Relations with India--where sympathy for the rebels was aroused--deteriorated as thousands of Tibetan refugees crossed the Indian border.
There were several border incidents in 1959, and a brief Sino-Indian border war erupted in October 1962 as China laid claim to Aksai Chin, nearly 103,600 square kilometers of territory that India regarded as its own.
The Soviet Union gave India its moral support in the dispute, thus contributing to the growing tension between Beijing and Moscow.
The Sino-Soviet dispute of the late 1950s was the most important development in Chinese foreign relations.