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International relations

China's stealth wars in the Himalayas

Beijing's military advance into Bhutan-claimed territory leaves New Delhi floundering

| China

Operating in the threshold between peace and war, China has pushed its borders far out into international waters in the South China Sea in a way no other power has done elsewhere. Less known is that China is using a similar strategy in the Himalayas to alter facts on the ground -- meter by meter -- without firing a single shot.

India is facing increasingly persistent Chinese efforts to intrude into its desolate borderlands. China, however, has not spared even one of the world's smallest countries, Bhutan, which has barely 8,000 men in its security forces. In the disputed Himalayan plateau of Doklam, claimed by both Bhutan and China, the People's Liberation Army has incrementally changed the status quo since last fall.

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