{"id":35976,"date":"2018-11-01T12:48:12","date_gmt":"2018-11-01T07:18:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=35976"},"modified":"2018-11-01T12:48:12","modified_gmt":"2018-11-01T07:18:12","slug":"the-crossroads-at-the-doklam-plateau","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/the-crossroads-at-the-doklam-plateau\/","title":{"rendered":"The crossroads at the Doklam plateau\u00a0:"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/todays-paper\/tp-opinion\/the-crossroads-at-the-doklam-plateau\/article19361060.ece\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The crossroads at the Doklam plateau\u00a0<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(Building of Crossroads)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Context :<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bhutan and India share a special and unique relationship, but none are as strong as the ones laid down on the ground: 1,500 km, to be precise, of roads that have been built by India across the Himalayan kingdom\u2019s most difficult mountains and passes.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Background :<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Since 1960, when Bhutan\u2019s King Jigme Wangchuk entrusted the then Prime Minister, Jigme Dorji, with modernizing the country, that had formerly stayed closed to the world, those roads built and maintained by the Indian Border Roads Organization (BRO) under Project Dantak have brought the countries together for more than one reason.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">All the new roads that Bhutan proposed to construct were being aligned to run southwards towards India from the main centers of Bhutan.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Not a single road was planned to be constructed to the Tibetan (Chinese) border.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When the Chinese presented a fork in the road, Bhutan stood firm maintaining an independent stand.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Within some years, during the India-China war of 1962, Bhutan showed its sympathies definitely lay with India, but it still wouldn\u2019t bargain on that independent stand.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Current situation :<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">India seeks to understand the Chinese government\u2019s intentions in the Doklam stand-off.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Seen in the context of deteriorating relations between New Delhi and Beijing for the past three years, or in terms of China\u2019s own global ambitions, and India need to show its Asian neighbours its muscular might.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But any explanation that does not consider China\u2019s desire to draw space between India and Bhutan in the ongoing stand-off will be inadequate, and simplistic at best.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With the latest stand-off, that includes the cancellation of the Nathu La route, China appears to be back in the eastern great game that Bhutan has become, or an \u201cegg between two rocks\u201d, as a senior Bhutanese commentator described it.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By triggering a situation where Indian soldiers occupy land that isn\u2019t India\u2019s for a prolonged period, Beijing may have actually planned to show up India\u2019s intentions in an unfavourable light to the people of Bhutan.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>All eyes on India :<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">India must also be mindful that other neighbours are watching the Doklam stand-off closely.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It would be short-sighted not to recognize that Bhutan is at one tri-junction with India and China, but Nepal, Myanmar and Pakistan too have tri-junctions with both countries, and China\u2019s reference to \u201cthird country\u201d presence in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir is putting a spotlight on all of these.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bhutan is also the only country in the region that joined India in its boycott of Chinese President Xi Jinping\u2019s marquee project, the Belt and Road Initiative.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In China\u2019s thinking, any reassessment of Bhutan\u2019s unique ties with India, forged all those decades ago in asphalt and concrete, would be not only a prize, but possible payback.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While Indian commentary has focused on the Modi government\u2019s bilateral problems with Beijing, India must calibrate both its message and its military moves in order to keep Bhutan on track with the special ties they share.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The crossroads at the Doklam plateau\u00a0: (Building of Crossroads) Context : Bhutan and India share a special and unique relationship, but none are as strong as the ones laid down on the ground: 1,500 km, to be precise, of roads that have been built by India across the Himalayan kingdom\u2019s most difficult mountains and passes.&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/the-crossroads-at-the-doklam-plateau\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The crossroads at the Doklam plateau\u00a0:<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-test-1","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704671158},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35976","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\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35976\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}