looking approach, on 4 March 2021, the Centre for Chinese and Comparative Law (CCCL) of the School of Law of City University of Hong Kong (CityU SLW) in collaboration with its sister research centre — the Public Law and Human Rights Forum (CPLR) of CityU SLW — organized an online symposium to convene a group of 17 scholars and experts from China, India, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, UK and US to discuss issues relating to SIBD from the perspectives of international law and international relations, with the aim of providing a forum for robust and balanced academic discussions and producing high impact scholarship in this field.

The Symposium was kicked off by the opening speech of Prof. Wang Jiangyu (Professor & Director of CCCL, CityU SLW) who welcomed all speakers and audience for joining the 2 Symposium and introduced the background of this Symposium. This was then followed by four panels of discussions.

The first panel, chaired by Prof. Wang Jiangyu, was entitled “The Sino-Indian Border Disputes: A Critical Overview of Crucial Legal and Non-legal Considerations”. In this panel, the four speakers, namely Dr. Fozia Zazir Lone (Assistant Professor, CityU SLW), Prof. Jacques deLisle (Stephen A. Cozen Professor of Law & Professor of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania), Mr. Jérémy André (Correspondent Asie) and Dr. Lin Minwang (Senior Research Fellow, Institute of International Studies, Fudan University), focused on giving an overview of the Sino-Indian border relations from geographical, historical, political and international law perspectives; examining the causes of the increasing frequent stand-offs in recent years; and comparing the differences in the coverage of the 2020 stand-offs by the Chinese, Indian and other foreign media, so as to help providing a clearer and more neutral picture of the relevant conflict.

The second panel, entitled “Colonial Legacy to the Continuing Post-Colonial Sino-Indian Border Conflicts: Some Reflections” and chaired by Dr. Massimo Lando (Assistant Professor, CityU SLW), consisted of three presentations by Dr. Wu Zhe (Associate Research Fellow, Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinca), Prof. Deng Lie (Professor in International Law, Huazhong University of Science and Technology) & Mr. Wang Chenyu (PhD Candidate, Law School, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law; Research Fellow, Utrecht University), and Prof. Long Xingchun (President, Chengdu Institute of World Affairs (CIWA), School of International Relations, Sichuan International Studies University (SISU)). The three presentations in this panel discussed the relevance and impacts of Britain’s colonialism and the “Tibetan Issue” on SinoIndian relations and SIBD from historical and international law perspectives.

The third panel, which was entitled “India-China Geopolitical Issues: Competition, Influence and Implications” and chaired by Dr. Stephenson Chow (Assistant Professor, CityU SLW), consisted of three presentations by Prof. Anuradha M Chenoy (Retired-Former Dean, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi), Prof. Zhu Feng (Professor and Dean, Institute of International Relations, Nanjing University) and Dr. Jabin T. Jacob (Associate Professor, Department of International Relations & Governance Studies, Shiv Nadar University; Adjunct Research Fellow, National Maritime Foundation, India), marked the beginning of the Symposium’s afternoon session. Those three presentations mainly analyzed the arguments relating to the geopolitics of SinoIndian relations and SIBD, as well as the causes and impacts of the great power competition between China and India in the Third World.

The last panel of the Symposium, which consisted of four presentations by Prof. M Sornarajah (Emeritus Professor, Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore), Prof. Wang Jiangyu, Capt (retd) Andy (Shichen) Tian (Founder and President, Global Governance Institution; Director, Center for International Law of Military Operations (CILMO)) and Prof. Anthony Carty (Professor, School of Law, Beijing Institute of Technology), was entitled “Conceptual and Normative Analysis of the Sino-Indian Border Disputes from Broader Perspectives” and chaired by Dr. Fozia Nazir Lone. Speakers of this panel not only discussed the limits of international law and other non-legal factors which have been hindering the solution of the SIBD but also attempted to propose possible new approaches in solving this decades-old SIBD issue in the long run.

While the 14 presentations delivered during the four panels were informative and thought-provoking, the group discussion after the presentations in each panel was of equally high quality: critical and inspirational comments were made on speakers’ presentations, and acute questions were put forward for speakers’ response and all participants’ further discussion.

Finally, this over nine hours’ symposium ended with the closing speech of the Symposium’s convenor Dr. Fozia Nazir Lone and CCCL Director Prof. Wang Jiangyu who thanked all the participants for their time in joining the Symposium and the speakers’ excellent presentations and valuable contributions.

Selected papers presented at this Symposium will be published in an internationally-refereed journal, followed by an edited book volume with a prestigious international academic publisher.