They wanted a formulation that improved upon what Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had given them in 1988, namely that Tibet was an autonomous region of the People’s Republic of China, with a much more explicit acknowledgement. In the end, the Chinese did not explicitly acknowledge in the Joint Statement issued at the end of the Vajpayee visit that Sikkim was a part of India, but India on its part added further legitimacy to the Chinese claim over Tibet by averring in the Joint Statement that ‘Tibet Autonomous Region is part of the territory of the People’s Republic of China’.
