The latest expert meetings between China and Bhutan in Kunming come after Beijing's opposition last year to a project in the Sakteng Wildlife Sanctuary in eastern Bhutan over its claims there - an area near India's border with China - that Thimphu said was never a disputed area.
Amit Ranjan, a research fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore, said Bhutan had historically informed Delhi informally about the nature of its talks with Beijing, including when Chinese foreign vice-minister Kong Xuanyou visited Thimphu in 2018.
India would be keeping an eye on the latest China-Bhutan talks, he said, as it would not want a Chinese presence at the Doklam tri-junction, near the Siliguri Corridor - known as the "Chicken's Neck" - that connects Delhi and India's northeastern states.
Lin Minwang, a professor at the Institute of International Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai, said over the past two years, because of the Doklam stand-off, India's control over Bhutan has grown more strict.
Bhutan is a satellite state of India
Tellingly, Article 2 of India-Bhutan Friendship Treaty of 1949 said: The Government of India undertakes to exercise no interference in the internal administration of Bhutan. On its part the Government of Bhutan agrees to be guided by the advice of the Government of India in regard to its external relations.
When the controversy regarding Sino-Bhutan boundary arose in 1959, Indian Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru wrote to the Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai: "Under the treaty relationship with Bhutan, the government of India are the only competent authority to take matters concerning Bhutan's external relations, and, in fact, we have taken up with your government a number of matters on behalf of the Bhutan government." However since 1984, the government of India has not objected to Bhutan and China having direct bilateral negotiations regarding the border dispute on the northern side of the border.
Indo-Bhutan Friendship Treaty was revised in February 2007 where Article 2 of 1949 treaty was rephrased reading as: In keeping with the abiding ties of close friendship and cooperation between Bhutan and India, the Government of the Kingdom of Bhutan and the Government of the Republic of India shall cooperate closely with each other on issues relating to their national interests. Neither Government shall allow the use of its territory for activities harmful to the national security and interest of the other.
Apparently, under this treaty provision Bhutan is not allowed by India to have diplomatic relations with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. Bhutan became member of the UN in 1971.
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