The roof of the world is heating up, with the Himalayan kingdom of
becoming the site of fresh contestation between its two neighbours,
and
.
Two weeks ago, China and Bhutan held a fresh round of talks in China’s Kunming city towards resolving their decades-old border dispute. The outcome took many by surprise: a joint statement insisting that a “positive consensus” had been reached by both, and that they would both be “increasing the frequency” of their talks.
The talks even promised a swift implementation of a mysterious agreement that both sides had signed in 2021, a “three-step road map” to resolve their dispute, the contents of which have not been unveiled.
Less than a week after the announcement, India’s foreign secretary Vinay Mohan Kwatra visited the kingdom and held meetings with the Bhutanese King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck as well as Prime Minister Lotay Tshering.
It was the third high-level Indian visit to Bhutan in the past nine months, after external affairs minister S Jaishankar visited in April last year, followed by Indian Army chief General Manoj Pande’s trip in July. The Indian embassy in Bhutan described the discussions as “wide-ranging”, covering “the entire gamut of bilateral relations”, from energy cooperation to trade to their development partnership.
Analysts believe Kwatra’s visit was a sign of India’s growing concerns over the prospects of Bhutan and China moving closer to a resolution of their boundary dispute.
As part of the boundary negotiations, Beijing has in the past offered Thimphu a “swap” of the disputed territories. China promised to relinquish its demands in northern Bhutan if its claims over regions in northwestern Bhutan were recognised.
This is where things get tricky for New Delhi.
“These claims that China has been making in Bhutan’s northwest, they are all around areas that have strategic importance for India,” said Medha Bisht, associate professor in the department of international relations, at the South Asian University in New Delhi, pointing to the northwestern sector’s disputes in four regions and two valleys, including the Doklam region.
The Doklam region is crucial for New Delhi since it lies at the trijunction between China, Bhutan and India. War strategists in New Delhi believe that access to the region would help China mobilise troops and armoury very swiftly in a war scenario with India.
It would also offer the Chinese People’s Liberation Army a very dominant position in trying to restrict India’s access to its northeastern region, by “choking” the Siliguri corridor, a 22km-wide strip of land connecting mainland India to its northeastern region.
Ranjan said there was growing domestic pressure inside Bhutan on its administration to settle the dispute with China, even if doing so could harm New Delhi’s interests.
“There is a section of the population that believes that there is an immense dependence in Bhutan on India,” he said. “This section wants to resolve the dispute, have stronger ties with China so as to facilitate trade with it,” Ranjan added.
However, Ranjan said Bhutan was unlikely to agree to China’s swap deal, pointing to Bhutan’s dependence on India as a core reason. The landlocked country gets 75 per cent of its imports from its southern neighbour, which is also the destination for 95 per cent of Bhutan’s exports. India also contributes significantly to Bhutan’s development budgets, and acts as the transit point for Bhutan’s trade with other partners.
“Bhutan would never do anything that would harm India’s strategic interests in the region,” Ranjan said.
