At the 58th meeting of the Council of the Global Environment Facility, created after the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, China’s delegate unexpectedly raised objections to Bhutan’s having placed the entire Sakteng Wildlife Sanctuary on its side of the Bhutan-China border, claiming that is a “disputed area.” When queried about the claim by the Indian newspaper Hindustan Times, the Chinese Foreign Ministry responded that the China-Bhutan boundary has never been delimited and, in an apparent reference to India, said that “a third party should not point fingers” in the new China-Bhutan border issue.

(Comment: China and Bhutan have held 24 rounds of talks between 1984 and 2016 to settle two other border issues, one in northern Bhutan and the other in the west. From early May 2020, China started building a PLA camp/Training establishment on the Tibet Bhutan border. A Chinese model border defence village has also been built and populated in a disputed area on the Tibet-Bhutan border near the military camp under construction.)