China Creeping In, Bhutan Denies
Bhutan and China, on 14 October 2021, signed a MoU during a virtual meeting on a “three-step roadmap” for expediting the Bhutan-China boundary negotiations. Bhutan’s foreign minister, Lyonpo Tandi Dorji, and China’s assistant foreign minister, Wu Jianghao, signed the MoU.
“The negotiations which have been conducted in a spirit of understanding and accommodation have been guided by the 1988 Joint Communique on the Guiding Principles for the Settlement of the Boundary and the 1998 agreement on the maintenance of peace, tranquillity and status quo in the Bhutan-China Border areas,” the Bhutanese foreign ministry said.
“During the 10th Expert Group Meeting in Kunming in April (2021), the two sides agreed on a three-step roadmap that will build on the 1988 Guiding Principles and help to expedite the ongoing boundary negotiations,” it said.
Bhutan shares an over 400-km-long border with China and the two countries have held over 24 rounds of boundary talks in a bid to resolve the dispute.
So far, no details of the three-step roadmap have been revealed. According to Wang Se, an assistant professor at the Institute of South Asian Studies of the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, the roadmap might be similar to the principle of China-India border talks, which means they will first establish basic political principles of boundary demarcation, then solve specific disputes and finally, sign an agreement and draw the boundary demarcation.
India’s Reaction
“We have noted the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Bhutan and China today. You are aware that Bhutan and China have been holding boundary negotiations since 1984. India has similarly been holding boundary negotiations with China,” the Ministry of External Affairs’ official spokesperson, Arindam Bagchi, said.
Creeping Into Bhutanese Territory
Shen Shiwei, a senior producer with Chinese CGTN News, posted images on Twitter, on 20 November 2021, of a village established in what he said was the Doklam area and later indicated the precise location of the settlement. The Chinese village of Pangda lies 2 kilometres within Bhutanese territory and is an indicator of what India has always feared – “salami slicing” by the Chinese which refers to Beijing’s attempts to cut into Indian and Bhutanese territory.
The tweet said, “Now, we have permanent residents living in the newly established Pangda village. It’s along the valley, 35 km south to Yadong country. Here is a map to show the location”. It was accompanied by four images. The tweet was later deleted.
The Chinese settlement was just 9 km from the Doklam standoff site. The Doklam standoff had been the most serious face-off in decades between India and China before the confrontation in eastern Ladakh that began earlier this year and peaked in June with a clash that left 20 Indian soldiers dead and an unspecified number of Chinese casualties.
On 17 November 2021, an analyst with Intel Lab, shared two separate sets of satellite images laying out evidence that China had constructed a cluster of buildings in Arunachal Pradesh and established multiple villages in Bhutanese territory close to Doklam in Sikkim.
The photographs first shared on Twitter showcased at least four discrete villages constructed in the disputed territory measuring roughly 100 km² in area. As per the the analyst new settlements were constructed between May 2020 and November 2021.
Bhutan’s Denial
In November 2020, Bhutan had denied Shen Shiwei’s claims that China had constructed a village more than two kilometres inside its territory.
Bhutan’s ambassador to India, Major General V. Namgyel has categorically denied the journalist’s claim.
An Australian satellite imagery expert with Canberra-based think tank, Nathan Ruser claimed that the location of the village that Shen had tweeted was 2.5 kilometres inside the Bhutanese border.
Tenzing Lamsang, editor of The Bhutanese newspaper, pointed out that the satellite imagery was based on open sources like Google, who may not have access to the exact lay of the border areas and claim liens by countries in that area.
He also noted that Bhutan has usually been quick to bring up any minor encroachments to the Chinese embassy in New Delhi. Bhutan does not have direct diplomatic relations with Beijing, so their main channel for communication is through their missions in the Indian capital.
Sino-Bhutanese Border Dispute
China claims large parts of Bhutan’s territory, dispersed all along the border. It lays claim to two areas in the north — Beyul Khenpajong and Menchuma Valley.
Bhutan and China share a 477 km long border through the Himalayas between the two tripoints with India. The border has triggered several disputes over the years, with Beijing claiming three regions in western Bhutan, including Doklam, other three regions in the north, and a June 2020 reassertion of its claim to a large chunk of eastern Bhutan, according to Observer Research Foundation. While attempts to resolve the dispute commenced back in 1984, it was concreted last month after both the parties signed a fresh Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). The document states a “three-step roadmap” to expedite the talks and “break the deadlock” at the contested border.
Bhutan and China have held several rounds of talks to demarcate their boundary. However, they continue to have a difference on the location of the tri-junction, which has strategic implication for India’s vulnerable ‘chicken neck’ corridor.
Earlier this year in June, China had objected to a proposal made by Bhutan for funding to develop Sakteng wildlife sanctuary at the 58th council meeting of the Global Environment Facility. The objection was rejected and the funding proposal approved. The minutes of the meeting recorded the remarks of the Council member representing Bhutan, India and two other South Asian countries as having asserted that the wildlife sanctuary was integral part of Bhutan and had never featured as a disputed area in any bilateral boundary talks.
Comments
As far as China is concerned, Bhutan has walked in lockstep with India ever since its citizens were traumatised by the sight of thousands of pitiful Tibetans transiting through their land to India after the Chinese crackdown in Lhasa in 1959.
Since 1984, Bhutan and China have held endless talks but did not move towards a resolution just like the India-China boundary talks. In the past, Bhutan ignored several overtures from Beijing, including support for a UNSC term, to stand by India whose boundary negotiations with China are at an impasse.
China became every country’s largest trading partner but India and Bhutan are happy in each other’s company. In 2013, the King of Bhutan, Jigme Khesar Wangchuck, stepped in as the chief guest on Republic Day after the King of Oman cancelled his India visit.
Against this intensity of political and security ties, the announcement of a Bhutan-China MoU to resolve their boundary dispute through a three-step solution should come as a jolt. The Ministry of External Affairs limited itself to expressing wariness and also awareness that Bhutan and China have been holding talks. But it was ingenious of the spokesman to equate these talks with India’s boundary negotiations with China.
While China and Bhutan seem to have taken a decisive step to resolving their dispute, New Delhi and Beijing are having trouble in all three sectors of their unresolved 3,488-km boundary. Their last military talks ended in a mutual blame game.
It is not as if this is a sudden development. As the Bhutan-China joint press release noted, both sides began discussing the three-step solution in April. The process of achieving finality on a boundary with China typically takes a decade (it has the largest number of land boundaries in the world). And much can change in between. But this flagging of Bhutanese sovereignty comes after Bangladesh and Sri Lanka declined to subscribe to India’s pet ‘Free and Open Indo-Pacific’ concept. India needs to take stock whether its animosity towards China and increasing identification with US’ interests in the region are encouraging its neighbours to explore other options.
The timing of the MoU has raised concerns in India as it came at a time when the India-China border talks on their 17-month-old standoff at the Line of Actual Control appear to have hit an impasse. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Western Theatre Command issued a statement on 18 October, slamming India for its unreasonable and unrealistic demands and the new incidents the latter sparked along the eastern section of the border.
Chinese experts believe that signing the MoU shows Bhutan’s willingness to get rid of India’s interference to gain more independence of diplomacy for Bhutan’s own national interests.
They are also opposed to India’s influence in land-locked Bhutan, which “relies heavily on India to import oil, food and other basic necessities, which means India is able to interfere in Bhutan’s internal and external policies.”
Chinese experts also believe that the roadmap could be beneficial for the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative and development of China’s border regions and will push for the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Bhutan.
