Using satellite images, a recent report shows 20 new Chinese settlements with about 7,000 residents in Bhutanese territory. For experts, China’s strategy began in the 1990s and is aimed at India, becoming more aggressive in recent years. In the last year alone, seven new villages have been built in strategically important areas at around 4,000 metres above sea level.

Milan (AsiaNews) – In 2016 China built its first village in Bhutanese territory, but international observers became aware of this only in 2021. Between the two dates, two more settlements were built in the impervious, remote, and previously unpopulated areas of the Himalayas.

At present, some 22 villages dot the landscape with a total of over 2,000 housing units and 7,000 residents, according to estimates based on satellite images, this according to Turquoise Roof, a research network of digitally connected specialists monitoring China’s actions in Tibet.

In its latest report, published on Tuesday, the group points out that Beijing has annexed about 825 km², almost 2 per cent of Bhutanese territory, in recent years.

Chinese settlements are in two main areas: the north-east, with 14 villages in Beyul Khenpajong and Menchuma regions, and the Doklam plateau, in the west, which is home to eight villages and is crucial for Sino-Indian rivalry since it controls key access points in the event of conflict.

The area, Turquoise Roof reports, was donated to the Kingdom of Bhutan in 1913 by Tibet, which at the time was an independent state, under the rule of the 13th Dalai Lama.

In the latest development, China announced that at least three villages will be transformed into cities, the culmination of a strategy that began in the 1990s with the sending of herders into the mountain area, followed by foot patrols, this despite a bilateral treaty signed in 1998 upholding existing borders. Improvised facilities followed for use as military outposts, later upgraded to permanent structures.

Settlers who move to these villages – which are located around 4,000 metres above sea level – are offered annual subsidies of 20,000 yuan per year (US$ 2,836) per person to encourage economic development.

However, weather conditions are very harsh. Farming and animal husbandry are impossible and snow blocks access to the region for several months of the year.

As a result, China is attempting to promote "patriotic tourism" with visitors invited to show their attachment to the nation by walking through the areas "recovered" from Bhutan.

For several years, China has also been building roads to connect these villages to Tibet, essential infrastructures to consolidate its presence, expand employment, and present Bhutan with "faits accomplis".

The region is isolated from Bhutan due to a lack of connections, so it is de facto under Beijing's control whose goal, according to researchers, is to exert greater diplomatic pressure so that Bhutan accepts an exchange. The villages in the north-eastern sector do not have great strategic value, so the goal is to cede them (or rather, return them) in exchange for the Doklam plateau, which is very important for China vis-à-vis India.

China would also like to convince Bhutan to host a Chinese embassy in the capital, Thimphu.

India is the only country to speak out against Chinese territorial appropriation, experts say, since it feels directly threatened. New Delhi considers the Doklam plateau fundamental for border defence; in fact, Bhutan cannot cede it without the consent of its Indian ally.

A 1949 treaty, which was revised in 2007, requires Bhutan to respect India’s security interests. For the same reasons, the capital, Thimphu, does not yet host a Chinese embassy.

But in March 2023, Bhutan announced that it was close to signing a deal with China. Since then, Beijing has accelerated the construction of new villages, building seven in the last year alone.

According to Robert Bannett, a professor at SOAS University of London and lecturer at King's College London, Beijing understands that Bhutan, in the long run, will feel forced to open diplomatic channels with China, something that local politicians have already hinted at.

In 2017, Indian military forces intervened directly with 270 troops due to an attempt by Chinese troops to access the southern ridge of the Doklam plateau, leading to a confrontation that lasted over two months.

The ongoing construction of villages, in addition to violating Bhutanese sovereignty, further complicates diplomatic relations between China and India, already at odds over several territorial disputes, like Ladakh, a region near Kashmir (also claimed by Pakistan, not surprisingly an ally of China).

Bannett believes that China could return “the Pagsamlung valley, an area of religious and historic significance for Bhutan which China has annexed by building roads and outposts and by stationing troops, but where it has not constructed villages.”

This would be a bogus concession though since China has not included the Pagsamlung Valley in its maps "for at least 25 years”, but that it would return only in exchange for guarantees on the western region, which is what interests Beijing.

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• bhutan
• china
• india
• pagsamlung valley
• doklam plateau
• territorial dispute
• turquoise roof