Monday, July 24, 2023

 

ANALYSIS

China’s Border Talks With Bhutan Are Aimed at India

The disputed Doklam plateau is a pressure point for both regional powers. Beijing is moving in.

By Marcus Andreopoulos, a senior research fellow at the Asia-Pacific Foundation.

JULY 18, 2023

As tensions between China and India have grown in the last few years, the countries wedged between them are becoming more strategically significant. The two competing powers have sought a buffer between them ever since their founding—1949 in the case of the People’s Republic of China, and 1947 for India. Many scholars argue that it is this desire for a safety cushion that led to China’s 1950 invasion of Tibet. Today, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) efforts to manipulate democracy in Nepal have succeeded in shaping a government in Kathmandu that is more receptive to Beijing than to New Delhi. The CCP has also extended its reach to monitor and suppress the Tibetan community there.


   In recent months, China has also turned its attention eastward to its long-standing border dispute with the Kingdom of Bhutan. After years of so-called salami slicing along their shared border, as documented in Foreign Policy, China is attempting to engage in negotiations with Bhutan to formalize its ill-gotten gains—a strategy reminiscent of China’s playbook along its border with India and in the South China Sea. What is different is the strategic importance of Bhutan’s disputed regions to the China-India relationship.

   Chinese control of the disputed Doklam plateau would allow Beijing unhindered mobilization and more access routes in the event of military conflict with New Delhi. As a result, any China-Bhutan talks are not just a bilateral issue, but rather part of a Chinese strategy to gain a crucial advantage over India. A resolution between the CCP and the government of Bhutan would reverberate throughout India, threatening peace in the region and escalating the crisis along the Sino-Indian border. The issue requires close attention from New Delhi as well as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue—the Indo-Pacific partnership that includes Australia, India, Japan, and the United States.

   Although it has no diplomatic presence in Bhutan, China has gone to great lengths to ensure lines of communication remain open between the two countries. This year, discussions about the border have increased in frequency after a nearly two-year lull, reflecting greater urgency on Beijing’s part. The latest meeting took place in May in Thimphu, Bhutan, just months after Chinese and Bhutanese representatives gathered in Kunming, China. The group agreed to “push forward” a three-step road map signed in October 2021, with the overarching aim of facilitating another round of formal boundary talks, which were postponed following the 2017 standoff between China and India in Doklam and the COVID-19 pandemic.

   That Chinese diplomats have returned to the negotiating table with their Bhutanese counterparts has likely fueled unease in India and among the other Quad countries. After his state visit to Brussels in March, an interview with Bhutanese Prime Minister Lotay Tshering by the Belgian newspaper La Libre highlighted his country’s readiness to resolve the ongoing issue on its border with China. Unsurprisingly, Chinese state media latched on to the article to put further pressure on India; the Global Times singled out New Delhi as the “main obstacle” standing in the way of settling the dispute.

   However, resolving the issue of China and Bhutan’s border is not a simple task. China now lays claim to locations in three separate geographic locations, including Doklam in the west, the sacred Buddhist area of the Beyul Khenpajong in the north, and the Sakteng wildlife sanctuary in the east. (The wildlife sanctuary, which doesn’t sit on the border, only appeared in Chinese demands in 2020.) These claims reflect Beijing’s bad-faith negotiating, which has marred talks between the two countries since they began in 1984. It’s clear why neither side has made progress through negotiations, despite meeting frequently over the years.



   Since 1996, China has offered an exchange of territory with Bhutan, seeking to relinquish its claim to disputed regions in the north in exchange for Bhutan ceding more strategically important territory in the west. For Beijing, Doklam remains the goal: It sits at a junction that connects Tibet, Bhutan, and India, and it would provide the Chinese People’s Liberation Army with a tactical advantage. To make this a more attractive proposition, China noted that the territory in the north was far larger than the territory it sought. Although the initial offer nearly worked, the 1996 talks ultimately broke down.

   Bhutan’s unwavering refusal to accept the deal may have prompted China to add the Sakteng claim, sending a message about how far it will go. Meanwhile, China has stepped up its coercive measures and opted for more creative means of reaching a breakthrough. This began with border incursions, which escalated significantly in the 2000s before transitioning to the rapid construction of cross-border civilian and military infrastructure. As Robert Barnett reported in Foreign Policy in 2021, China erected entire villages inside Bhutan’s borders in recent years; Gyalaphug village in the northern Beyul region is one of three the Chinese have constructed, along with miles of roads, CCP administrative centers, and outposts for military, police, and other security officers.

   Such an elaborate construction drive may seem to contradict China’s apparent preference for the western regions, including its offer to exchange the very land on which it has built villages. But this view misunderstands the CCP’s motive: Rather than annexing Bhutanese territory to occupy it fully, the CCP’s main objective seems to be to strike at the core of Bhutan’s Buddhist culture. As Barnett wrote, Bhutan ceding the Beyul region—an area of immense cultural and religious importance—is as likely as Britain giving up Stonehenge. The silent occupation is instead intended to force the hand of the Bhutanese leadership, making it more eager to discuss the future of Doklam.

   The status of Doklam is ultimately a trilateral concern. Bhutan and India have shared a special relationship since signing a treaty of friendship in 1949, which afforded India guidance over Bhutan’s foreign and defense policy; they have maintained this connection even after the treaty was relaxed in 2007. In 2017, Chinese troops clashed with Indian soldiers in the region over a Chinese attempt to build a road connecting Doklam with Tibet. The disputed region represents a vulnerability for both India and China. To the south, Doklam borders the Siliguri corridor, a sliver of land that connects the heart of India to its northeastern regions. It is the only land route for Indian troops to reach territory including the state of Arunachal Pradesh, which was a major theater of conflict in the 1962 Sino-Indian war and where the two armies have clashed as recently as last year.

   Similarly, the Chumbi Valley to the north of Doklam—often described as a Chinese dagger into Indian territory—represents a weakness for China, which sees the ancient gateway to Tibet as vulnerable to a pincer movement, in which Indian troops could strike from both sides of the valley at once—from Bhutan and India. By extending its claim by 89 square kilometers south of the intersection with Bhutan and India, China hopes to gain a vantage point that could serve both offensive and defensive purposes in a potential conflict with India.

  China’s increased urgency toward border talks with Bhutan should not be seen in isolation. Resolving the dispute over Doklam is inextricably linked to the conflict on China and India’s shared border, and specifically to the status of Arunachal Pradesh, which China claims as an extension of South Tibet. With Doklam under its control, China could exert more pressure on India; Chinese forces could easily sever India’s connection to the eastern part of their disputed border. Such a resolution would also almost certainly precede more ambitious moves from China in Arunachal Pradesh, which could draw in the United States. (U.S. intelligence has already assisted the Indian military in previous border skirmishes.)

   The outcome of negotiations between China and Bhutan will loom heavily over the future of peace along the China-India border, as well as broader geopolitical tensions. Although the discussions are speeding up, China and Bhutan have not yet set a date for the all-important 25th round of boundary talks, where a significant breakthrough would be most likely. Looking west, the United States and India are actively deepening their ties; it appears inevitable that the Quad will have to bring military cooperation within its framework. With such high stakes, New Delhi should urge Thimphu to maintain the status quo in Doklam in the face of continued pressure from Beijing.

 

Marcus Andreopoulos is a senior research fellow at the Asia-Pacific Foundation, an international policy assessment group, as well as a subject matter expert for the Global Threats Advisory Group at NATO DEEP.

(Foreign Policy Magazine)