page_title: McMahon Line
hierarchical_section_title: McMahon Line
caption_attribution_description: China India eastern border depicting disputed areas in this sector including NEFA.
context_page_description: The McMahon Line is the demarcation line between Tibet and the North-east region of India proposed by British colonial administrator Sir Henry McMahon at the 1914 Simla Convention signed between British and Tibetan representatives. It is currently the generally recognized boundary between China and India, although its legal status is disputed by the Chinese government.
  The line is named after Henry McMahon, foreign secretary of British India and the chief negotiator of the convention at Simla. It was signed by McMahon and Lonchen Satra on behalf of the Tibetan Government. It extends for 890 kilometres from Bhutan in the west to 260 km east of the great bend of the Brahmaputra River in the east, largely along the crest of the Himalayas. Simla was initially rejected by the Government of India as incompatible with the 1907 Anglo-Russian Convention. This convention was denounced in 1921. After Simla, the McMahon Line was forgotten until 1935, when British civil service officer Olaf Caroe convinced the government to publish the Simla Convention and use the McMahon Line on official maps.
context_section_description: The McMahon Line is the demarcation line between Tibet and the North-east region of India proposed by British colonial administrator Sir Henry McMahon at the 1914 Simla Convention signed between British and Tibetan representatives. It is currently the generally recognized boundary between China and India, although its legal status is disputed by the Chinese government.
  The line is named after Henry McMahon, foreign secretary of British India and the chief negotiator of the convention at Simla. It was signed by McMahon and Lonchen Satra on behalf of the Tibetan Government. It extends for 890 kilometres (550 miles) from Bhutan in the west to 260 km (160 mi) east of the great bend of the Brahmaputra River in the east, largely along the crest of the Himalayas. Simla (along with the McMahon Line) was initially rejected by the Government of India as incompatible with the 1907 Anglo-Russian Convention. This convention was denounced in 1921. After Simla, the McMahon Line was forgotten until 1935, when British civil service officer Olaf Caroe convinced the government to publish the Simla Convention and use the McMahon Line on official maps. 
  India regards its interpretation of the McMahon Line as the legal national border, but China rejects the Simla Accord and the McMahon Line, contending that Tibet was not a sovereign state and therefore did not have the power to conclude treaties. Chinese maps show some 65,000 km² (25,000 sq mi) of the territory south of the line as part of the Tibet Autonomous Region, known as South Tibet in China. Chinese forces briefly occupied this area during the Sino-Indian War of 1962. China does recognise a Line of Actual Control which closely approximates most of the "so called McMahon line" in the eastern part of its border with India, according to a 1959 diplomatic note by Prime Minister Zhou Enlai.
  The 14th Dalai Lama did not originally recognise India's sovereignty over Arunachal Pradesh. As late as 2003, he said that "Arunachal Pradesh was actually part of Tibet". In January 2007, however, he said that both the Tibetan government and Britain recognized the McMahon Line in 1914. In June 2008, he explicitly recognized for the first time that "Arunachal Pradesh was a part of India under the agreement signed by Tibetan and British representatives".
caption: The McMahon Line forms the northern boundary of Arunachal Pradesh (shown in red) in the eastern Himalayas administered by India but claimed by China. The area was the focus of the 1962 Sino-Indian War.
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