A few days after Chinese President Xi Jinping reiterated Beijing's commitment to supporting border areas and highlighted the importance of focusing on governance and high-quality development in the border areas of China, media reports reveal that several villages have been coming up in areas near the Doklam plateau since 2020.
According to a Hindustan Times report, in the past eight years, China has been building over 20 villages and settlements in areas traditionally part of Bhutan, revealing Beijing's territorial ambitions and expansion plans.
The eight villages that have come up since 2020 are situated on a ridge overlooking a valley that China claims as its own. Many of these villages are strategically located to Chinese military bases or outposts, the HT report reveals.
China watchers in India feel that these villages would help strengthen China's position in the region, making 'Chicken's Neck' or the Siliguri Corridor, a strategically significant narrow strip of land that connects the northeastern states to the rest of India, vulnerable.
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Eurasian Times cited a Tibetan network of analysts to say that there are 22 such villages and settlements with around 752 residential blocks in the high-altitude valleys and on steep ridges within Bhutan’s traditional borders. What makes these villages and settlements unique is the fact that although they are located in high-altitude areas, they are linked to Chinese towns via roads.
CNN quoted Rishi Gupta, assistant director at the Asia Society Policy Institute in New Delhi as saying, "Knowing India has a strong presence in Bhutan, China naturally becomes vulnerable in the bordering region. This vulnerability compels China to enhance its influence in Bhutan and assert its territorial claims more aggressively, seeking to counterbalance India’s strategic partnerships in the area."
While highlighting the importance of developing border areas, Xi had also said modernising the system and capacity for governance in the border areas is a major part of Chinese modernisation.