India-China Standoff Sets Precedents in Regional Security
Indian Bhutan Border, Image Courtesy: wikimedia.org
A month-long India-China standoff in the tangled mountains of the Himalayas threatens to snowball into conflict. The circumstances are enveloped in thick fog endemic to those remote mountains at 10000 feet above sea level – and to the complicated India-China relationship.
An analogy could be that China’s People’s Liberation Army units come down to the Siachen area, which is under India’s control, to advance Pakistan’s territorial claim, which Beijing also considers to be of strategic significance due to its proximity to Karakorum Highway and Xinjiang region. This needs some explanation.
For a start, the location of the standoff is Doklam Plateau, which has been in China’s control on which Bhutan made a territorial claim only in 2000. (India drew Bhutan’s maps in the sixties, including the portion showing Doklam as Bhutanese territory.)
The PLA has been undertaking infrastructure development in Dloklam but Indian military has chosen to contest the latest phase of road-building activity. Notionally, Delhi is acting at the request of Bhutan. (Bhutan says very little on the entire affair.) Read More
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