New Delhi: Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar led a high-level delegation to Thimphu, the Bhutanese capital on Tuesday, where he held wide ranging talks with senior Bhutanese officials. He also met with Bhutan's Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay.
Jaishankar's meetings assume significance in light of fresh reports of reinforced PLA troop movement in the Doklam area.
India and China were locked in a tense 72-day eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation in Doklam, which was successfully resolved on the 28th of August after the Chinese side backed down. This was after the Indian side made it amply clear to the Chinese that Prime Minister Modi would not attend the BRICS summit in Xiamen which China was hosting.
Even during Xiamen there was a tense air around the meeting between Prime Minister Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping. The Indian delegation came away with the quiet satisfaction that Doklam was resolved much to India's terms but well aware of the possibility that the Chinese would try again.
The reports of fresh Chinese PLA sightings come just a few days before the 19th party congress of the Communist party of China which is expected to clear the decks for a second term for China's President Xi Jinping.
When Modi and Xi had met in Astana on the sidelines of the SCO summit in June they had vowed not to let 'differences become disputes'. Two months later when they met in Xiamen they had agreed to shore up a new border defence mechanism and stressed on the need for coming up with new military confidence building measures, which both leaders felt were missing during the Doklam standoff. What those new CBMs are have not been revealed by either side.
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