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NEW DELHI: A year since India and China disengaged on the Bhutanese Doklam plateau after a 72-day stand-off, the reverberations still dominate bilateral relations between the two Asian giants.

What were the lessons of that encounter?

China underestimated Indian determination on several counts — first, that India would send troops to physically prevent their troops from changing the status quo by building a road that could lead up to the strategic Jhampheri Ridge. That one act appeared to have surprised China more than they had imagined. Second, while diplomacy won the day for both sides, India indicated that it would be willing to go to a conflict situation if the need arose. India stared down Chinese aggression because China ultimately decided not to put this to the test.

India concluded later that China’s main aim had been to “separate” Bhutan from India in more ways than one. That India came to Bhutan’s assistance without a second thought was one more certainty Beijing had not factored in.

For its part, India underestimated China in that New Delhi had not imagined that this kind of “salami slicing” could be a Chinese plan.

Previous stand-offs in Depsang and Chumar had seen Indian officials banging on Chinese doors for negotiations with little success. This time was no different — until that 3-minute exchange between prime minister Narendra Modi and Xi Jinping in Hamburg on July 8, Beijing was deaf to New Delhi. Hence the importance of “strategic communication” between the leaders was heightened and emphasized during the subsequent Wuhan summit.

Most important, China played the stand-off with its “Three Warfares” strategy that had been so successful in the South China Sea — media war to influence public opinion regarding China’s military action; psychological war by saying they would interfere in J&K and Sikkim and legal war with a cherry-picked white paper on Doklam. India’s steadfast refusal to officially engage with this was a lesson not only to India itself, but many other countries wrestling with China’s aggressiveness.

There is a general belief that the “disengagement understanding” of August 28 was due to the real possibility that Modi would ditch the BRICS summit in Xiamen, and could have cast a shadow on Xi’s removal of term limits for himself.

It could also mean that the Doklam understanding was incomplete and that China could return in the near future to finish the job.

In the months after the “resolution”, while India maintained some troop presence in the area, Chinese troops have well-nigh populated the northern part of the Doklam plateau, which legitimately falls on their side. This leaves the real possibility that China will try this adventure again to wrest this territory.

Meanwhile, politically at least, India and China have papered over their differences after the Modi-Xi summit in Wuhan. Popularly described as a “reset” although it was nothing of the sort, it nevertheless helped both leaders achieve a greater understanding of each other.

Did India actually learn all the lessons it should have? During the monsoon session of parliament, foreign minister Sushma Swaraj drew an imaginary line on Doklam that has many strategists scratching their heads. Answering a question on Doklam, she made it clear that the boundary dispute between Bhutan and China was continuing and that it was a matter between those two countries. "Our concern was related only to the tri-junction area (India-Bhutan-China)," she said.

When India intervened in Doklam in 2017, it was not only protecting its own boundary, it was coming to the aid of its security partner, Bhutan. For the foreign minister to make that distinction could be either a lapse or a rethink of Indian policy, both of which would signal Indian weakness.

Bhutan spent all 72 days of the Doklam standoff in silence after a statement issued on June 29. In the weeks afterwards, Bhutan has kept its peace, though there has been growing unease within the country that it might be sacrificed between two giants at war. Bhutan has historically not been wedded to Doklam as its territory and could have exchanged it for peace with China. Now that will never happen, which means India will have to compensate Bhutan in different ways. But the incident has brought in deep changes in the India-Bhutan dynamic, which will only unfold over time.

