Aksai Chin was in physical possession of China, and they had built a highway there in the 1950s joining Tibet with Xinjiang [Sinkiang], there being no other land-route to connect the two. Aksai Chin was uninhabited, barren and of no strategic or economic importance for India; and considering India had no legally sound claim on it (please see the history below), there was little point, and indeed unwise, for Nehru to act adamant on it, especially when China was prepared for a quid pro quo on the McMahon Line in the northeast. General Thimayya had himself stated in 1959 that Aksai Chin was of no
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