When the King of Bhutan state visits India for eight long days, family and official entourage in tow, you can surmise something is amiss in the traditionally warm relationship. The status quo has been threatened by 25 rounds of border talks between China and Bhutan with two agreements signed, one a ‘three-step’ agreement in 2021, and another just a fortnight ago. Bhutan is about to establish diplomatic relations with China according to its Foreign Minister Tandi Dorji who led the talks in Beijing.

Ostensibly however, the King’s visit is to sell a brand new project expected to generate thousands of Bhutanese jobs even as its youth are restive about lack of opportunities in the land-locked kingdom.

Bhutan’s Prime Minister Lotay Tshering said Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the first King Wangchuck contacted on the ‘Gateway City’ project at Gelephu on its border with Assam. It is to become Bhutan’s first Smart City. After King Wangchuck met with Prime Minister Modi in New Delhi on 5 November, the Bhutanese prime minister announced India would give the project its full support.

Beijing has been leaning hard on Thimpu to settle the issue of the Doklam Plateau which contains the strategic tri-junction between China-Bhutan and India. It overlooks a narrow strip of land called ‘The Siliguri Corridor’ that connects India with its northeastern states.

Ever since the military stand-off with India in 2017 that lasted over 93 days, the Chinese have been building roads, bridges and townships on Bhutanese land on the plateau that it claims as its own. It has been seven years. India has done nothing about it unilaterally to avoid a flash point and Bhutan has been in no position to resist.

Also, there is a section of the Bhutanese people, particularly when China was doing better economically, who questioned the lack of diplomatic relations with China, a UNSC P5 country and what they saw as over-dependence on India.

Things are a little different again in 2023, when China is in an economic crisis and two countries, Italy and the Philippines, have recently pulled out of its BRI projects, even as a number of others are in disarray.

Pakistan, China’s so-called all-weather ally, is also facing its own difficulties on the brink of utter bankruptcy and the China-Pakistan CPEC is in deep trouble. It is also under attack by terrorists, both in Balochistan which contains the expensive China-built port of Gwadar and in central areas of Pakistan including Karachi. Many Chinese have been killed in Pakistan and the parts of the CPEC road that are ready are subject to frequent attack.

Bhutan would, no doubt, like to wriggle out of the dragon’s increasingly uncomfortable embrace under present circumstances. After all, it has the makings of a stranglehold that has been building ever since Chairman Mao claimed not only Tibet, which China occupied in 1950, but Bhutan, as Chinese territory too. Even now China claims large tracts of Bhutan along its borders and that is what these border talks have been unavoidably about.

To wriggle out of the dragon’s clutches then maybe a desire, but how is the question. Would an ambitious economic project, the first of its kind for Bhutan, be a method to balance its situation between China and India?

India is principally concerned with its own national interests, even as Bhutan has been conducting many rounds of border talks with China, inclusive of Bhutanese visits to China to hold them. So, to an extent, Bhutan seeks to leverage its geographical position and the new-found quasi-relationship with China.

However, the matter is delicate, because India has already calculated the consequences of China capturing the tri-junction area and how to deter it in the event it has designs on cutting off Indian access to its North East. The Doklam Plateau and the tri-junction area are in India’s advanced military sights, along with the narrow strip of Indian territory under 30-kilometre wide it overlooks. In addition, India has been building roads, airports, train lines, tunnels and bridges, for faster and better connectivity with its North East. It also enjoys a good relationship with Bangladesh. The neighbouring country is already providing river, sea and train connectivity to India in multiple places to promote trade and commerce between the two countries. All this combined with satellite and aerial surveillance, collectively and jointly blunts the Chinese threat at the tri-junction.

The King, Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, looked slightly sheepish of visage on arrival. His government’s border talks with China resulting in an agreement signed barely a fortnight ago, have not been objected to by India.

The King stopped first in bordering Assam on 3 November, where he was received by the expansive Himanta Biswa Sarma, the dynamic Chief Minister of Assam and a major influence in the states of the North East. King Wangchuck discussed infrastructure with Sarma, including a 57-kilometre rail line connecting Korajhar in Assam with Gelephu in Bhutan where an international airport is to be also built. The King will also visit Mumbai after New Delhi, where he will talk to prospective investors in in the Gelephu project, called the Sarpang Special Economic Zone.

He was received at the Delhi airport by a slightly stiff S Jaishankar, the storied Indian External Affairs Minister. Pictures have been released of Prime Minister Narendra Modi walking and talking unctuously with the King in the corridors of his 7 Lok Kalyan Marg residence. The Governments of India and Bhutan have been largely tightlipped about the actual bilateral and strategic talks between the two sides. This is understandable with China waiting to pick up clues.

However, a lot has changed. If China threatens India at the Doklam tri-junction, not only can it expect stiff resistance there, but it could find India acting in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir where China’s interests in Tibet and the Siachen could be compromised, along with the mouth of the CPEC from Xinjiang through Gilgit-Baltistan.

Geopolitically, it is India that is the darling of the West now, led by the US. It is not only a member of QUAD, with strong relationships with Japan and Australia in the neighbourhood, but a strategic and military collaborator/partner of the US and France in particular.

India maintains strong relationships with the Western bloc, which opposes China and its allies, including North Korea and Pakistan. Additionally, this bloc shares concerns about Beijing’s territorial claims in the South China Sea and its stance on Taiwan. Its relationship with Iran and Russia now brooks alternatives. It has stood firmly with Israel against the terrorists from Hamas, without damaging its friendships with Egypt, the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

It is steadily drawing away parts of the supply chain from China, as in the production of Apple phones, and has halved imports across the board from China. It is also banning more and more Chinese apps, Chinese companies and has practically stopped Chinese investment in India. India is growing at almost 7 per cent in GDP year-on-year, the best performance amongst major economies in the world while China is struggling below 4 per cent.

The point of Bhutan’s situation is that India may have quietly bypassed its strategic concerns with the Himalayan kingdom. It is up to Bhutan to maintain the traditionally close relationship with India for its own sake. King Wangchuk realises this. Hopefully, he will return to Thimpu satisfied with India’s continuing and abiding interest in his picturesque country.

(The article was published on FirstPost.com on November 08, 2023 and has been reproduced here)