{"id":237157,"date":"2023-04-10T20:53:57","date_gmt":"2023-04-10T15:23:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=237157"},"modified":"2023-04-13T13:08:03","modified_gmt":"2023-04-13T07:38:03","slug":"india-china-and-bhutan-trialogue-can-bring-clarity-on-borders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/india-china-and-bhutan-trialogue-can-bring-clarity-on-borders\/","title":{"rendered":"India, China and Bhutan trialogue can bring clarity on borders"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Source<\/strong>: The post is based on the article\u00a0<strong>\u201cIndia, China and Bhutan trialogue can bring clarity on borders<\/strong>\u201d published in <strong>The Indian Express <\/strong>on\u00a0<strong>10<sup>th<\/sup> April 2023<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Syllabus: GS 2 \u2013 <\/strong><strong>India and its Neighborhood Relations<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Relevance: <\/strong><strong>Border issues between Bhutan and China<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>News<\/strong>: The article discusses various issues with the Bhutan and China boundary demarcation and stand of India on the issue.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What are the issues with the demarcation of Bhutan-China boundary?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>There are issues over the natural borders. <strong>The Chumbi Valley<\/strong> is one of them.<\/p>\n<p>The valley is important for strategic and economic reasons and has a significant relational value given its proximity to the Amochhu river.\u00a0<strong>The valley is also known as the Bhutanese route to Tibet.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The valley reflects <strong>two broad principles<\/strong> guiding the demarcations of borders in the Himalayas:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>The Thalweg Doctrine:<\/strong> It emphasises the idea of map-making by identifying rivers as the central point and measuring the boundary from the lowest point of a riverbed.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The water-parting principle:<\/strong> It identifies territory with a concerned watershed, where the boundary is determined by the highest elevation surrounding that particular lake or river segment.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These both principles have been merged in the ongoing border negotiations between China and Bhutan.<\/p>\n<p>The dispute in the north-west sector of the China-Bhutan border has revolved <strong>around the watershed of the Chumbi Valley<\/strong>, and the height of certain Himalayan ranges such as <strong>Mt Gipmochi.<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2><strong>What are the issues over Mt Gipmochi?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>China has legally claimed the boundary line from Mt Gipmochi, through the <strong>Anglo-Chinese Convention of 1890<\/strong>.\u00a0The <strong>Amochhu river flows adjacent to Mt Gipmochi.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>However, both India and Bhutan have rejected these claims and stated that the boundary line should follow from Batangla, Merugla and Sinchula ranges as these peaks are higher than Gipmochi.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Chinese have ignored <\/strong>these assertions and have<strong> continued to build villages along the west bank of Amochhu river.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Therefore, the <strong>Thalweg Doctrine is the compromise formula<\/strong> for solving the disputed claims.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>How has India responded to the border dispute between Bhutan and China?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Since, the bilateral relations between Bhutan and China is of strategic importance to India, India has said that <strong>the tri-junction would be resolved trilaterally<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>In this regard, the <strong>15th round of Sino-Indian Special Representative (SR) dialogue, 2012,<\/strong> becomes significant.<\/p>\n<p>The India-China agreement on the Working Mechanism on Consultation and Coordination was made in SR dialogue of 2012.<\/p>\n<p>However, China has said that the SRs discussed bilateral, regional and global issues. <strong>Terms such as \u201ctri-junction\u201d and \u201cconsultation with third countries\u201d are absent in the 15th round of SR dialogue of 2012.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>China has also said that issue lies more with the 1890 Convention than with the SR dialogue of 2012.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Must Read: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/india-bhutan-relations-and-its-significance\/\"><strong>India \u2013 Bhutan relations and its significance \u2013 Explained<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<h2><strong>What lies ahead?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>It is important that a <strong>trilogue is initiated<\/strong>. Opening communication channels can minimise uncertainties as questions of peace and conflict cannot be resolved by potential stand-offs (like Doklam) in the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source: The post is based on the article\u00a0\u201cIndia, China and Bhutan trialogue can bring clarity on borders\u201d published in The Indian Express on\u00a010th April 2023. Syllabus: GS 2 \u2013 India and its Neighborhood Relations Relevance: Border issues between Bhutan and China News: The article discusses various issues with the Bhutan and China boundary demarcation and&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/india-china-and-bhutan-trialogue-can-bring-clarity-on-borders\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">India, China and Bhutan trialogue can bring clarity on borders<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10320,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[212,10500],"class_list":["post-237157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-2","tag-indian-express","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":4,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1698418023},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10320"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237157\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}