Spotlight again on Doklam: India-Bhutan relationship and why China remains the dragon in the room

An expansive joint statement made no mention of the hot-button boundary issue. But the last line in the statement affirmed that “His Majesty’s visit also provided an opportunity for both countries to review the entire gamut of bilateral cooperation and to advance our close bilateral partnership”.

Bhutan-China ‘understanding’

In his interview to the Belgian newspaper La Libre, published days before the King’s visit to India, Prime Minister Tshering said Bhutan and China had “come to understand each other”, and were close to resolving their boundary disputes.

“We do not encounter major border problems with China, but certain territories are not yet demarcated. We still have to discuss it and draw a line,” Tshering, who has visited New Delhi twice — in 2018 and 2019 — said.

“[In January this year], a Bhutanese delegation visited China and we are now awaiting the arrival in Bhutan of a Chinese technical team. After one or two more meetings, we will probably be able to draw a line,” he added.

In January, Bhutan and China had held talks in Kunming as part of an ongoing dialogue on the border issue. The Chinese statement on that meeting said a “positive consensus” had been reached.

“The two sides agreed to simultaneously push forward the implementation of all the steps of the Three-Step Roadmap. The two sides also agreed to increase the frequency of the Expert Group Meetings and to keep contact through diplomatic channels on holding the 25th Round of China-Bhutan Boundary talks as soon as possible at mutually convenient dates”, the Chinese statement said.

The “Three-Step Roadmap for Expediting the China-Bhutan Boundary Negotiations” refers to an agreement reached between the two countries in April 2021, and announced in October of that year.

The question of Doklam

According to reports, the Kunming talks focussed on Doklam and areas near the India-Bhutan-China trijunction in the west, and the Jakarlung and Pasamlung pasturelands in the north.

In his interview, Tshering denied there were Chinese incursions in Bhutan’s territory. “There is a lot of information circulating in the media about Chinese installations in Bhutan. We don’t make a deal of it because it’s not in Bhutan. We said categorically, there is no intrusion as mentioned in the media. This is an international border and we know exactly what belongs to us,” he said.

On the trijunction, he said: “Doklam is a junction point between India, China, and Bhutan. It is not up to Bhutan alone to solve the problem. We are three. There is no big or small country, there are three equal countries, each counting for a third. We are ready. As soon as the other two parties are also ready, we can discuss. India and China have problems all along their border. We are therefore waiting to see how they will resolve their differences.”

India’s position on Doklam

Briefing the media after the King and Prime Minister Narendra Modi had held talks, Foreign Secretary Vinay Mohan Kwatra reiterated India’s “earlier statements” on the determination of the trijunction — the Doklam area where Indian and Chinese troops eyeballed each other for 73 days from June 16 to August 28, 2017 — seeking to convey that Tshering had not said anything different from India’s own position on this issue.

These “earlier statements” — made by the Ministry of External Affairs on June 30, 2017; by former External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj in Parliament in August 2017; and by then Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar to the Parliamentary Committee on External Affairs during 2017-18 — referred to the “Common Understanding” reached between the Special Representatives of New Delhi and Beijing that the trijunction boundary points between India, China, and third countries would be finalised in consultation with those third countries.

India holds that the 2017 Chinese actions in Doklam amounted to an attempt to change the Bhutan-China border unilaterally, thereby violating two agreements with Bhutan in 1988 and 1998.

China’s aim in doing so was to move the trijunction point from Batang La — both Indian and Bhutanese maps have this as the trijunction point — further south to Gyomochen, in violation of the 2012 agreement with India. Control of this area would give China a strategic advantage over India, bringing it closer to the “chicken’s neck”, the narrow corridor at Siliguri which is the only road connection to the Northeast, and where Indian defences are considered to be the most vulnerable.

Tightrope on Bhutan

New Delhi has always held that an agreement between Bhutan and China is the sovereign decision of the two counties — and that even if Thimphu’s positions are not always identical to New Delhi’s, it does remain mindful of Indian concerns, and there is close consultation and co-ordination between the two sides on security issues of mutual interest. This is also written into the 2007 Treaty of Friendship.

But a China-Bhutan agreement on the boundary, especially if it includes Doklam, would have direct and immediate implications for India’s security. Tshering’s remark that an agreement on the boundary was imminent may have taken New Delhi by surprise, if not rattled it. In the expert view, it is unlikely that India would have been kept out of the loop on such an important development.

“The nature of our relationship is such that Bhutan will never spring a surprise on us. We always consult and closely coordinate our positions,” said Ashok Kantha, a former Ambassador to China. “We are mindful of each other’s security and strategic concerns.”

Asked whether the Doklam issue figured in the India-Bhutan talks, Foreign Secretary Kwatra said the two leaders covered the entire gamut of bilateral cooperation including issues of “respective national interests”. India-Bhutan ties, he said, were based on “mutual respect, trust, close understanding and sensitivity to each other’s concerns”.

Kwatra said “both countries maintain a longstanding tradition of very close consultations on matters relating to their mutual interest and, of course, security also. Now in this context the intertwined and indivisible nature of our security concerns is self-evident”.

But this is also why Tshering’s denial of Chinese incursions in Bhutanese territory has surprised New Delhi. Independent experts using satellite imagery and other means have said Chinese villages and infrastructure have come up in Doklam.

Beijing has long sought a land swap by which it gets Doklam in exchange for concessions on disputed territory in the north, though it is unclear if this offer still stands. What is certain is that China looks at Bhutan as a pressure point on India. Beijing’s renaming of places in Arunachal Pradesh, and its “freeze” on the visas of two Indian journalists, came during the King’s visit to India.

As it engages Thimphu, New Delhi would also be mindful of how much Bhutan has changed since its transition to a democracy and constitutional monarchy in 2009 — around the same time that China’s approach to India’s neighbours changed — and the diverse range of views about the country’s location between two big neighbours, which may give it a headache, but also unique leverage.