Face-off with an eye to damage Indo-Bhutan ties

BEIJING CLAIMS IT HAS CONDUCTED JOINT SURVEYS IN BORDER AREA WITH THIMPHU AND A ‘CONSENSUS’ ON BOUNDARY ALIGNMENT HAS BEEN REACHED

NEW DELHI : The last time Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Xinping met at Astana in June on the sidelines of a summit, they had agreed not to let the differences turn into disputes. But as they meet again, at the BRICS summit in China in early September, the two leaders will need more than a reiteration of this turn of phrase to bring the fledgling ties back on track.

The military standoff at Doklam, at the India-Bhutan-Tibet tri-junction, has entered the second month, the longest faceoff between the neighbours who are used to border skirmishes.

Though both countries are engaged in negotiations, none is putting a deadline to sort out the dispute, which erupted on June 16 after China accused Indian troops of entering its territory.

“We will keep patience to resolve the (Doklam) issue. We will keep engaging with China to resolve the dispute,” external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj said in Rajya Sabha on Thursday, a day after Beijing issued a 15-page document which it termed a fact sheet of the face-off.

The lessons from the standoff show why Modi would have to look at a new template in dealing with China which has been more assertive over Doklam standoff than it had been in recent times. It also has, more importantly, challenged India’s special relationship with Bhutan.

For New Delhi, the dispute is on Bhutan territory and Indian troops went in, as per an understanding with the Himalayan kingdom, to stop China from constructing a road.

The Chinese notably didn’t take note of an argument India made as to why it is concerned about the standoff. Under a 2012 understanding between India and China on border issues, changing the status quo of trijunctions requires consent of third countries involved — in this case Bhutan, which lodged a diplomatic protest with China.

Instead, China has quoted liberally from the 1890 treaty between Great Britain and China to buttress its claim. Its foreign ministry on Wednesday mentioned a “non-paper” provided by the Indian side during a meeting of the special representatives on the boundary issue on May 10, 2006. As per Beijing, the two sides had agreed to the boundary alignment in the Sikkim sector under the 1890 treaty.

At the heart of this standoff is Beijing challenging India’s special relationship with Bhutan. A Chinese foreign ministry statement on Thursday puts emphasis that Beijing and Thimphu conducted joint surveys in the border area and have reached a “basic consensus on the actual state of the border area and the alignment of their boundary”.

Which, in other words, mean they are close to actual delimitation of the border, a result of 24 rounds of China-Bhutan talks.

“The China-Bhutan boundary issue is one between China and Bhutan. It has nothing to do with India. As a third party, India has no right to interfere in or impede the boundary talks between China and Bhutan, still less the right to make territorial claims on Bhutan’s behalf,” the Chinese foreign ministry said.

That is opening another front, a sensitive one for India. After an initial protest, Bhutan hasn’t made any statement. And any move to alter Indo-Bhutan ties will be of great challenge to Delhi.