Has China established a village 2 km inside Bhutan, close to Doklam? Stooge's claim busted

Update at 11:08 am: Bhutan's Ambassador to India has clarified that there is no Chinese village inside Bhutan 

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A Chinese state-run media stooge has claimed with pictures that China has established a village 2 km within Bhutan's territory very close to Doklam -- the place where Indian and Chinese forces clashed in 2017. The senior journalist who brought this to light posted images of the village on his Twitter handle on Thursday before suspiciously deleting them.

'Here is a map to show the location'

Shen Shiwei, CGTN News Producer, posted the now-deleted images and wrote, "We have permanent residents living in the newly established Pangda village. It is along the valley where 35 km south to Yadong county." He also shared a map to show the precise location of the settlement. 

Nathan Ruser, a researcher who works with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute's (ASPI)International Cyber Policy Centre, said that this Pangda village has been constructed 2.5 km beyond Bhutan's international border. 

China makes a new claim on Bhutanese territory

Earlier, China made fresh claims at Bhutanese territory at the 58th Global Environment Facility Council where the Chinese member raised objections to the Sakteng Wildlife Sanctuary project and argued that it was in a "disputed area" between Beijing and Thimphu. Sakteng lies in a zone of Bhutan that borders Arunachal Pradesh and not China. Bhutan had urged the GEF to purge all references to China’s baseless claims from the council’s documents. The GEF also rejected the Chinese claim and approved the project for funding.

Bhutan had also conveyed its position to China through its embassy in New Delhi — since both countries don’t have embassies in each other’s countries and conduct their diplomatic communication through their missions in Delhi.

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MEA on Ladakh border standoff with China

Meanwhile, India on Thursday said it will continue dialogue and communication through military and diplomatic channels with China on the border standoff in eastern Ladakh and that both sides have agreed to hold another round of talks soon. External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Anurag Srivastava while referring to the ongoing military talks between the two countries also rejected as “baseless" a report in a British daily ‘The Times’, which quoted a Chinese professor to claim that the Chinese PLA had used “microwave weapons” to force Indian soldiers to leave positions in eastern Ladakh.

Nearly 50,000 Indian Army troops are currently deployed in a high state of combat readiness in various mountainous locations in eastern Ladakh in sub-zero conditions as multiple rounds of talks between the two sides have not yielded any concrete outcome yet to resolve the military standoff that erupted in early May. China has also deployed an equal number of troops, according to officials.

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