Army Chief speaks to top officer of Royal Bhutan Army amid reports of China's foray into tiny nation

Army Chief General M M Naravane on Friday spoke to Chief Operations Officer of the Royal Bhutan Army, Lt Gen Batoo Tshering, over the phone, amid reports about China occupying large swathes of land and setting up villages and towns in the tiny nation in the northeastern neighbourhood of India.

Gen Naravane and Lt Gen Tshering discussed “issues of bilateral defence cooperation” between India and Bhutan, according to a spokesperson of the government in New Delhi.

The phone call between Naravane and Tshering came amid reports about China’s continuous foray into Bhutan.

A recent report by ‘Foreign Policy’ magazine revealed that Beijing had set up three villages inside Bhutan with 66 miles of new roads, a small hydro-power station, two administrative centres of the Communist Party of China, a communications base, disaster relief warehouse, five military or police outposts, and what were believed to be a major signals tower, a satellite receiving station, a military base, and up to six security sites and outposts.

Two of the villages had already been inhabited, while the construction works were still going on in the third, reported the magazine.

It also reported that the newest of the villages China had set up in Bhutan was at least eight kilometres inside the territory of the tiny nation.

The official spokesperson of the Ministry of Defence of the Government of India tweeted about the phone call between the Chief of Indian Army and the Chief Operations Officer of the Royal Bhutan Army.

New Delhi apparently decided to make public the phone call between Gen Naravane and Lt Gen Tshering in order to subtly send out a message to Beijing and to reaffirm India’s commitment to support Bhutan in protecting its territorial sovereignty.

India’s 12-month-long military stand-off with China along the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh is yet to be completely resolved.

Thimphu and Beijing have been holding negotiations to settle the boundary dispute since 1984, the territorial row between the two nations was limited to 764 sq kms of areas – 269 sq kms in west and 495 sq kms in north-central Bhutan. China last year also claimed that the Sakteng Wildlife Sanctuary in eastern Bhutan as part of its own territory. Bhutan rejected the claim made by China.

Bhutan and China held 24 rounds of boundary negotiations till August 2016.

The negotiations, however, remained stalled over the past four years, as Beijing refused to schedule the 25th round after Thimphu sided with New Delhi during the 72-day-long stand-off between the Indian Army and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) at Doklam Plateau in western Bhutan.

But Chinese and Bhutanese officials had a meeting in Beijing last month and they agreed to restart negotiations.