A Dangerous Border Confrontation Builds Between India and China

An obscure pasture in Bhutan becomes the bone of contention between India and China, sparking a perilous military atandoff. What provoked the confrontation and can it be defused?

- Ananth Krishnan and Raj Chengappa

For centuries, the Doklam plateau, high up in the Himalayas, was a quiet grazing area for Bhutanese herdsmen. Prior to India’s Independence, neither the British nor the Chinese seem to have shown any interest in it when they negotiated various border settlements between themselves. It was only after the 1962 border war between India and China that the narrow plateau that abuts the trijunction between India, China and Bhutan became a bone of contention.

Since then, China has repeatedly disputed Bhutan’s territorial claims over Doklam. Beijing considers the plateau vital to fortify the dagger-shaped Chumbi Valley by piercing the trijunction of these countries. The trijunction is of immense strategic significance to the three countries. In recent years, China has been building an elaborate network of roads wide enough to transport artillery guns, light tanks and heavy vehicles to enhance its military presence. Doklam is critical as it brings China even closer to the India border in a vulnerable location towards the direction of the 27-km-long Siliguri Corridor or ‘chicken’s neck’ that links the northeastern states to the rest of India.

On the night of June 8, China initiated a manoeuvre in Doklam that would trigger a chain of events leading to the most dangerous standoff between India and China in recent years. A platoon of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is said to have stealthily moved into the plateau and razed stone bunkers that the Royal Bhutan Army (RBA) had constructed years ago and manned occasionally. In doing so, China seems to have made a premeditated move to alter the status quo that prevailed for decades in a sensitive region.