Sourabh Gupta

Opinion | India’s got itself into a fine mess in Doklam, it’s time to get out and let China and Bhutan work it out

India is militarily engaging a state actor from the soil of a third country over a piece of land its partner country does not even control. Not even the mighty US does that

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China has mobilised tens of thousands tonnes of military materials into Tibet on the heels of its military standoff with India. SCMP Pictures

Sourabh Gupta

Published: 10:00am, 23 Jul 2017Updated: 8:48am, 25 Jul 2017

China and India are locked yet again in a stand-off of Himalayan proportions. Almost five weeks after Indian troops trespassed and forcibly halted the activities of a Chinese road construction crew on a narrow plateau at the China-Bhutan-India tri-junction area in the Sikkim Himalayas, the two sides appear no closer to resolving their quarrel. The area in question, Doklam, is the subject of a legal dispute between China and Bhutan, is under the effective jurisdiction of China, and holds an important security interest to India.

The restoration of the status quo ante in the Doklam area will be a protracted affair. Unlike previous impasses on their disputed Himalayan frontier earlier this decade, which coincided with a warming phase in ties and were wound down with the exhibition of good sense on both sides, bilateral ties have hit a sour patch.

This is India’s China war, Round Two

China, as the aggrieved party, bears little interest in unwinding the stand-off on terms other than its own. Worse, there is no agreed definition among the parties of the object of discord at stake – to the point that China does not even view India as the appropriate interlocutor to engage with to unwind the stand-off.

Two monks walk across the wooden bridge to Punakha Dzong on their way to and from early morning prayers in Bhutan. Photo: GO 48HRS

China’s position on, and solution to, the stand-off is blunt and straightforward. The alignment of the China-India boundary in the Sikkim Himalayas sector is mutually defined as per Article 1 (“the line commences at Mount Gipmochi on the Bhutan frontier, and follows the … water-parting”) of the Anglo-Chinese Convention of 1890 relating to Sikkim and Tibet. On numerous occasions, Indian representatives from Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru down have formally accepted this.

This standoff is China telling India to accept changing realities

By interfering in a Chinese road construction project roughly 3km to the north of the plain letter of Article 1, India has violated China’s territorial sovereignty. As a precondition for any dialogue, India must vacate its trespass unconditionally.