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.
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