Aadil Brar
Nestled between two Asian giants, Bhutan, a small Himalayan kingdom, is moving closer to formalizing ties with China—a development that has India watching anxiously. In recent years, Beijing has gained territorial leverage, bringing the Bhutanese side to the negotiating table.
China and Bhutan share a 248-mile-long border but don't have official diplomatic ties. If that situation changes, it could have profound implications for the region.
A Bhutanese delegation led by Foreign Minister Tandi Dorji held the 25th round of boundary talks with Chinese Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Sun Weidong on October 23-24.
"During the talks, the heads of both sides signed the Cooperation Agreement between the Government of the People's Republic of China and the Royal Government of Bhutan on the Functions of the China-Bhutan Joint Technical Group on Boundary Delimitation and Demarcation," said the joint statement by China and Bhutan after the latest round of talks in Beijing.
The language may have been dry and technical, but the repercussions could be anything but. In an unprecedented meeting, the Bhutanese foreign minister also met with China's Vice President Han Zheng, a former member of the Chinese Communist Party's Politburo Standing Committee.
The latest talks are significant because they illustrate how the pace of discussion between China and Bhutan to establish normal diplomatic relations has picked up—a development that will unsettle New Delhi, amid worsening relations between the two regional giants.
In October 2021, Bhutan and China agreed to a "three-step roadmap" to resolve their border disputes, which date back decades. Dorji recently told Bhutanese media that Bhutan had four expert group meetings (EGMs) with China last year alone. Only seven such meetings had taken place in the previous 34 years.
If China and Bhutan were to successfully negotiate the border disputes and establish official diplomatic ties, Beijing would use the feat for public messaging to the world that it can resolve disputes through peaceful negotiations. Beijing's critics have argued that on the issue of Taiwan and the South China Sea, the leadership of Xi Jinping has brought an increasingly aggressive approach to foreign policy.
Bhutan, whose government is based in the capital, Thimphu, is a constitutional monarchy and one of the last remaining sovereign Himalayan kingdoms. India has historically acted as Bhutan's security guarantor under a "special relationship" governed by a 1949 treaty and an updated treaty of 2007.
Sun Xihui, an expert in Asian studies from the National Institute of International Strategy of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, described India's influence on Bhutan as hegemonic.
"India's control over Bhutan's security and economic lifeline allows it to interfere in its internal and external affairs, highlighting New Delhi's regional hegemony in its policy toward Bhutan," wrote Sun in an op-ed for the state-run China Daily.
Beijing is pushing Bhutan to establish direct diplomatic relations, but that would require Thimphu to change the policy of not having formal diplomatic ties with any permanent United Nations Security Council members. Bhutan doesn't have official diplomatic relations with the U.S., allowing India to mediate between Washington and Thimphu.
A Bhutanese Buddhist devotee offers prayers at the Buddha Dordenma statue in Thimphu on October 23, 2014. China wants to establish official diplomatic relations with Bhutan.
New Delhi would need to accept Bhutan's expanded diplomatic relations because India acts as Thimphu's security guarantor. Under the present China-India strategic competition, New Delhi is unlikely to agree to direct diplomatic relations between China and Bhutan.
"Theoretically, how can Bhutan not have any bilateral relations with China? The question is when and in what manner," said Bhutan's Prime Minister Lotay Tshering, however, during an interview with the Indian newspaper The Hindu.
"We obviously do not want to solve one problem and give birth to another problem," added Tshering on the question of keeping India in the loop on talks with China.
Bhutan has also publicly signaled its moves toward establishing diplomatic ties with China.
"Bhutan supports the "One China Policy" and engages with China on issues of common interest," says a statement on the Bhutanese foreign ministry's website.
Beijing's call for establishing direct diplomatic ties with Bhutan isn't new. It follows China building multiple villages on disputed border territory, activities that have mirrored the gray-zone tactics adopted in the South China Sea.
China's construction activity has essentially changed the reality of the ground, allowing it to hold talks with Bhutan from a position of strength. In 2017, the Chinese and Indian army were locked in a face-off in the Doklam region, traditionally a Bhutanese territory. China has established permanent military structures in Doklam and has called the region its territory while demanding that Bhutan include it in talks to swap other territory.
The joint technical team from Bhutan and China will now work first on demarcating the territories to be exchanged on the ground, a source told Newsweek on condition of anonymity.
"Bhutan can't establish direct diplomatic ties with Beijing until the border dispute is resolved," the source said.
Despite assurance from Bhutan about taking India along the talks with China, growing voices suggest there is a difficult road ahead.
"The Bhutan Prime Minister's statement on the border issue in July indicated that Bhutan will give China some or most of the western border areas that China is demanding—and in several cases has already occupied. But the PM said it will not give up Doklam unless India agrees," Robert Barnett, a professorial research associate at SOAS, University of London, wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
In the past week, a flurry of editorials in the Indian media has underscored the tension over Bhutan's growing proximity to China.
"But for India, the developments between China and Bhutan are a cause for potential anxiety. That is not because India gains from an unsettled border between China and Bhutan," said an editorial in India's leading national daily, The Telegraph, on Wednesday.
One expert believes India is heavily investing in Bhutan to "pre-empt" its growing dependence on China.
"These generous initiatives, including massive investments in the Bhutan hydro sector or giving Bhutan exports transit access to Bangladeshi ports via Indian rivers, may be couched in the moral language of 'neighborhood first' and regional solidarity but actually reflect a principle of strategic altruism in India's Bhutan policy: to build economic interdependence as a geostrategic tool to pre-empt China," Constantino Xavier, a fellow in Foreign Policy and Security Studies at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP) in New Delhi, told Newsweek.
Bhutan's interest in signaling progress in the talks may have to do with domestic compulsion before the upcoming change of the government in Thimphu, according to the source who spoke to Newsweek.
"The Bhutanese government has set itself a target of resolving the dispute as the tensions in 2017 between India and China woke up the people of Bhutan," the source said.
Meanwhile, the former Indian ambassador to Bhutan believes Thimphu will acknowledge its concerns.
"And they will factor those concerns in, and especially the implications of a China-Bhutan boundary settlement for India, and the India-China boundary," said Gautam Bambawale, in a Brookings Institution podcast titled Global India.
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