evidence: China's expansionism along Tibet's southern border with India thus has a much more limited aim than the acquisition of territory of the conquest of India. It is intended to widen the buffer zone that surrounds Tibet. [...] Despite the heightened tensions, India didn't prepare for war. China did, using the Sky Road as a logistics route for a surprise attack in 1962. In the brief war that ensued, China consolidated its possession of almost the entire territory of Aksai Chin. So it's no surprise that 55 years later, when China started building road infrastructure on the Doklam Plateau bordering southeastern Tibet, India took notice. The non-lethal 2017 Doklam standoff lasted more than two months before being resolved by a mutual withdrawal to the status quo ante. [...] China's expansionism along Tibet's southern border with India thus has a much more limited aim than the acquisition of territory of the conquest of India. It is intended to widen the buffer zone that surrounds Tibet. Trucks and trains may not stream across the India-China frontier, but people and yaks do. China wants to cut off all contact across the border, whether physical or even online. Its infrastructure-building near the Line of Actual Control (LAC) is more likely targeted at controlling its own restive subject population than at provoking an international incident.