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The paper tries to make an assessment of the borderland regions of China and India with a focus on Xinjiang, Tibet, Kashmir and the Indian Northeast. The paper looks at the conflict in India and China's periphery, how these conflicts have evolved with time and how they have changed their character with the passage of time, from the 1950s until the present day. After looking at some background, the paper primarily focusses on three key issues which impact on all four of the conflicts: the rise of ethnic nationalism, the impact of external forces on the conflict and the human rights situation. After making an assessment of the political situation, the paper looks at the areas of similarity and differences between the four regions. Methodologically, a bottom-up approach was taken and in-depth unstructured interviews were carried out with people from the conflict zones that the paper considers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]