Bhutan issues demarche to Beijing, protests over India-China border row

Bhutan issued a demarche to the Chinese envoy, asking Beijing to restore status quo in the Doklam area where a section of Chinese soldiers tried to unilaterally

Updated on: Jul 5, 2017, 11:33:02 IST

Hindustan Times, New Delhi | By Shishir Gupta, New Delhi

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Bhutan issued a demarche to the Chinese envoy, asking Beijing to restore status quo in the Doklam area where a section of Chinese soldiers tried to unilaterally build a road towards its Army camp in Zomplri area, the Bhutanese ambassador to India said on Wednesday.

The international border at Nathu La Pass, in Sikkim, close to where Indian and Chinese soldiers faced off this month. (AP FILE PHOTO)

The Chinese soldiers’ action led to a face-off with Indian soldiers, and escalated when Beijing halted the Kailash Mansoravar pilgrimage.

The demarche, a formal statement, was served through the Chinese embassy in Delhi on June 20 since Bhutan and China do not have diplomatic relations. The two countries have a long-standing border dispute.

Talking to Hindustan Times, Major General (Retd) Vetsop Namgyel, ambassador of Bhutan to India, said: “The PLA (Peoples Liberation Army) started motorable road construction in the Doklam area towards Bhutanese Army camp at Zomphlri. We are in boundary resolution talks with China and have written agreements that pending final boundary settlement, peace and tranquillity be maintained along the boundary and both sides refrain from unilaterally altering the status on ground. Bhutan has conveyed to China that road construction is not keeping with the agreements between two countries. We have asked China to stop road constructions and refrain from changing the status quo. Doklam area is near the tri-junction is part of the boundary talks between Bhutan and China.”

Diplomatic sources told Hindustan Times that the PLA activity had increased in the tri-junction area near the Chumbi Valley area, which is also at the core of Indian defence interests. On June 8, the PLA dismantled Indian temporary outposts in the Doka La area.

Later on June 16, the Royal Bhutanese Army patrol engaged a section of PLA personnel and civil construction works who were trying to build a road in the Doklam area.

China has territorial claims on that area with the matter still not resolved despite 24 rounds of boundary-dispute negotiations. Given the proximity of Chumbi Valley, the Indian Army coordinated with Bhutanese Army against the PLA road-construction activity as it was deemed as unilaterally altering the status quo on ground.

The face-off between the India Army in support of Bhutan Army and PLA continues.

The Chumbi Valley area is of military significance to India as Yatong area in Tibetan Autonomous Region is dagger shaped aimed at the Indian chicken-neck area of Siliguri with a thin strip of land separating India and Bangladesh.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shishir Gupta
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.Read More

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