No aggressive posturing from Bhutan’s media

NEWDELHI: For all the hue and cry in Indian and Chinese media on the border standoff, their fledgling counterpart in Bhutan— the ‘third party’ in the issue—is relatively quiet. There is only matter-of-fact reportage and not many aggressive editorials or opinion pieces.

State-owned Kuensel newspaper and other outlets cited a Bhutan foreign ministry statement of June 29 asking China to maintain status quo, saying the construction “inside Bhutanese territory” is a direct violation of the agreements and affects the process of demarcating the boundary.

In a post on the Facebook page of The Bhutanese newspaper, its editor Tenzing Lamsang offered some insight into the issue, saying, “The Chinese side has built a major road till the Yadong town in the Chumbi valley. The attempt by the Chinese is to take as much roads as it can from there to the Indian and Bhutanese borders in the vicinity.”

“The Chumbi Valley is seen by India as a dagger pointing to its chicken neck. However, for the Chinese side its efforts in the region are hampered by the fact that while it has territory in the Chumbi valley, it lacks the ‘strategic shoulders’ due to the narrowness of the entire area with India and Bhutan one both sides. This in part explains why China is claiming 269 sq km of Bhutanese territory in the area…India on its part sees this as a major threat,” he noted.

“Highlighting the strategic importance of the area China in a package deal in 1996 ‘offered’ to ‘give up’ its claims to 495 sq km of land in the Pasamlung and Jakarlung valleys in Bhutan’s north-central sector of Bumthang in return for giving up the 269 sq km in Doklam to China,” Lamsang pointed out.

The Journalist newspaper said the Chinese army continued to deploy construction machines “in an effort to drive a dirt track along this strategic plateau.”

In most of the Bhutanese media reports, however, there is expectation that the border issue may not escalate into a fullblown military conflict.