I am glad India is taking Bhutan's security challenges seriously and beginning to provide it with the the support it needs.
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China, with its increasingly aggressive moves along its Himalayan borders, seems to be employing the same methodology it has used in its ongoing takeover of the near-entirety of the South China Sea. This gives the Indian government good reason to worry that Beijing might also muscle its way into its lands, just as it has annexed territory over the objections of South China Sea claimants Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia, and, most recently, Indonesia.
This probably explains why the road leading up from the Indian and Bhutanese military bases in the picturesque Paro Valley is rapidly being widened and paved, almost entirely by imported Indian laborers, often working by hand. Residents say the Indian government, for decades a protector of sorts for a deeply Buddhist Bhutan that sympathizes with Tibet, is paying for the road-building out of its worries about China. Locals expect that the road will soon be paved all the way to the rudimentary base at Gunitsawa, far up the valley. It is conceivable that next year the Indian army will also provide heavy-lift helicopters to supply the Bhutanese checkpoints high in the Himalayas, allowing the Bhutanese army to put its hard-working horses out to pasture, while increasing its vigilance on the border with China.
Bhutan The Indian Army s Front Line The Diplomat
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China, with its increasingly aggressive moves along its Himalayan borders, seems to be employing the same methodology it has used in its ongoing takeover of the near-entirety of the South China Sea. This gives the Indian government good reason to worry that Beijing might also muscle its way into its lands, just as it has annexed territory over the objections of South China Sea claimants Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia, and, most recently, Indonesia.
This probably explains why the road leading up from the Indian and Bhutanese military bases in the picturesque Paro Valley is rapidly being widened and paved, almost entirely by imported Indian laborers, often working by hand. Residents say the Indian government, for decades a protector of sorts for a deeply Buddhist Bhutan that sympathizes with Tibet, is paying for the road-building out of its worries about China. Locals expect that the road will soon be paved all the way to the rudimentary base at Gunitsawa, far up the valley. It is conceivable that next year the Indian army will also provide heavy-lift helicopters to supply the Bhutanese checkpoints high in the Himalayas, allowing the Bhutanese army to put its hard-working horses out to pasture, while increasing its vigilance on the border with China.
Bhutan The Indian Army s Front Line The Diplomat