India refer to the disputed region as "Doklam" while China call it "Donglang", however what is clear is that since the face-off between the two counties started a month ago, India has given different versions of the reasons for the current situation. So what is the real reason for the face-off and more importantly what is in it for India? 

On June 30, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs issued an official document on the “Recent Development in Doklam Area” which stated that after a Chinese construction party entered the Donglang area, the disputed territory between China and Bhutan, “in coordination with the RGOB (Royal Government of Bhutan), Indian personnel approached the Chinese Construction party and urged them to desist from changing the status quo.” 

The statement therefore clearly indicates that where the construction party entered is not Indian but Bhutan territory, and the purpose of India’s action was to protect Bhutan’s territory from China’s invasion. 

However, as a third party in the Sino-Bhutan border dispute, does the Indian military have the right to effectively trespass in the disputed border area and stop China’s road construction？If the answer is "yes", it could set a very dangerous precedent. For under Indian’s logic, Pakistan could request another country’s army to enter the area disputed by India and Pakistan, including India-controlled Kashmir. 

Moreover, in the statement issued by the Bhutan government on June 29, there was no mention of asking for help from, or consulting with, the Indian government, and according to diplomatic sources, the Bhutan government didn’t even know the Indian army was going to cross the  border into their country in advance. 

So how does India benefit from the Donglang face-off? 

To answer that question we have to take a broader geopolitical context. 

The Donglang area is in the southern tip of Yadong county in Tibet, which is a dagger-shaped area aiming at the Indian "chicken-neck" part of Siliguri with a thin strip of land separating India and Bangladesh, so it is of huge military and geostrategic significance. That is why India has deployed over 50,000 troops in the adjoining Sikkim area alone and built up a well developed logistics system to maintain and strengthen its military superiority in this area. 

When China started to construct a road in the region, India feared this would facilitate China’s military presence  and weaken India’s geostrategic advantages. 

 However the fact is the local geographic conditions make it easy to conquer but hard to defend, and the construction of a single road cannot change the military balance between China and India. Therefore, India’s fears of losing its geo-advantage are largely illusory, but it is this illusion that has led to its overreaction in Donglang, and started the face-off in this remote mountainous area, although the site of the road construction is well within China’s practically-controlled area. 

The other factor that should be considered is the ongoing border negotiation between China and Bhutan, a small mountainous country with a population of only 700,000, and deeply influenced by India's economy, politics and diplomacy. 

Since the 1980s, China and Bhutan have conducted 24 rounds of border negotiations. Although the final delimitation hasn’t been completed yet, the bordering area has remained peaceful and stable, and a consensus has been reached on the local geographic conditions and the direction of the boundary lines. 

However, the progress of border talks is thought not to be in the interest of India, for if the border dispute is settled, China and Bhutan will establish a normal diplomatic relationship, which will strengthen Sino-Bhutan ties and weaken Indian’s influence over Bhutan. 

Many Bhutanese people complain that it is India’s interference that impedes Sino-Bhutan border negotiations. Moreover, the ongoing border row in Donglang has put India in a better position to increase its military presence in Bhutan, which will further strengthen Indian’s control over Bhutan. 

So India sent its troops into the Donglang area in the name of helping Bhutan, but in fact, India is making use of Bhutan to increase its geo-advantage over China. The Donglang face-off is simple a geopolitical competition between the world's two most populous countries, masquerading as a border dispute. The problem is this dispute is more complicated than the usual border disputes between India and China, implying more uncertainty and risks for the two big powers. 

Fortunately, the foreign secretary of India, S. Jaishankar said India doesn’t want “differences to become a dispute”, and it was not in the interests of either India or China to make the dispute escalate into a more serious conflict and confrontation. Perhaps this is good news for the region and the world.

(Zhang Ye is a research fellow of PLA Naval Research Institute. The article reflects the author's opinion, not necessarily the view of CGTN.)