India sensitizes Bhutan over Chinese encroachment, holds the line in East Ladakh

Although India has sensitized Bhutan on China translocating villages along the Amu Chu to re-align border claims in the disputed tri-junction area near the Doklam plateau, the larger aim of Beijing is to consolidate its boundary claims all along the 3488 km Line of Actual Control (LAC) with India and the 477 km contested border with Thimpu.

According to Beijing watchers, the strategy to build model villages near the LAC and in disputed territory with Bhutan and then trans-locating populations and rehabilitating ex-servicemen is part of President Xi Jinping’s plan to build an impregnable fortress to push Han Chinese rule in Tibet and to cull separatism by Sinicization of Tibetan Buddhism in the Autonomous Region. The same exercise is on in Sunni dominated Xinjiang province with Islamic leadership looking the other way.

The recent satellite imagery of a Chinese Utopian village with cars and garden along the Amu Chu in contested territory with Bhutan and the spurt of border villages all along the LAC particularly in middle and eastern sector are all part of Fortress Tibet exercise of the Chinese Communist Party.