China invites Bhutan to join BRI project
POSTDOKLAM Senior Chinese minister visits Thimphu BEIJING:
China has invited Bhutan to join the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and share its “development dividend”, Beijing said on Tuesday, a day after a senior Chinese minister visited Thimpu and held talks with the Bhutanese leadership on wide-ranging issues, including the disputed border.
Bhutan was at the centre of last year’s 73-day Sino-India military standoff in Doklam (Donglang in Chinese), an area under Chinese control but claimed by Thimphu, near the Sikkim border. This was the first high-level visit by a Chinese politician to Bhutan since the Doklam standoff was resolved at the end of last August.
An official said China’s vice foreign minister Kong Xuanyou, accompanied by the country’s points-person for Bhutan Luo Zhaohui, discussed with the Bhutanese leadership the gamut of the bilateral dispute, which included the situation along the China-Bhutan-India border in Doklam.
Kong met Bhutan’s King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck and Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay, besides foreign minister Damcho Dorji.
“The two sides exchanged views on China-Bhutan ties, and also the boundary issue, and reached many agreements,” Geng Shuang, ministry of foreign affairs (MFA) spokesperson said at a ministry briefing on Tuesday.
Kong met Bhutan’s King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck and Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay besides foreign minister Damcho Dorji.
Bhutan does not have diplomatic ties with China and is the only country in India’s neighbourhood that hasn’t joined the BRI, President Xi Jinping’s multibillion-dollar connectivity project that India has refused to endorse on multiple international forums because of sovereignty issues linked to the ChinaPakistan Economic Corridor.