The Chinese government claims that India’s incursion is a black-and-white instance of breach of sovereignty—and it has a case. Chinese officials cannot appear soft, for fear of ridicule at home. The more rabid parts of their media are already rattling sabres. The defence ministry has vowed to stand firm in Doklam, warning that it is “easier to move a mountain than to shake the People’s Liberation Army”. The government says the Indians must withdraw entirely before the matter can be discussed.
Some historical context is in order. The 1962 war was fought on multiple fronts all along the Himalayan range. Before it was over, the Chinese had surged through the eastern Himalayas down into India’s isolated north-east (they later withdrew). Now, as Chinese might grows, Indian strategists worry that the north-east is becoming ever more imperilled. As it is, a jagged cartographic dagger from Tibet points southward, separating most of the Indian state of Sikkim, to the west, from Bhutan, to the east. Were China to extend a road system south to the full extent of its claim, it would reach a ridge that is just 100km north of a vulnerable point on the Indian plains below: the “chicken’s neck”, a 21km-wide corridor connecting mainland India to the eight states of its north-east. India has a metaphorical pinched nerve too: China’s annual defence spending dwarfs India’s, $215bn to $56bn.
A solution may be hiding in misty Bhutan, a Buddhist country that has far more in common culturally with the neighbouring Chinese region of Tibet than it does with India. It finds its relationship with its neighbour to the south increasingly embarrassing—a legacy of days when Bhutan was a protectorate of British India. Its foreign relations are still handled by diplomats in Delhi, albeit unofficially. That means it can get caught up in Indian spats with China that have nothing to do with it. In May, India decided to snub China by staying away from an international summit in Beijing to discuss China’s “Belt and Road Initiative”—a scheme to link China to its neighbours and countries beyond with a splurge of spending on infrastructure and power projects. The point of India’s gesture was to show its anger at China’s extension of the scheme into the part of Kashmir that is controlled by Pakistan but claimed by India. Struggles over Kashmir do not affect Bhutan’s gross national happiness index, its much-vaunted means of measuring its progress. But Bhutan, presumably under orders from India, stayed away from the gathering in Beijing, too.
Some politicians in Bhutan would like their country to pursue a more independent policy, and China is keen to encourage that. Having Bhutan as a friend would make it all the easier for China to control that strategic swathe of the Himalayas and cause India to squirm. Why then move troops into an area claimed by Bhutan? It could make sense, says Bérénice Guyot-Réchard, a historian at King’s College London and author of “Shadow States: India, China and the eastern Himalayas”. The message China may be trying to send to India’s protégé is: if you deal with us directly instead of through Delhi, we might be more sympathetic to your border claims and walk quietly out of Doklam.
