Geopolitical Tensions Rising in Bhutan: The Strategic Power Struggle between India and China

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  Aletta Andrew

  South Asian Journalist

Nothing in the valley of Haa suggests a power struggle between two giants. The streets are quiet and there are no soldiers in sight. But the valley, in the kingdom of Bhutan, is less than 40 kilometers from the mountain range where Indian and Chinese forces are facing each other.

Little Bhutan, with less than 800,000 inhabitants, is wedged between the two countries in the Himalayan mountains and has an important diplomatic buffer.

“Smaller states have an important role to play in ensuring that big powers don’t play with fire,” said former Bhutan MP Passang Dorji, who received his PhD on international relations between Bhutan, China and the India. “That also applies to Bhutan.”

At first glance, India is much closer than China in Haa. The Indian army has a large base there, which is a testimony to the historical ‘special relationship’ between the two countries. Bhutan became a ‘protectorate’ of British India in 1910 and remained so under independent India after 1947. Until 2007, India was involved in formal in Bhutan’s foreign policy.

On the other hand, there are no diplomatic relations with China and the border has never been formally established.

For generations, trade has taken place in the border area, but that has changed in recent years. “Before, this whole market was full of Chinese goods,” says Wangchuk, 57. He owns a shop on the main street of the border town of Haa.

As a child he worked with his father as a yak herder. This is how he got to know the border like the back of his hand. This came in handy later when he started trading goods with the Chinese shepherds. “I was trading small goods like butter and cheese for thermoses and blankets,” he says.

This was never legal. Wangchuk even ended up in prison for five months. Border trade was the practice in Haa until the corona pandemic. “Since then there has been no more trade. They won’t even let us near the border.”

The pandemic forced the border to be closed on both sides. But there is more to this area. About 10 kilometers from Haa begins an area marked on maps with a dotted line. This is one of the areas that, according to Indian and Bhutanese maps, belongs to Bhutan, but is also claimed by China.

Since 1984, Bhutan and China have held several rounds of talks. India always had a big finger in the pie. In the late 1990s, China offered to give up an area in the north in exchange for the area near Haa. Bhutan refused, reportedly under pressure from India.

India fears that if China acquires this area, the border between India and China would move slightly to the south, and China would gain a strategic view of a vulnerable part of the – India: the so-called chicken neck, a narrow strip of land ​​that covers most of India connects to the north-east of the country, which is east on Bangladesh.

In the meantime, China is increasing pressure. In the Doklam Valley, inside Bhutan and near the western tripoint, China built a road a few meters from the Indian border. This almost led to war between the two nuclear powers in 2017.

A few years later, in 2021, the American magazine Foreign Policy reported that in the previous few years, China had built dozens of kilometers of roads, a small hydroelectric power station and several military bases in northern Bhutan.

Wangchuk has noticed something similar in the mountains northwest of Haa. “On the land we used at the time of our parents, they have built roads and are entering Bhutan,” he said. “They are approaching our grazing land. There are Chinese military camps.”

According to former MP Dorji, this pressure is leading to a change in Bhutan’s foreign outlook. “China has become a geopolitical reality and an established power in South Asia. So it is in Bhutan’s long-term interest to resolve border issues.”

Last year, after eight years, another round of talks was held, after which the then Prime Minister of Bhutan, speaking to journalists in India and elsewhere, said that there would be no final border agreement with China long to come. The result is being awaited with some anxiety in India.

No use, according to Dorji. “Bhutan’s foreign policy is neutral. We balance with the feeling that we will never do anything with one party that is not in the interest of the other party. After all, it is not in Bhutan’s interest to end up in the firing line of two major powers.”

He believes that demarcated borders and more formal relations with China are inevitable at this time. “There is a perception in India and in the West that whatever Bhutan does with China is always bad for India. That is not true. If we don’t have a border conflict with China, it will stabilize the whole region. This will also contribute. better relations between India and China.”