India-China Standoff in High Himalayas Pulls In Tiny Bhutan

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NEW DELHI —
A tense standoff between India and China in the high Himalayas is being played out not on the disputed borders between the two Asian giants, but on a plateau claimed by China and Bhutan. Many analysts say the face off is also a play for power in the tiny, strategically located country, which is India’s closest ally in South Asia, but where Beijing wants to increase its presence.

Indian troops obstructed a Chinese road-building project at Doklam Plateau around mid-June. The area also known as “Chicken’s Neck” is hugely strategic for India because it connects the country’s mainland to its northeastern region.

New Delhi cites its treaties with Bhutan, with which it has close military and economic ties, for keeping its soldiers in the area despite strident calls by Beijing to vacate the mountain region.

As the standoff drags on, there are fears in New Delhi that Beijing is also testing its ties with Bhutan, the tiny nation that has made gross national happiness its mantra, but where worries are growing about a big power conflict on its doorstep.

Analysts point out that China wants to wean Bhutan away from India and expand ties with a country with which it has no diplomatic ties.

“At a strategic level, China would like to separate India from Bhutan, they would like to open up Bhutan to their greater influence, that goes without saying,” said Manoj Joshi, a strategic affairs analyst at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi.

https://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2017/07/1491.jpg


One small move at a time

According to political analysts, it is not the first time the Chinese have built a road in a disputed area in Bhutan, which has a disputed border with China at several places in the high Himalayas.

“They have done the same in other areas, built roads in mountains and valleys and then claimed it was their territory during border negotiations,” said a Bhutanese political analyst who did not want to be identified. “It has been a hot button issue here, and has been repeatedly debated in parliament.”

These “encroachments” are seen as efforts by Beijing to muscle into Bhutan in the same manner as it has done in South China Sea. Analysts call it a “salami slicing” tactic.

But Bhutan, which worries about being drawn into the rivalry between the two large neighbors, has maintained a studied silence on the latest dispute, except to issue one demarche calling on Beijing to restore the status quo in the area.

“Bhutan has done well, so far, to avoid both the fire from the Dragon on our heads and also the Elephant’s tusks in our soft underbelly. We must keep it this way,” Bhutanese journalist Tenzing Lamsang wrote for The Wire.

Despite some calls in Bhutan to settle its border with China without worrying about Indian interests, political analysts say public opinion largely favors New Delhi’s firm stand on the Doklam plateau.


Influence at stake

While keeping the Chinese out of the strategic plateau is India’s immediate concern, there is also concern about maintaining its influence in Bhutan, which is a buffer between China and India.

India has watched warily as Beijing has steadily increased its presence in its neighborhood in recent years as countries like Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka have also been increasingly drawn into the Chinese sphere of influence by the promise of massive investments in roads, ports and other infrastructure.

In India there are concerns that the same should not happen in Bhutan, its most steadfast ally. Saying the Chinese have been applying pressure on the Bhutanese border, analyst Manoj Joshi said. “If Bhutan were to go the way of say Nepal, where Indian influence is now questioned, it would make a difference, that buffer would vanish.”

India’s foreign secretary S. Jaishankar this week expressed confidence that India and China have the maturity to handle their latest dispute and it will be handled diplomatically. "I see no reason why, when having handled so many situations in the past, we would not be able to handle it," he said.

But while in the past such border standoffs have been resolved quickly, this time around there are no signs the issue is getting resolved, nearly a month after it erupted.

https://www.voanews.com/a/india-chin...n/3942619.html

Some interesting comments on the video to read.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IXlLdtKIxQ&app=desktop

Dirty filthy thieving chinks.

Deserved of a thorough carpet bombing.

Isn't that Indo-Sino Standoff?

Doklam stand-off: Chinese media go back to 1962 war, dig out editorials and photographs

Ramping up the rhetoric against India, Chinese media took to recalling the 1962 India-China war this week, publishing editorials and photographs from five decades ago. While People’s Daily, the most influential daily in China, has referred to an editorial printed in the newspaper barely a month before the 1962 Indo-China war, a website published “rare” photographs from the conflict.

Earlier too, Chinese media and government spokespersons have recalled the 1962 war between India and China, as a warning, since the stand-off between the two countries in Doklam, in the Sikkim region, sparked tensions in mid-June.

People’s Daily, the official mouthpiece of the Communist Party of China, took to Weibo, the microblogging app, to recall an editorial printed on the newspaper’s front page on September 22, 1962. Titled, “If this can be tolerated, what cannot be tolerated?”, the editorial refers to India’s alleged attempts to “erode” Chinese territory, recounts Indian Army provocation and warns of retaliation.

In the image of the front page of the People’s Daily published on Tuesday are two more articles concerning tension between India and China. The 1962 editorial was also recalled in an article on the newspaper’s website, titled, “People’s Daily to India: Borderline is bottom line.” The same day, Sina.com.cn published a series of “rare” photographs from the same conflict. The series of 25 photographs recounts the build-up to tensions, the outbreak of war, key Chinese victories and the ceasefire.

The references to the 1962 war are a step up from similar articles in China’s state-run media. Since Monday, all of China’s top state-run media platforms, through opinions, editorials and expert interviews, warned India of “consequences”, slowing down of growth, the dangers of politicising the Dalai Lama and criticism from the international community.

In a commentary published Monday, titled ‘India must understand borderline is bottom line’, state-run news agency Xinhua, stated that India had “blatantly” trespassed on sovereign Chinese territory. “India should rectify its mistakes and show sincerity to avoid an even more serious situation creating more significant consequences. After all, the country should be fully aware of the legal consensus upheld by all members of the international community, that respecting the borderline is the bottom line for sustained peace,” the editorial said.

The English tabloid Global Times — functioning under the People’s Daily — in a series of articles published since Sunday alleged that Indian troops had crossed into China’s Doklam area in the name of helping Bhutan, claimed Indian leaders were using the incident to “appease” domestic and international audiences and warned against using the “Dalai Lama card” amid the border row.

“Even if India were requested to defend Bhutan’s territory, this could only be limited to its established territory, not the disputed area. Otherwise, under India’s logic, if the Pakistani government requests, a third country’s army can enter the area disputed by India and Pakistan, including India-controlled Kashmir,” stated an opinion piece Sunday.

Another opinion article claimed the border row was being used to garner votes. “The Modi government will undergo elections in 2019…(for) Indian leaders the China card is the most convenient tool to whip up the public and provide cannon fodder to India’s unbridled media. For a right-wing, hardliner government such as this, the China threat theory is even more significant,” it stated.

In the China State Council Information Office (SCIO)-run China Daily, Lin Minwang, a researcher at the Institute of International Studies, Fudan University, Shanghai, wrote, “It is becoming clear that India is ready to serve as an ally of the US rather than a swing power that honours independent, non-aligned diplomacy. Beijing should remain vigilant against New Delhi’s moves…” An editorial in the same newspaper warned India to abide by the boundary conventions, “before the situation deteriorates and leads to more serious consequences”.

Doklam stand-off: Chinese media go back to 1962 war, dig out editorials and photographs | The Indian Express

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sovereign Chinese territory

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There is nothing sovereign about stolen property and land, ie. Xinjiang, Tibet and the South China/West Philippines reefs.

I thought, long long ago, that the Chinese were relatively intelligent. In recent years they've proved me wrong, time and time and time and time again.

They're just thieving thugs and bullies, with very little foresight.

India searches for way out of border standoff with China

The Indian Defense Ministry has contradicted reports of Chinese troop mobilization on the border. In a statement on Wednesday, the ministry said there had only been a general state of alert on the Chinese side and a routine annual military exercise was held near Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, in June.

This is despite a report by People’s Daily on Wednesday citing “expert” opinions that China’s “recent military moves along the Sino-Indian border … have sent a strong message to India amid the two nations’ standoff”.

The daily assessed that “Chinese experts believe that the actions showcased China’s strength and sent a strong signal to India. Though India has more troops scattered along the disputed area, China’s rapid deployment of troops, its powerful weaponry, and its advanced logistics support give China the edge over India.”

However, New Delhi is studiously playing down the border tensions. The government has taken exception to Indian media hyping the standoff with China.

Unnamed army sources in Delhi disclosed on Wednesday that no flag meetings as such had taken place between local commanders and that the standoff was being discussed at the “highest level” of the government.

Indeed, Indian Foreign Secretary Subrahmanyam Jaishankar told a parliamentary committee on foreign affairs in Delhi on Tuesday that diplomatic efforts were under way to end the standoff.

National Security Adviser Ajit Doval is due to travel to Beijing next week to attend a BRICS event on security issues. Doval, who reports directly to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is also concurrently India’s special representative on border talks with China.

It is entirely conceivable that Doval will sound out the Chinese side on some face-saving formula that ends the standoff, devolving upon pullback of Indian troops from Chinese territory.

On the Chinese side, too, a lowering of rhetoric has been discernible for the past several days after a Xinhua commentary took note of the “positive remarks” by the Indian foreign secretary from a podium in Singapore last week to the effect that “India and China should not let differences become disputes”.

The Xinhua commentary, however, revisited the Chinese refrain that a condominium of Hindu nationalists and the hawkish Indian military is fueling tensions.

In an unsparing commentary on Wednesday, the Global Times newspaper drew a fairly accurate picture of the ascendancy of Hindu nationalists since Modi came to power and the latent groundswell of zero-sum opinion in India vis-à-vis China, laced with a sense of pain over the defeat in the 1962 war, disquiet over China’s rise and an “ingrained suspicion of Chinese strategy”.

The commentary warned that Indian “strategists and politicians have shown no wisdom in preventing India’s China policy from being kidnapped by rising nationalism…. India should be careful not to let religious nationalism push the two countries into war.”

But the salience lies, perhaps, in the Chinese commentary differentiating Prime Minister Modi himself from his “core constituency” of Hindu extremists.

What lies ahead?

The Modi government is doubtless keen to end the standoff, but a face-saving formula needs to be found. It takes two to tango.

However, looking further ahead, it is difficult to anticipate any significant shift in the trajectory of India-China relations. The relationship has become adversarial and, arguably, the Modi government’s foreign-policy compass of “muscular diplomacy” toward China (and Pakistan) is not happenstance.

There is an entrenched opinion within India’s strategic community that shares Defense Minister Arun Jaitley’s recent barb aimed at Beijing that today’s India is not “the India of 1962”.

A thoughtful Indian military analyst, Ajai Shukla, wrote this week that “border incidents are increasingly triggered by India’s increasing military strength and an increasingly assertive posture on the border”.

Shukla explained the paradigm shift this way: “The little-known upshot is that India’s military posture has become significantly stronger than China’s on the 3,500-kilometer Line of Actual Control. This is enhancing confrontation between the two sides.

“For decades, India maintained an insignificant military presence in Daulet Beg Oldi, in Ladakh…. But when India’s thickening troop presence blocked Chinese patrols into the area, a prolonged confrontation ensued in 2013. One general involved in that standoff says: ‘The Chinese demanded to know why we were blocking them now, when they had been patrolling that area for years.’

“A similar confrontation took place in Chumar, in Ladakh, in 2014. Now, in Doklam, Chinese anger stems from being blocked in 2017, after facing no resistance between 2003 [and] 2007, when they tested the waters by building the existing track.”

Of course, it takes gumption for an ex-army officer to acknowledge with such brutal candor the ground realities. But Shukla’s opinion is shared silently by many within the Indian defense-policy community.

However, Modi’s dilemma lies elsewhere. Indian strategists have a habit of spouting opinions from the ivory tower, whereas Modi is ruling an increasingly unmanageable country through choppy waters with eyes set on the 2019 elections. And the plain truth is that the Indian economy will crumble if a war is thrust upon the country.

Because of a clever change in the methodology of calculating gross domestic product, the Indian economy’s growth rate looks impressive, but in actuality, under the combined pressure of the recent policy moves on demonetization and goods and services tax (GST, a unified tax structure for the entire country), an economy that had already been slowing is now virtually crawling.

The disruption has huge consequences for short-term growth. On top of it, if a war is thrust upon the country, the political economy will enter crisis zone.

Modi understands this, which explains why the standoff with China is handled at the “highest level”. As the European statesman Georges Clemenceau, who served as France’s prime minister during World War I, said famously, war is too important to be left to the generals.

India searches for way out of border standoff with China | Asia Times

Well there's a useful ally for the west to sell arms to in the form of India... Burma too, is not well-disposed to the Shehuizhuyi Dynasty... but if the west nods off it could lose a crucial ally against China.

Why Burma Must Reset Its Relationship With China | Foreign Policy

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/201...ns-to-china-a/

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/19/w...acy-trump.html

It's not just Trump, but the Demagogues too, that are dangerously neglecting China's aggressive reach for global top dog status; it's worth watching how Japan behaves (and India).

http://www.mmtimes.com/index.php/nat...r-myanmar.html

http://www.mmtimes.com/index.php/bus...kphyu-sez.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-33193275

China: India Must Pull Back its Troops Amid Border Standoff

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BEIJING —
China on Monday warned India not to “push your luck” by underestimating Beijing's determination to safeguard what it considers sovereign Chinese territory, amid an ongoing standoff between the two neighbors over a contested region high in the Himalayas.

Defense ministry spokesman Col. Wu Qian reiterated China's demand that Indian troops pull back from the Doklam Plateau, an area also claimed by Indian ally Bhutan where Chinese teams had been building a road toward India's border.

“China's determination and resolve to safeguard national security and sovereignty is unshakable,” Wu said at a news conference to mark the upcoming 90th anniversary of the founding of the People's Liberation Army.

“Here is a wish to remind India, do not push your luck and cling to any fantasies,” Wu said. “The 90-year history of the PLA has proved but one thing: that our military means to secure our country's sovereignty and territorial integrity has strengthened and our determination has never wavered. It is easier to shake a mountain than to shake the PLA.”

India has called for both sides to withdraw forces and a negotiated settlement to the standoff that began last month after Chinese troops began working to extend southward the road from Yadong in Tibet.

While the sides have exercised restraint thus far, heated rhetoric in both Beijing and New Delhi has raised concern over a renewal of hostilities that resulted in a brief but bloody frontier war between the sides in 1962. The nuclear-armed neighbors share a 3,500-kilometer (2,174-mile) border, much of it contested, and China acts as a key ally and arms supplier for India's archrival, Pakistan.

The crisis is expected to be discussed when Indian National Security Adviser Ajit Doval visits Beijing at the end of this week for a security forum under the BRICS group of large developing nations that includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

https://www.voanews.com/a/china-indi...f/3956339.html

This stand-off from a few years ago demonstrates the cluelessness of the Chinese, and the straight up physical superiority of the Indians.

Neither country wants war. And China is all bluster, yet again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WroDJu2qnNQ&t=400s

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Originally Posted by Geezy

and the straight up physical superiority of the Indians.

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from an Indian News show...lol

Funny how when the female Indian reporter starts talking, there are shots of hot Indian women in nice dresses... completely apropos of nothing, and nothing to do with the story. :rofl:

Seems to be the growing fashion of contemporary times.

Petty border and territorial disputes without presiding historical precedence.

^ another garbage post.

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Originally Posted by thaimeme

Petty border and territorial disputes without presiding historical precedence.

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This border's been disputed since before the British left.

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Originally Posted by fred flintstone

This border's been disputed since before the British left.

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As everywhere (MIddle East) where the British left ...

....curious.
How do you people mange to work in the British angle to this historic perspective that has nothing whatsoever to do the West's non-influence?

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Originally Posted by thaimeme

How do you people mange to work in the British angle to this historic perspective that has nothing whatsoever to do the West's non-influence?

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The British were ruling India when the dispute began.

Countdown to India-China military clash has begun: Chinese daily on Doklam standoff

A conflict between India and China over the Doklam standoff can be avoided, but the clock is running out for a peaceful solution, the English-language China Daily said in a new editorial.

Upping the rhetoric over the ongoing Doklam standoff, an editorial in the English-language China Daily, which focuses mostly on an international audience, has warned that the countdown to a clash between India and China has begun.

Titled, 'New Delhi should come to its senses while it has time', the editorial says that the "window for a peaceful solution is closing."

"The countdown to a clash between the two forces has begun, and the clock is ticking away the time to what seems to be an inevitable conclusion," the piece reads, commenting that a clash can be easily avoided be avoided if New Delhi heeds Beijing's demand that Indian troops unconditionally step back from the standoff site in Doklam.

Soldiers of the Indian Army and China's People's Liberation Army have for seven weeks been locked in a high-stakes, but peaceful standoff. The face-off was sparked after Indian troops stopped a Chinese PLA unit from extending a road on the Doklam plateau in a region contested between China and Bhutan

The China Daily editorial, which is just the latest in what has been a series of jingoistic articles that have been churned out by the state-backed media in China, says that Beijing wants to avoid conflict.

"Beijing has time and again sent the message that to avoid conflict all India needs to do is withdraw all its troops from an area that based on historical treaties, historically expressed agreements and long-exercised control both have long agreed is Chinese territory," the piece says.

China Daily goes on to refer to a recent Chinese Ministry of Defence statement to say, "There is a "bottom line" to the restraint shown by China to India's trespass... Anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear will have got the message. Yet New Delhi refuses to come to its senses and pull its troops back to its own side of the border."

The editorial then reiterates points that have previously been raised by Chinese media - that India has entered China's territory and that New Delhi's "audacity in challenging China's sovereignty may come from its own sense of inferiority and insecurity in the face of China's rapid rise to prominence in the region."

"India's trespassing is changing the long and legally established status quo in the area and is thus an act that China has no option but to resist," the editorial continues as it, again, says that the ball is in New Delhi's court as far as preventing a conflict is concerned. "...being at loggerheads serves neither side any good, and a violent clash is still avoidable, even at this late stage," the article reads.

Concluding with a Chinese proverb, the piece ends, "He who stirs up trouble should end it, as a Chinese proverb goes. India should withdraw its troops while the clock is still ticking. It will only have itself to blame if its stubborn refusal to heed the voice of reason leads to consequences it regrets."

Countdown to India-China military clash has begun: Chinese daily on Doklam standoff : World, News - India Today

The Chinese mongrels will do nothing.

They're all bluster. And way too scared to go into a conflict. That takes balls, and they have none.

I wonder what the people who actually live there think ?

"As in other parts of Northeast India, the people native to the state trace their origins to the Tibeto-Burman people. Arunachal Pradesh has the highest number of regional languages in the Indian subcontinent".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arunachal_Pradesh

India and China troops clash along Himalayan border

A confrontation occurred between Indian and Chinese soldiers along a disputed border in the western Himalayas, Indian officials said on Tuesday.

The PTI news agency said soldiers threw stones, causing minor injuries to both sides, as Chinese troops tried to enter Indian territory near the Pangong lake.

Beijing maintains that their soldiers were inside Chinese territory.

The two countries are also locked in an impasse in the Doklam area, which borders China, India and Bhutan.

PTI quoted army officials as saying that in the latest confrontation, soldiers had to form a human chain to prevent an incursion by Chinese forces into territories claimed by India and located near the country's Ladakh region. China claims the territories as its own.

An Indian official told the BBC that he could neither confirm nor deny media reports, but said "such incidents do happen," adding that "this isn't the first time that something like this has happened."

China's foreign ministry said in an official statement that "the Indian side must immediately and unconditionally withdraw all personnel and equipment from the Chinese soil", while reiterating that its troops had been inside Chinese territory when the confrontation took place.

An official statement from India's foreign ministry said that "there is no commonly delineated Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the border areas between India and China."

It added that differences in perception of the LAC have caused situations on the ground that could have been avoided if there was a consensus on the border lines.
The latest skirmish occurred even as the two armies continued a two-month stand-off further east, near a plateau known as Doklam in India and Donglang in China.
Since the confrontation began in June, each side has reinforced its troops and called on the other to retreat.

The two nations fought a war over the border in 1962 and disputes remain unresolved in several areas, which causes tensions to escalate from time to time.

India and China troops clash along Himalayan border - BBC News

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Originally Posted by misskit

https://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2017/07/1491.jpg

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Ironic that China wants 'closer ties' with Bhutan, while Tibet no longer exists.

https://youtu.be/2cAaB-JBSzQ

Hidden agenda behind China-India Himalayan showdown

As Chinese and Indian security forces square off on a remote plateau in the Himalaya mountains, it is has become clear over two months into the showdown that it’s not really about China building a road in an area disputed between China and Bhutan.

As always when China is involved in a confrontation near or across its frontiers — be it the border war with India in 1962, skirmishes with the Soviets along the Amur river in 1969, or military raids across Vietnam’s northern border in 1979 — there is a hidden political agenda.

In 1962, China wanted to assert its influence in the Third World where until then India had been a leading voice. In 1969, China had to show it would not hesitate to challenge their main enemy at that time, “the Soviet revisionists”, by military means. In 1979, China sought to “punish” Vietnam for intervening in Cambodia and ousting the pro-Beijing Khmer Rouge regime.

This time, China is attempting to drive a wedge between Bhutan and its traditional ally India, China’s main and traditional geopolitical rival. Most recently, China is frustrated with India’s reluctance to join its One Belt One Road infrastructure development initiative. Unresolved border issues are another bilateral problem, as is the long-time presence of the Dalai Lama and his Tibetan government in exile in India.

In June, Chinese construction workers protected by People’s Liberation Army soldiers moved into the Doklam plateau, an area which the Bhutanese claim as their territory and which the Chinese call Donglang and likewise claim as theirs. India does not claim Doklam, but supports Bhutan on the unresolved border issue.

Less than 50 kilometers from the stand-off area is the Bhutanese town of Haa, the center for the Indian Military Training Team, or IMTRAT, which is responsible for training the Royal Bhutan Army (RBA). Doklam is also located on the western flank of the Chumbi valley, the narrow salient between western Bhutan and the mountainous Indian state of Sikkim.

Any Chinese attempt to widen that corridor, giving its security forces more room to maneuver in a sensitive border area, would be perceived as a threat to India’s security.

India obviously interpreted China’s move as a provocation and moved troops into the disputed area to disrupt the construction of the road. China has not said why it is building the road in an area it claims to have held for “centuries.” The sensitive construction comes at a time China is revving up its US$1 trillion One Belt One Road global infrastructure building spree.

India’s reaction to the roadworks may have been exactly what the Chinese wanted. It appears that India was left with no choice but to walk right into a diplomatic trap. The move has made India appear as the belligerent party and at the same time caused concern in Bhutan where India’s military presence is a politically sensitive issue.

There is currently a good all-weather road down the Chumbi valley. Nathula, the mountain pass where China meets the Indian state of Sikkim, is already a major post for cross-border trade with India and many Chinese goods are re-exported to Bhutan. However, direct imports from India account for 75% of Bhutan’s total trade, while 85% of its exports are sent to India.

There is some trade across the Bhutan border with China as well, with Bhutanese carrying medicinal herbs on yak or horseback to China and returning with electronics and other manufactures. But the volume of that trade is small and the road China intends to build does not appear to be for expanding trade — especially since Bhutan and China, despite more than twenty rounds of talks, have not yet demarcated their shared border.

In recent years China had begun courting Bhutan, the only neighboring country with which Beijing does not yet have diplomatic relations. That courtship, some analysts suggest, could reset the prevailing India-dominated balance of power in the Himalayas.

Throughout modern history, Bhutan has depended heavily on India. The tiny Himalayan kingdom is tied to Delhi through treaties signed with the British colonial power in 1910 and independent India in 1949 and 2007.

The first two treaties gave Bhutan a high degree of internal autonomy but its foreign relations were still guided by India, in effect making it an Indian protectorate. The 2007 treaty granted Bhutan more independence over its foreign affairs.

India not only trains the Royal Bhutan Army, but also pays the salaries of its troops. And the Border Road Organization, an outfit affiliated with the Indian Army, has built roads all over Bhutan. For India’s security planners, Bhutan is of utmost strategic importance as it lies south of the crest of the Himalayas, or the northern line of defense against China.

China’s claim to territories south of that defense line was the pretext for a massive Chinese attack in 1962, where Chinese troops invaded large areas in the eastern Himalayas and then withdrew after inflicting a crushing defeat on Indian army units in the area.

Despite its long-time dependence on India, Bhutan has in recent decades gained more independence. It became a member of the United Nations in 1971 and its 2007 treaty with India — a revised version of that signed in 1949 — states only that the two countries “shall cooperate closely with each other on issues relating to their national interests. Neither government shall allow the use of its territory for activities harmful to the national security and interests of the other.”

In a bid to counter India’s influence in Bhutan, China has deployed its usual “soft diplomacy.” Chinese circus artists, acrobats and footballers have recently traveled to Bhutan, and a limited number of Bhutanese students have received scholarships to study in China.

Tourism has expanded as well. Nineteen Chinese tourists visited Bhutan a decade ago; now it is more than 9,000 a year, or 19% of its annual total arrivals. Chinese travelers have become a major source of income for the small kingdom of less than a million people.

Last August, Bhutan and China representatives met for yet another round of border talks. According to a statement issued by the Chinese foreign ministry after the talks: “Although Bhutan and China have not established diplomatic relations yet, it will not hold back the mutually beneficial cooperation between the two countries.

The Bhutanese side is willing to continue deepening exchanges in such fields as tourism, religion, culture and agriculture and further lift the cooperation level with China.”

The current conflict has thus placed Bhutan on the horns of a complicated dilemma. On June 29, the Bhutanese foreign ministry stated publicly that “[China’s] construction of the road inside Bhutanese territory is a direct violation of the agreements and affects the process of demarcating the boundary between the two countries.”

A month later, Bhutan’s ambassador to India, Vetsop Namgyel, attended a function at China’s New Delhi embassy to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. His top-level attendance was significant considering China and Bhutan do not yet share diplomatic relations.

On August 2, the Chinese foreign ministry issued a new statement saying that “the China-Bhutan boundary issue is one between China and Bhutan. It has nothing to do with India” and “India has no right to make territorial demands on Bhutan’s behalf.” India, the Chinese foreign ministry went on to say, has not only “violated China’s sovereignty” but also “challenged Bhutan’s sovereignty and independence.”

China has suggested in principle that it would give up its other territorial claims in northern Bhutan if Thimphu agrees to give up its claim to the Doklam plateau — a proposal that India would see as detrimental to its national interests and a violation of the 2007 treaty it holds with Bhutan.

At the same time, Bhutan is eager to lessen its dependence on India and show the world that it is a truly independent nation. The Doklam dispute has therefore led to mixed reactions in Bhutan. The Bhutanese don’t want the Chinese so close to home, but India’s overt intervention could be viewed as reverting to the status of an Indian protectorate.

That view could influence local electoral politics. P. Stobdan, a well-known Indian security analyst, argued in a July 11 article for the Indian website The Wire that, “the next election in Bhutan in October 2018 will be fought on pro- versus anti-Indian slogans.”

That would no doubt be music to China’s ears — and if so Beijing would have achieved exactly what it envisaged when it started constructing an obscure road to nowhere in Doklam.

Hidden agenda behind China-India Himalayan showdown | Asia Times