[China
built a village in territory also claimed by the kingdom of Bhutan, echoing its
aggressive tactics at the border with India and in places much farther away.]
“Each
of us is a coordinate of the great motherland,” a border guard was quoted as saying by an official state news agency,
China Tibetan News.
The
problem is, these new “coordinates” are more than a mile inside what Bhutan
considers its territory.
The
construction, documented in satellite photos, followed a playbook China has
used for years. It has brushed aside neighbors’ claims of sovereignty to cement
its position in territorial disputes by unilaterally
changing the facts on the ground.
It
used the same tactics in the South China Sea, where it fortified and armed
shoals claimed by Vietnam and the Philippines, despite promising the
United States not to do so.
This
year, China’s military built up forces in the Himalayas and crossed into
territory that the Indians claimed was on their side of the de facto border.
That led to China’s bloodiest clash in decades, leaving at least 21 Indian
soldiers dead, along with an unknown number of Chinese troops. The
violence badly
soured relations that had been steadily improving.
Even
when challenged, China’s territorial grabs are difficult to reverse short of
the use of force, as the Indian government has learned. Since the dispute at
the border, Chinese troops have remained camped in areas that India once
controlled.
“In
the end, it reflects the consolidation of China’s control over the area it
claims,” said M. Taylor Fravel, director of the Security Studies Program at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an expert on China’s military.
Over
the past year, China has moved
aggressively against many of its neighbors, seemingly with little regard
for diplomatic or geopolitical fallout. Its actions reflect the ambition of
China’s leader, Xi Jinping, to assert the country’s territorial claims,
economic interests and strategic needs around the world.
Mr.
Xi often cites China’s historical grievances against foreign encroachment and
colonization, using its past to justify its aggressive strategic activities.
The
construction of the Himalayan village suggests that China has extended a
broader campaign to fortify its southern flanks to include Bhutan, the Buddhist
nation of 800,000 people that popularized the concept of “gross
national happiness.”
As
the construction was underway on that long-disputed border, China added a new
claim this summer to nearly 300 square miles of territory in the Sakteng Wildlife
Sanctuary, a preserve on the other side of Bhutan from where the village
was being built.
In
pushing its boundaries, China appears to have brushed aside decades of quiet
and ultimately fruitless talks to finalize the two countries’ border. A 25th
round of talks this year was postponed because of the coronavirus.
“The
Chinese obviously seem to be losing patience,” Tenzing Lamsang, editor of the
newspaper The Bhutanese and president of the Media Association of Bhutan, wrote on Twitter.
The
dispute stems from different interpretations of a treaty signed in 1890 by two now-defunct imperial
powers, the United Kingdom as India’s colonial ruler and the Qing dynasty in
China.
The
new village is near the Doklam Plateau, where the borders of China, India and
Bhutan converge. The plateau was the site of a 73-day standoff between Indian
and Chinese troops in 2017 that began over the construction of a road into
Bhutanese territory. India, which is obliged to defend Bhutan under a
longstanding security pact, pushed troops forward to halt the Chinese work.
Bhutan,
which in
recent years has felt squeezed between the two giants, poses no
military threat to China. For China, control of the area would give its forces a
strategic position near a narrow strip of land in India called the
Siliguri Corridor.
That
area, which Indian military strategists also call the Chicken Neck, connects
the bulk of India to its easternmost provinces bordering Bangladesh, Myanmar
and China.
Mr.
Lamsang noted that Bhutan has long had to defer to India’s security interests.
In its repeated talks with the Chinese, Bhutan has so far been unwilling to
make any territorial concessions along the western and central borders.
“Given
Bhutan’s refusal to concede in the talks or even agree to compromises by China
we are now paying a price,” Mr. Lamsang wrote.
Neither
the Bhutanese nor the Chinese foreign ministry responded to requests for
comment.
Global
Times, a Communist Party newspaper that often echoes a hawkish view among
Chinese officials, ridiculed
the claims that the newly built village was in Bhutan, blaming India
for stoking tensions with China’s southern neighbors. A day later, the newspaper warned against
“looming foreign forces backing the China-bashing campaign across the
Himalayas.”
The
exact location of the new village, called Pangda, emerged in a series of
satellite images published recently by Maxar Technologies, a company based in Colorado. They
showed that construction began late last year and was completed, it seems, not
long before Oct. 1, China’s National Day. China’s version of the border lies
south of the village.
The
images also showed extensive new road-building and the construction of what
seem to be military storage bunkers, according to a Maxar spokesman, Stephen
Wood. The bunkers are in undisputed Chinese territory, though, indicating that
China has sought to build up its military presence along much of the Himalayan
border area. The images of China’s new construction were earlier reported by NDTV, a broadcaster in India.
China
has made no secret of the construction, as evidenced by several state media
reports on the village. One recounted an inauguration ceremony on
Oct. 18 that was attended by senior officials from Shanghai, including Yu
Shaoliang, deputy secretary of the city’s Communist Party committee.
In
China, richer provinces often sponsor development projects in poorer regions,
especially in Tibet and Xinjiang. China absorbed Tibet beginning in 1950, with
the new Communist government seeking to reassert sovereignty over the Tibetan people
and territory that had been lost after the fall of the Qing dynasty. Although
the Chinese called its annexation the “Peaceful Liberation of Tibet,” many
Tibetans are unhappy with Chinese rule.
Mr.
Fravel of M.I.T. said that with its recent construction, China appeared to have
backed away from potential compromises that it floated in earlier rounds of
border talks with Bhutan, in which it offered to trade swathes of territory.
“Previous
compromise ideas from the 1990s may no longer be on the table,” he said, “as
China may be unwilling or unlikely to withdraw from territory where it has
erected such infrastructure.”
Elsie
Chen contributed research.
