What is the largest piece of territory that China recovered after the end of World War II? Believe this question, in fact, many Chinese cannot answer, the answer is the Karakoram corridor, an area of 5800 square kilometers, and the country that returned this land is Pakistan. Many people will wonder, why does Pakistan have Chinese land? In fact, the return of this land is also very complicated, and there have been many troubles in India. Many people do not understand why Pakistan spits out the territory eaten in its stomach, and why India, as Pakistan's mortal enemy, prevents Pakistan's territory from becoming smaller? In fact, any diplomacy contains games, and the game between India and Pakistan is the top priority of China's territorial ownership. Next, let's turn our attention to 1963 and see what happened in the land of Karakorum.
On the western edge of the continent stands the Karakoram Mountains, which are also one of the important barriers in the western part of the continent. It is one of the highest average altitudes in the world, covered with snow all year round, known as the Great Wall of Ice in the western part of China, the Karakoram Mountains have been insurmountable since ancient times, and can even be said to be one of the culprits of China's difficulty in expanding outward, countless foreign expansions have stopped under the Karakoram Mountains. However, it also succeeded in preventing the possibility of the southern invaders attacking the north.
In ancient times, it was very difficult to enter the snow-capped mountains to draw boundaries. Therefore, it is only possible to draw an approximate that it was not until the Yuan Dynasty that Tibet was officially included in the Chinese territory. China had only just begun to explore its borders, and with the Qing Dynasty, when Tibet received an official garrison, the western frontier was finally explored. There is a corridor near this that is the only border for foreign communication, and this has become the only way for foreign trade. Grain and tea were transported from this corridor, while luxury goods such as furs and gold were brought in.
This corridor connects Central and South Asia outward, and countries connect Tibet, Xinjiang and the interior inward, making it the most important commercial corridor in the western part of the continent. Therefore, in ancient times, it was considered an important link on the Silk Road. Once British explorers said that whoever can master Ladakh can control the whole of Karakorum, and who can control the wealth of this world. But it is clear that when the British say this, they are definitely not just sincere praise, it means that they have begun to move their minds.
In the 18th century, the British began to gain de facto control of India, and they established a system of rule by cooperating with the native princes and aristocrats, but they were not satisfied with just ruling India, they hoped to unite all of South Asia and even Tibet into a huge colony. The Karakoram corridor naturally became the most palatable piece of fat in the eyes of the British colonists, for the British colonists, Tibetan borax, gold and cashmere products were important strategic resources. So they started expanding non-stop.
In the 40s, the British East India Company pushed the border to the foot of the Himalayas and began to invade China's western frontier. At that time, the Qing Dynasty was unable to govern the western border area at all, and implemented a policy of stocking, so the British forcibly occupied this corridor under their territory through the Treaty of Amritsar. The British Governor in India at the time wrote to the Qing Minister in Tibet requesting the redivision of Tibet's Ali and Kashmir jurisdictions, and although the Chinese refused, it was an indisputable fact that the Karakoram Corridor had been effectively occupied by the British, and this occupation lasted until the end of World War II.
The British withdrew from India in 1947, leaving behind a chaotic subcontinent. The local border demarcation is very chaotic, which was completely thought up by the British, which also laid the seeds for the subsequent India-Pakistan conflict. In fact, the British left behind the border between China and India, China and Pakistan, and the ownership of Kashmir became a bad book. India and Pakistan have a keen eye on Kashmir, especially India, which they see as India's lifeline, and as long as it can encroach on Kashmir, it can be encroached along the Karakoram corridor all the way to Tibet, China. In 1949, India and Pakistan drew a ceasefire line, 2/5 of Kashmir was given to Pakistan, and the rest was occupied by India. However, there is still a part of the land in Kashmir that belongs to China, and the question of the ownership of this part of the land has become an open case.
In the war between India and Pakistan, China did a lot for Pakistan, not only providing Pakistan with a large number of weapons and equipment, but also more importantly, through international pressure on India, so that India ended the war early. Pakistan was so grateful to China that in 1963 it proposed to demarcate its northern border with China. The Indian side could not sit still at this time, they wanted to push India and Pakistan to negotiate again and delay the progress of negotiations between China and Pakistan, but the Pakistani side decided to use a blitzkrieg to end quickly.
In 1963, Pakistan returned about 5,800 square kilometers of land to the mainland, why did India obstruct it in every way?
Pakistani representatives arrived in Beijing secretly and negotiated with the Chinese side, and the secrecy work of the two sides was done well, and on March 2, the China-Pakistan border agreement was officially signed, and the two sides continued the traditional border line as an international view. The Karakoram Corridor, which is effectively controlled by Pakistan, returned to China's arms, and the news of the return of the Karakoram Corridor to China immediately made India dumbfounded. This time, India even helped Pakistan speak, saying that Pakistan should continue to maintain control over here, and India has not yet clarified the specific ownership of Kashmir, so Pakistan has no right to divide part of Kashmir's land to China. India is really anxious about this matter, and even went to the United Nations, claiming that this place is obviously related to India. However, it was privately distributed to China, which is unfair to India, but in the end, it is naturally not done.
China had just repaired India in 1962, so now India has no way to use force against China again. For China, the return of the Karakoram Corridor is not only inspiring, but also the land is indeed very useful to China today.
The geographical location of this corridor is too special for China, and its strategic value is enormous. The Karakoram Corridor, as the dividing line between the mainland and South Asia, has greatly increased the speed at which the mainland sends troops to reinforce the border. At the same time, it also gave the mainland a very convenient oil transportation and supply route. China has always been a big energy demander, and the amount of energy it imports every year is quite large.
In the past, China relied on the Strait of Malacca to obtain oil and natural gas from the Middle East, but we also know that on one side of the Strait of Malacca is India, and on the other side is the United States, and as long as they need to, they can cut off the connection between China and the Strait of Malacca at any time, which is definitely not a good thing for China. Therefore, the mainland must find a transportation channel to replace the Strait of Malacca from elsewhere, and the return of the Karakoram Corridor just provides the mainland with such a passage, through Pakistan and Central Asian countries, the mainland can directly lay land oil pipelines through the Karakoram Corridor, so that the Middle East oil can be continuously transported to the interior of the motherland.
Some people have calculated that the Karakoram corridor is actually more efficient than sea transportation, if you take sea transportation, transportation takes more than 20 days, but if you take the Karakoram corridor, it only takes a week to safely transport oil to China's territory, so the Karakoram corridor has an extremely important impact on the economic development of the mainland, and at the same time, through the modernization and development of the Karakoram corridor, the mainland can also be more convenient to communicate with Pakistan, and many Chinese weapons and equipment are transported to Pakistan So Pakistan's return to the Karakoram corridor actually created a lifeline for itself, and the decision made by Pakistan at that time was a very wise win-win choice.
The Karakoram corridor was lost because of the greed of the British and the incompetence of the Qing government, and in modern times, it returned because of the friendship between China and Pakistan. But in general, the Karakoram has been able to return because China has become powerful enough to make neighboring countries realize that China is not an easy opponent to defeat. Truth is always only on the edge of the sword, and only with a sword can you defend your dignity, and the Karakoram Corridor is the most vivid example, and to this day, the Karakoram Corridor still protects the tranquility of the western part of the motherland. In the future, this lifeline of the west will continue to play its own strengths and provide unique assistance in the future construction of New China.