New Delhi: Army Chief General Manoj Pande Thursday said India and Bhutan have common security concerns and that the Indian force was closely monitoring the border talks between Thimpu and Beijing.
“With Bhutan, we have a unique bilateral relationship based on utmost trust and understanding and this translates to a military relationship… Bhutan and us share mutual security concerns,” General Pande said, addressing his annual press conference ahead of Army Day.
His comments come as China and Bhutan have agreed to fast-track the talks over delimitation and demarcation of the border, besides establishing diplomatic ties.
These talks will have an impact on India’s strategic interests because the areas under discussion are near India’s borders with Bhutan, and could fall under Chinese control.
“We are closely monitoring and interacting with our friends in Bhutan on a transparent basis when it comes to the border talks. Our relationship is proceeding well,” General Pande said.
As reported first by ThePrint in 2019, China and Bhutan were at that time close to striking a deal on the Doklam boundary dispute. The Chinese holding line in the contentious region was to become the working boundary between the two countries.
However, while a formal agreement on this aspect has not been inked yet, the Chinese are already in control of the area and have built several dual-use villages on Bhutanese territory, near the tri-junction with India.
But now the border talks between Bhutan and China have sped up, which is a matter of concern in the Indian strategic and security community.
Bhutan’s foreign minister Tandi Dorji last October met his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi and Vice-President Han Zheng on his two-day official visit to the country.
During the visit, Dorji and Han agreed to “accelerate” the boundary demarcation process and establish diplomatic ties between the two countries.
Immediately after that in November, Bhutan’s King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck made an eight-day visit to India and met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar among others.
This was his second visit to the country last year.
As ThePrint reported in October, China claims around 764 square kilometres of land in northwestern and central Bhutan. This dispute goes back to the Chinese occupation of Tibet in the 1950s.
In 1959, China seized control of eight enclaves of Bhutan and refused to recognise the “dividing line” between Tibet and Bhutan.
Negotiations have continued since then on three areas of contention — the Jakarlung and Pasamlung areas in north Bhutan, and the well-known Doklam area in west Bhutan, which had seen a stand-off between India and China in 2017.
In 2020, Beijing asserted ownership of the Sakteng Wildlife Sanctuary, which is located in eastern Bhutan and borders Arunachal Pradesh.
It is learned that China is willing to give up its claim on the sanctuary if Bhutan agrees to hand over Doklam.
However, Doklam, a plateau with an area of approximately 89 square kilometres and a width of less than 10 kilometres, is of strategic interest to India as it overlooks the Siliguri corridor — a gateway to India’s Northeast.
Since the late 1990s, China had captured small pieces of area in Doklam and had started building a road. In 2017, it started constructing a road headed to the strategically important Jampheri ridge-line.
On 18 June 2017, several companies of the Indian Army stepped in to form a human wall to prevent Chinese earth excavators and workers from carrying out construction activities.
The stand-off lasted for over two months, which increased regional tension and was closely monitored by global powers.
It ended with China agreeing to not construct the road and moving back by 200 metres, while India moved back to the Dokala Post that it has maintained for the last several years.
China continues to have a huge presence there and has built military infrastructure even though it is Bhutanese territory.
(Edited by Tikli Basu)
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