China planning BRI projects in Bhutan, reveals Global Times report‘ Bhutan committed to protect interest of all-weather friend India’

Sandwiched in the great power rivalry between India and China, Bhutan is used to tight-rope walking, say observers.

NIRMALYA BANERJEE, EOI, KOLKATA, APRIL 2, 2023 : The three-day royal visit of King of Bhutan Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuk to Delhi from April 3carries special significance as it is coming in the wake of an interview of Prime Minister of Bhutan Lotay Tsering to a Belgian newspaper indicating that Thimphu is ready to accommodate China in the strategic Doklam Plateau at the trijunction of Sikkim, Bhutan and Tibet in course of its border negotiations with Beijing. 

A recent report in the Global Times, the mouthpiece of the Communist Party of China, indicating that China is planning to extend its Belt and Road Initiative to Bhutan and build roads from Tibet to Bhutan through the Himalayan ranges, the way it has done in the case of Nepal, may also add to the concerns of India. 

In a subsequent interview to The Bhutanese, the Prime Minister of Bhutan has said that he had told the Belgian newspaper nothing new in his interview and the position of Bhutan in its border dispute with China remained the same. In fact, by telling the Belgian newspaper that Bhutan, India and China had an equal stake in the dispute at Doklam, he had accommodated for the first time India as a third party to the boundary dispute between Bhutan and China and this was done to indicate that Bhutan would respect the security concern of India in Doklam and keep it in the loop. 

The statement of the Prime Minister Lotay Tshering that there was no Chinese intrusion in Bhutan was in the context of the fact that the border between China and Bhutan had not been demarcated and the issue was yet to be discussed, it was clarified in the interview to The Bhutanese. 

Sandwiched in the great power rivalry between India and China, Bhutan is used to tight-rope walking, say observers. It will be a challenge to Thimphu to keep both of its giant neighbours happy in the tricky negotiations over the Doklam plateau. 

China is trying to gain control of the entire plateau to gain the high grounds which are important from a military point of view. The adjoining Chumbi valley of Tibet, under the occupation of China, is flanked by the high grounds of the Sikkim Himalayas where Indian troops are stationed. The occupation of Doklam plateau will also offer the Chinese army a view of the vulnerable Siliguri corridor of India. From the Indian point of view, however, this is unacceptable. 

The Chinese army has been present in the Doklam plateau for a long time; since the beginning of the decade beginning in 2000. They have been building a road along the Torsa Nulla, a river running through the plateau. The dispute turned volatile in 2017, however, when the Chinese troops tried to extend this road to the Zomphelri Ridge, a high ground on the southern side of the plateau. The occupation of this ridge by China is unacceptable from the point of view of the security of India. 

Besides gaining control of the strategic Doklam plateau, China is also planning to extend the BRI to Bhutan, as the Global Times report on March 30, 2023, indicates. “The construction of the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative is also beneficial to the development of Bhutan,” says the report. “Bhutan has seen this clearly via the extension of the China-Nepal railway project. 

”Observers point out, however, that Bhutan, all-weather friend of India, has also noted how BRI loans have landed Sri Lanka and Pakistan in a mess, how Beijing has arm-twisted Colombo through BRI loans to gain control of Hambantota Port and how Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina has recently expressed reservations about BRI loans.