evidence: In 1959, in the Western Sector (Aksai Chin Region), a clash at Kongka Pass led to the death of nine Indian soldiers – the first casualties of the Sino-Indian boundary dispute. This forced Nehru and Zhou’s hand. Leaving the boundary ambiguous was no longer tenable. [...] In a nutshell, this was the "package deal" – a status quo solution. The Chinese would accept India’s claims in the Eastern Sector, which was more critical for the security of India’s Northeast, in exchange for Indian acceptance of Chinese sovereignty in the Western Sector of Aksai Chin, which was the region that housed the arterial road that connected Chinese forces to the Tibetan plateau via Xinjiang. For his part, Nehru too had been preparing the grounds for this "package deal." In Parliament, he repeatedly mentioned Aksai Chin as inhospitable terrain. This provided some defense for India’s inability to prevent Chinese encroachments. The Indian side had long been willing to trade Chinese presence in the Aksai Chin region for China’s formal recognition of the McMahon Line in the Eastern Sector.