China Turns On Charm Offensive For
Himalayan Kingdom Of Bhutan – Analysis
YALEGLOBAL ONLINE SEPTEMBER 24, 2016 Bertil
Lintiner
Bhutan
may be in the middle of a power play between regional rivals –
long-time protector India and China.
China
has begun courting the only neighboring country with which it does
not yet have diplomatic relations – Bhutan. Throughout modern
history, the Himalayan kingdom has depended heavily on India, which
is following events closely.
Bhutan,
a 38,394 square kilometer country with 750,000 inhabitants, is in
the unenviable position of being squeezed between the two most
populous countries on earth that are also regional rivals. China is
keen to establish diplomatic relations with Bhutan, although
authorities in Thimphu recognize that such a move could not be done
without at least tacit approval of India.
In
August, Bhutan’s Foreign Minister Damcho Dorji visited Beijing, and
the discreet diplomatic dance follows years of quiet contact. In
the early 1980s, foreign ministers of China and Bhutan held talks
at the UN headquarters in New York – officially about the border
issue. China claims a few hundred square kilometers of Bhutanese
territory. In 2012, then Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and his
Bhutanese counterpart Jigme Thinley met on the sidelines of a UN
conference in Brazil and expressed willingness to establish formal
diplomatic relations. In Beijing, Dorji discussed the still
unsettled border and met with China’s deputy foreign minister,
foreign minister and vice-president.
Attempting to gain
influence in Bhutan, China has deployed its usual “soft diplomacy.”
In recent years, circus artists, acrobats and footballers have
traveled to Bhutan, and a limited number of Bhutanese students
received scholarships to study in China. Tourism has expanded: 19
Chinese tourists traveled to Bhutan a decade ago, and last year,
the figure was 9,399, or 19 percent of the total.
The
August meeting – the 24th in a series of border talks that also
covered trade and diplomatic recognition – was a step forward for
China. According to an August 15 statement issued by the Chinese
foreign ministry: “Although Bhutan and China have not established
diplomatic relations yet, it will not hold back the mutually
beneficial cooperation between the two countries. The Bhutanese
side is willing to continue to deepen exchanges in such fields as
tourism, religion, culture and agriculture and further lift the
cooperation level with China.”
India
watches the developments with concern. In July 2014, Bhutan became
the first foreign stop for Narendra Modi, two months after he
became India’s prime minister. Later that year, India’s President
Pranab Mukherjee visited Bhutan, underscoring the value New Delhi’s
places on its relations with the small but strategically located
kingdom in the Himalayas. High on the agenda was China’s attempts
to gain a permanent presence in Bhutan.
Bhutan
would find it difficult to act independently when it comes to its
foreign relations. Imports from India account for 75 percent of the
total, and 85 percent of all exports goes to India. The largest
export consists of hydropower from plants on rivers flowing down
the Himalayas, and India is the sole importer. The Bhutanese
currency, the ngultrum, is tied to the Indian rupee, with which it
is on par. Strategically, Bhutan’s border with China follows the
crest of the Himalayas, which separates the Indian subcontinent
from the Tibetan plateau. Between Bhutan and Bangladesh lies a
narrow strip of land connecting India’s volatile northeastern
region with the rest of the country.
Bhutan’s special
relationship with India goes back to an 1865 friendship treaty
between Bhutanese rulers and the colonial masters of British India.
In 1910, Bhutan and British India signed a treaty whereby the
British Raj recognized Bhutan’s internal sovereignty while
maintaining control over its foreign relations. Bhutan and
independent India signed a similar treaty in 1949. Bhutan’s way out
of its de facto status as a protectorate of its southern neighbor
began in 1963 with a new constitution that changed the monarch’s
title from the Indian maharaja to the more indigenous druk gyalpo,
underscoring that Bhutan was not among the former princely states
of pre-colonial India but an independent kingdom. In 1971, Bhutan,
supported by India, became a member of the United
Nations.
Nevertheless, under
the terms of the 1949 treaty, Bhutan agreed “to be guided by the
advice of the Government of India in regard to its external
relations.”
That
was the case until 2007 when a revised treaty was signed, stating:
“the Government of the Kingdom of Bhutan and the Government of the
Republic of India shall cooperate closely with each other on issues
relating to their national interests. Neither government shall
allow the use of its territory for activities harmful to the
national security and interests of the other.”
That
treaty was concluded after two major crises in relations between
India and Bhutan. The first was the flight of more than 100,000
ethnic Nepalese from Bhutan in the early 1990s. Claiming
discrimination, they crossed the border into India, which did not
want them. They were compelled to continue to Nepal, a country that
does not share a common border with Bhutan. India did not want to
jeopardize relations with Bhutan, especially since some of the
ethnic Nepalese had been involved in activities deemed hostile to
the Bhutanese monarchy. Most of the refugees have since then been
resettled in third countries including the United
States.
Second,
land left behind by the refugees was taken over by militants from
the United Liberation Front of Assam, ULFA, and allied separatist
forces from northeastern India. Camps were established in remote
jungle areas and raids launched into India from these cross-border
sanctuaries into Bhutan. In December 2003 the Bhutanese army drove
the militants out. Indian troops were deployed on their side of the
border and helicopters assisted the Bhutanese troops, largely
Indian-trained. Since then, ULFA was also driven out of another
Indian neighbor, Bangladesh. ULFA military camps are now limited to
northwestern Myanmar, while its commander, Paresh Barua, resides
mostly in China’s Yunnan Province.
Given a
long history of close relations, Indians only recently saw China as
a possible player in Bhutanese affairs though Bhutan has long
avoided offending the Chinese. Following a failed 1959 uprising
against the Chinese in Tibet, thousands of Tibetan refugees poured
into Bhutan. The Bhutanese, who practice a form of Buddhism similar
to the Tibetan version, allowed the refugees to stay. Unlike the
Tibetan refugees in India, those in Bhutan were not allowed to
engage in political activity. In 1981, they were told to accept
Bhutanese citizenship, or leave the country. Most left for India.
Bhutan remains today one of few Buddhist nations in the world which
the Dalai Lama has not visited.
China
was not slow to reciprocate. The first exchange between Bhutan and
China occurred as early as 1974, when a Chinese delegation attended
the coronation of the former king, Jigme Singye Wangchuk –
described by China’s official news agency Xinhua as “a new page in
the friendly contacts between the two countries.” That “page” now
includes regular top-level interactions on the top level as well as
people-to-people contacts.
Tiny
Bhutan risks being caught in the middle of a regional power play
that it might not be able to handle. China’s charm offensive with
Bhutan may also deepen the mutual suspicion with which Asia’s two
giants view each other. That does not augur well for a part of the
world already under siege by a new Cold War, with an increasingly
assertive China on one side and a host of other countries, among
them India, on the other.