International media coverage of China’s territorial disputes often focuses on India, Taiwan, and the Philippines—countries with substantial military forces or powerful Western backers that, at least to some degree, slow the inevitability of annexation or even employ some of the same tactics as China. Comparatively less attention is given to China’s much smaller neighbors Bhutan and Nepal, which have far fewer resources to defend their legitimate territorial claims. China’s recent public diplomacy in the region has reflected “Beijing’s growing exasperation with its setbacks in Nepal and […] a shift toward a more assertive Chinese stance with Nepal over recent years,” Atul Kumar wrote in The Diplomat last month. In The New York Times this weekend, Hannah Beech, Bhadra Sharma, and Atul Loke reported on China’s “New Great Wall” and territorial breaches along its border with Nepal:
China’s fencing along the edge of Nepal’s Humla District is just one segment of a fortification network thousands of miles long that Xi Jinping’s government has built to reinforce remote reaches, control rebellious populations and, in some cases, push into territory that other nations consider their own.
The fortification building spree, accelerated during Covid and backed by dozens of new border settlements, is imposing Beijing’s Panopticon security state on far-flung areas. It is also placing intense pressure on China’s poorer, weaker neighbors.
[…A secret Nepali government report on the state of border] says that in several places in and around Hilsa, China constructed fortifications and other infrastructure, including closed-circuit TV cameras, that are either in Nepal or in a buffer zone between the two countries where building is prohibited by bilateral agreement. Chinese border personnel took over a Nepali irrigation canal fed by the Karnali River, the report said, although the Chinese retreated when the Nepali mission visited.
Chinese forces have illegally prevented ethnic Tibetans living in Nepali areas near the border from grazing their livestock and participating in religious activities, the report said. Such constraints bring extraterritorial menace to Mr. Xi’s campaign of repression in Tibet.
[…] Chinese police and border guards, Hilsa residents say, regularly cross over to Nepal without going through normal immigration procedures. They intimidate ethnic Tibetan Nepalis and have captured some of the few Tibetans who succeeded in fleeing to Nepal, said Lhamu Lama, a Humla District village administrator. [Source]
The New York Times also published another recent investigation on China’s “border guardians,” dozens of newly-built government villages in contested border areas in western and southern China. Satellite images from this and other recent reports show sprawling Chinese settlements that appear able to serve military and logistical purposes. Another major report published this week by Robert Barnett at Turquoise Roof examines this phenomenon in Bhutan. Titled “Forceful Diplomacy: China’s Cross-Border Villages in Bhutan,” the report details the expansion of Chinese villages within Bhutan’s customary borders:
There are now 22 such villages and settlements. Judging from satellite imagery, these Chinese villages and settlements consist of some 752 residential blocks divided into an estimated 2,284 residential units, each suitable for one family-sized unit. To fill these units, the Chinese authorities have relocated or are currently relocating approximately 7,000 people to these previously unpopulated areas of Bhutan, together with an unknown number of officials, construction workers, border police and military.
To construct these villages, China has annexed approximately 825 sq kms of land that was formerly within Bhutan, constituting just over 2% of Bhutan’s territory. At least two new sites within Bhutan have been cleared for construction, many of the existing villages are being expanded, bids have been sought by the Chinese government for the construction of at least one other village, and the Chinese authorities have announced that three of the existing villages are going to be upgraded to towns.
This report documents the location, size and purpose of these cross-border villages and settlements. It discusses their continuing construction in territory long understood to be part of Bhutan, the role of land appropriation in the 40-year-long border negotiations between China and Bhutan, and the increasing, and apparently unnecessary, use by China of hard power in its relations with a much smaller neighbour. [Source]
In August, leaders from China and Bhutan met for the “14th Expert Group Meeting on the China-Bhutan Boundary lssues” and, according to the Global Times, “held friendly, frank and constructive discussions on issues of common interest.” Among the various pieces of land annexed by China is the western area of Doklam, which is strategically important to China in its military competition against India. Land annexed by China in northern Bhutan, of much less strategic value, was apparently taken in part as bargaining leverage to acquire Doklam, given the absence of costs for China’s land appropriation. Earlier this year, Shibani Mehta wrote a piece for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace outlining Bhutan’s diplomatic balancing act with India and China amid the longstanding border disputes:
[T]he prospect of Bhutan reaching a bilateral resolution with China appears bleak, given the historical involvement of Doklam in the longstanding boundary dispute. Any potential agreement between Thimphu and Beijing involving a territorial exchange between areas in the north (Pasamlung and Jamparlung valleys) and Doklam in the west would be of concern to India. The plateau is located on the southeast side of the tri-junction area. According to experts, Doklam under Bhutanese control provides India with a significant advantage over China. This position enables India to conduct strategic offensive and counteroffensive maneuvers against China from Sikkim. Therefore, a resolution at the tri-junction would significantly impact the larger India-China Line of Actual Control dispute. After the 2020 Galwan Valley incident, India and China already find themselves locked in a standoff in eastern Ladakh, exacerbating tensions and further entangling boundary issues with broader bilateral relations.
Bhutan is aware that it is navigating a terrain of competing interests. Immediately after the twenty-fifth round of talks, Bhutan’s King, Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, embarked on an eight-day visit to India, where he met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar. In March 2024, Bhutan’s newly elected prime minister, Tshering Tobgay, chose New Delhi for his first foreign visit after assuming office. These visits can be seen as Bhutan’s attempt to reassure India that it recognises the relationship between border disputes with broader bilateral relations, is conscious of the red lines, and is eager to have both India and China involved in the resolution process. [Source]
