it was unable to make the final decision given
India’s objection.
In 2007, Bhutan signed a new friendship
treaty with India, which removed the clause
about India’s “guidance” over Bhutan’s for-
eign policy. Since then, Bhutan has pursued a
more active and independent foreign policy.
Within 10 years, Thimphu had established
diplomatic relationship with 31 countries. By
comparison, Bhutan had diplomatic ties with
only 21 countries plus the European Union
prior to 2007.
But so far, Bhutan remains the only UN
member to have no formal diplomatic rela-
tionship with all five permanent members of
the UN Security Council. It is also the only
country among China’s 14 land neighbours
that has no formal diplomatic relations with
Beijing.
In 2011, under Prime Minister Jigmi
Thinley, Bhutan made its first bid – though
an unsuccessful one – for a non-permanent
seat on the UN Security Council. Later
that year, Bhutan managed to get the UN
General Assembly to unanimously adopt a
resolution placing “happiness” on the global
agenda, promoting the country’s notion of a
“National Happiness Index,” as the best mea-
sure of development.
It was against this background Bhutan and
China resumed their rapprochement. In June
of 2012, Thinley met with then Chinese Pre-
mier Wen Jiabao on the sidelines of an inter-
national summit, which marks the first-ever
meeting between the heads of government
of the two countries. The meeting was later
followed by a visit made in August that year
by China’s former deputy minister of foreign
affairs Fu Ying to Thimphu to discuss the es-
tablishment of diplomatic relations.
But the development aroused alarm in
New Delhi, which intervened in Bhutan’s
election in 2013. After Thinley’s party took
a lead in the first round of the election, In-
dia unexpectedly announced the withdrawal
of its subsidies on gas and kerosene supplies
to Bhutan, which resulted in a doubling of
fuel prices and widespread anxiety over the
country’s financial situation. While leading
to a strained relationship with Thimphu, the
move left Thinley under fire for his failure to
secure India’s support to Bhutan, which even-
tually cost him and his party the election.
After Indian Prime Minister Narendra
Modi assumed power in 2014, he chose
Bhutan as the destination for his first foreign
visit. To remedy the strained ties, Modi an-
nounced a 50 percent increase in India’s an-
nual aid to Bhutan to $970 million.
In return, Bhutan’s new prime minister,
Tshering Tobgay, assured Modi that “there
is no question” of allowing China to open
an embassy in Thimphu. The two sides also
signed a new agreement that promises nei-
ther side will allow their territory to be used
for “interests inimical to each other,” which
is widely considered to refer to Bhutan’s rela-
tionship with China.Escalation?
Many Chinese experts believe the goal
of India’s policy in the region is to keep the
border disputes between Bhutan and China
going in perpetuity to maximise India’s stra-
tegic interests in the region. The issue was a
major topic raised by ambassador Luo Zhao-
hui during his interview with the PTI new
agency, who stressed that India has no right
to interfere with the China-Bhutan bound-
ary talks, nor is it entitled to make territorial
claims on behalf of Bhutan.
In a commentary published on July 10 by
People’ Daily, the flagship newspaper of Chi-
na’s ruling communist party, Sun Hongnian,a researcher at the Centre for China’s Border-
land History and Geography Research under
the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences,
warned that India’s recent actions stem from
its pursuit of the “absolute security” of its
Siliguri Corridor. By sending its troops across
the border, Sun said India aims to create a
new “disputed area” along the Sikkim-Tibet
border, with an eye to the long-term occupa-
tion of entire watershed ranges.
Such suspicions are augmented by the stra-
tegic importance attached by many Indian
strategists to this segment of the India-China
border. Retired Maj-Gen Gaganjit Singh, a
former commander of India’s border troops,
for example, told the BBC that the Sikkim-
Tibet border is the only stretch of the India-
China border where Indian troops have a
terrain and tactical advantage. While India
enjoys the higher ground, the Chinese posi-
tions are on lower ground squeezed between
India and Bhutan, said Singh.
As India has refused to pull out its troops,
Chinese officials and state media have tough-
ened their rhetoric. In its latest editorial pub-
lished on July 14 editorial, Xinhua News
Agency, China’s official state media, warned
that if India turns a deaf ear to China’s call for
pulling its troops from the Doklam region,
it would “put itself further into embarrass-
ment.” Reiterating China’s position that it
considers the incident cross-border trespass-
ing and more severe than previous incidents,
it says that there is no room for negotiations.
So far, both Beijing and New Delhi have
refrained from further hostility. But as the
two sides have opened a new front along their
Himalayan border, the crisis is set to inject
new volatility into the already complicated
border disputes and the tricky relations be-
tween the world’s two most populous coun-
tries in the long term.