Would India disrupt Bhutan China Border Negotiations?

http://www.bhutannewsnetwork.com/2014/11/would-india-disrupt-bhutan-china-border-negotiations/

Newspaper The Telegraph carried a front page article on the forth coming visit of the Indian President to Bhutan in its issue of 28th October,2014. It says that the visit is about Indian anxiety on the progress of China Bhutan Border Talks. President Pranab Mukerjee arrives on7th and leaves on 8th November.2014. Would he demand Bhutan to obstruct border negotiations with China?

India had been controlling the Sino Bhutan international boundary Talks through its iron grip on Bhutan’s economic and communication dependence on India. The writer Charu Sudan Kasturi cites the case of India withdrawing subsidies in 2013 to warn Bhutan against normalising relation with China.

The China Bhutan Border Talks have been going on for decades. China has been quite sincere and mostly positive in conducting the international boundary negotiation with Bhutan. And Bhutan on the other hand has been trying to delay the progress for many years at the insistence of India. How long can Bhutan defy the patience of China and to what national benefit? The next step after signing international boundary agreement with China would be normalising relationship between the two Countries.

And that is what India wants to stall or prevent. A diplomatic level relationship with China would forever consolidate the sovereign status of Bhutan. Bhutan would no longer be easily available to act as political pawn or surrogate for India in sensitive international politics. That is a fact. However, Bhutan’s corner stone foreign policy of friendship with India will not alter. India will remain Bhutan’s most desired benefactor. Geographical access, language and social behaviour naturally bring Bhutan closer to India. So India will be more dominant than China in Bhutan’s priority. At the other end of the scale it would be suicidal to keep snubbing friendly overtures from China.

Unfortunately India and many other Western Nations and their Allies in South East Asia including Australia and Japan do not want China to develop progressive relationship with Bhutan. On the other hand these same Countries have gone all out to develop their own political and economic ties with China. So they are not containing the influence of China in international affairs but they are curtailing the progress of Bhutan. It is necessary that Bhutanese Leaders counter the isolation of Bhutan from China by vested interests of India and other pro Western groups of nations. Bhutan cannot be ” A Tool of Irritant ‘ for anti- China forces.

The Telegraph article on the eve of the visit of President of India to Bhutan is a deliberate political attempt to misconstrue the facts about China Bhutan international boundary Talks. The article alleges that China is offering more land to Bhutan at certain point of Sino-Bhutan border in exchange for some adjustment at the Tri-junction border of India, Bhutan and China. This is a a desperate strategy on part of India to thwart Sino Bhutan progress in boundary Talks.