Doklam
Doklam, called Donglang by China, is an area in Chumbi Valley with a high plateau and a valley, lying between China's Yadong County to the north, Bhutan's Haa District to the east and India's Sikkim state to the west. Since the 1960s, China and Bhutan have disputed sovereignty over the Doklam area. The dispute has not been resolved despite several rounds of border negotiations between Bhutan and China. The area is of strategic importance to all three countries.
In 1988, the Chinese People's Liberation Army entered the Doklam plateau and successfully took control of the area. In June 2017, China attempted to extend a road on the Doklam Plateau southward, prompting Indian troops to enter the area in an attempt to stop the project, which triggered a two-month border standoff between the two sides. On 28 August, India and China withdrew their troops from the standoff in Doklam. Since then, China has continued to control most of the Doklam area and built a village called Pangda there.
Geography
The Imperial Gazetteer of India, representing the 19th century British view of the territory, states that the Dongkya range that separates Sikkim from the Chumbi Valley bifurcates at Mount Gipmochi into two great spurs, one running south-west and the other running south-east. Between these two spurs runs the valley of the Dichu or Jaldhaka river.The Dongkya range that normally runs in the north–south direction gently curves to east–west at the southern end of the Chumbi Valley, running through the Batang La and Sinchela passes and sloping down to the plain. A second ridge to the south, called the Zompelri or Jampheri ridge, runs parallel to the first ridge, separated by the Doklam or Doka La valley in the middle. At the top of the valley, the two ridges are joined, forming a plateau. The highest points of the plateau are on its western shoulder, between Batang La and Mount Gipmochi, and the plateau slopes down towards the southeast. Between the two ridges lies the valley Torsa Nala, which joins the Amo Chu river about 15 km to the southeast.
The area between the western shoulder of the plateau and the mouth of Torsa Nala is called Doklam by China.
In the Tibetan language, "Doklam", or more properly "Droklam", means a nomad's path. The said path can be seen in Maps 5–7, which runs from the village of "Shuiji" in the vicinity of Sangbay, climbing up to the Doklam plateau and descending to the Amo Chu valley through the Sinche La pass. It continues along the river to the hamlet of Asam on what was then regarded as the border of Tibet, and proceeds to the town of Rinchengang, which was a border trade mart. According to scholar Jigme Yeshe Lama, such paths were used for ages by traders, nomads and pilgrims.
India's Sikkim state lies to the west of the Dongkya range, the western shoulder of the Doklam plateau and the 'southwest spur' issuing from Mount Gipmochi. This spur is cut by the Dichu river which originates below the Jelep La pass and enters Bhutan. The 'southeast spur', called Zompelri ridge, separates Bhutan's Haa District from the Samtse.
Bhutan's claimed border runs along the northern ridge of the Doklam plateau until Sinchela and then moves down to the valley to the Amo Chu river. China's claim of the border includes the entire Doklam area within the Chumbi Valley, ending at the Zompelri ridge on the south and the confluence of the Torsa Nala with Amo Chu on the east.
Strategic significance
Scholar Susan Walcott counts China's Chumbi Valley, to the north of Doklam, and India's Siliguri Corridor, to the south of Doklam, among "strategic mountain chokepoints critical in global power competition". John Garver has called the Chumbi Valley "the single most strategically important piece of real estate in the entire Himalayan region". The Chumbi Valley intervenes between Sikkim and Bhutan south of the high Himalayas, pointing towards India's Siliguri Corridor like a "dagger".The Siliguri Corridor is a narrow 24 kilometer-wide corridor between Nepal and Bangladesh in India's West Bengal state, which connects the central parts of India with the northeastern states including the contested state of Arunachal Pradesh. Often referred to as the "chicken's neck", the Siliguri Corridor represents a strategic vulnerability for India. It is of key strategic significance to Bhutan, containing the main supply routes into the country.
Historically, both Siliguri and Chumbi Valley were part of a highway of trade between India and Tibet. In the 19th century, the British Indian government sought to open up the route to British trade, leading to their suzerainty over Sikkim with its strategic Nathu La and Jelep La passes into the Chumbi Valley. Following the Anglo-Chinese treaty of 1890 and Younghusband expedition, the British established trading posts at Yatung and Lhasa, along with military detachments to protect them. These trade relations continued till 1959, when the Chinese government terminated them.
The Doklam area had little role in these arrangements, because the main trade routes were either through the Sikkim passes or through the interior of Bhutan entering the Chumbi Valley in the north near Phari. There is some fragmentary evidence of trade through the Amo Chu valley, but the valley is said to have been narrow with rocky faces with a torrential flow of the river, not conducive for a trade route.
Indian intelligence officials state that China had been carrying out a steady military build-up in the Chumbi Valley, building many garrisons and converting the valley into a strong military base. In 1967, border clashes occurred at Nathu La and Cho La passes, when the Chinese contested the Indian demarcations of the border on the Dongkya range. In the ensuing artillery fire, states scholar Taylor Fravel, many Chinese fortifications were destroyed as the Indians controlled the high ground. The Chinese military is believed to be in a weak position in the Chumbi Valley because the Indian and Bhutanese forces control the heights surrounding the valley.
The desire for heights is thought to bring China to the Doklam plateau. Indian security experts mention three strategic benefits to China from a control of the Doklam plateau. First, it gives it a commanding view of the Chumbi valley itself. Second, it outflanks the Indian defences in Sikkim which are currently oriented northeast towards the Dongkya range. Third, it overlooks the strategic Siliguri Corridor to the south. A claim to the Mount Gipmochi and the Zompelri ridge would bring the Chinese to the very edge of the Himalayas, from where the slopes descend into the southern foothills of Bhutan and India. From here, the Chinese would be able to monitor the Indian troop movements in the plains or launch an attack on the vital Siliguri corridor in the event of a war. To New Delhi, this represents a "strategic redline". Scholar Caroline Brassard states, "its strategic significance for the Indian military is obvious."
History
The historical status of the Doklam plateau is uncertain.According to Sikkimese tradition, when the Kingdom of Sikkim was founded in 1642, it included all the areas surrounding the Doklam plateau: the Chumbi Valley to the north, the Haa Valley to the east as well as the Darjeeling and Kalimpong areas to the southwest. During the 18th century, Sikkim faced repeated raids from Bhutan and these areas often changed hands. After a Bhutanese attack in 1780, a settlement was reached, which resulted in the transfer of the Haa valley and the Kalimpong area to Bhutan. The Doklam plateau sandwiched between these regions is likely to have been part of these territories. The Chumbi Valley was still said to have been under the control of Sikkim at this point.
Historians qualify this narrative, Saul Mullard states that the early kingdom of Sikkim was very much limited to the western part of modern Sikkim. The eastern part was under the control of independent chiefs, who did face border conflicts with the Bhutanese, losing the Kalimpong area. The possession of the Chumbi Valley by the Sikkimese is uncertain, but the Tibetans are known to have fended off Bhutanese incursions there.
After the unification of Nepal under the Gorkhas in 1756, Nepal and Bhutan had coordinated their attacks on Sikkim. Bhutan was eliminated from the contest by an Anglo-Bhutanese treaty in 1774. Tibet enforced a settlement between Sikkim and Nepal, which is said to have irked Nepal. Following this, by 1788, Nepal occupied all of the Sikkim areas to the west of the Teesta river as well as four provinces of Tibet. Tibet eventually sought the help of China, resulting in the Sino-Nepalese War of 1792. This proved to be a decisive entry of China into the Himalayan politics. The victorious Chinese General ordered a land survey, in the process of which the Chumbi valley was declared as part of Tibet. The Sikkimese resented the losses forced upon them in the aftermath of the war.
British Raj period
In the following decades, Sikkim established relations with the British East India Company and regained its lost territory with their help after an Anglo-Nepalese War. The British made Sikkim a de facto protectorate through the Treaty of Titalia. The relations between Sikkim and the British remained rocky, and the Sikkimese retained loyalties to Tibet. Another treaty, Treaty of Tumlong in 1861, "confirmed" the protectorate status, and excluded Tibetan influence from Sikkim. The Tibetan effort to retain their own suzerainty resulted in a clash at the Lingtu mountain in 1888. China, which exercised nominal suzerainty over Tibet, stepped in and signed a treaty on behalf of Tibet.Sikkim–Tibet boundary definition
The treaty agreed between Britain and China, called the Convention of Calcutta or the Anglo-Chinese treaty of 1890, recognised British suzerainty over Sikkim and delineated the boundary between Sikkim and Tibet. The border was defined as the watershed between Teesta River of Sikkim and Mochu of Tibet, starting at "Mount Gipmochi". For today's point of view, what was meant by "Mount Gipmochi" is unclear as no land surveys of the area had been undertaken prior to the treaty. Travel maps and sketch maps available from that time period show no awareness of the Doklam plateau on the part of the British, placing Mount Gipmochi directly on the Dongkya range.Continued Tibetan resistance to the acceptance of the Anglo-Chinese treaty eventually led to a British expedition to Tibet in 1904, under the political officer Francis Younghusband. The ensuing Convention of Lhasa obtained the Tibetan agreement to the earlier terms. The boundary established between Sikkim and Tibet in the treaty still survives today, according to scholar John Prescott.