A bomb explodes near Delhi’s Red Fort. Twelve people die. Dozens more are wounded. The finger points, as it often does and rightly so, toward Pakistan and the shadows of Kashmir. And yet, on the very day that India’s home minister takes charge of the investigation, the prime minister boards a plane to Bhutan.

The optics might seem odd. A nation under attack; its leader departing for a mountain kingdom that young Indians struggle to locate on a map. But this is precisely when India’s partnership with Bhutan matters most, and why it endures even as so many other alliances fracture under pressure. As Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrives to inaugurate a 1,020-megawatt hydroelectric project and celebrate the 70th birthday of the Fourth King, he brings with him a simple message: some friendships are built on bedrock, not sand.

For two decades, China has tried to crack that bedrock. Beijing has dangled investment opportunities, extended scholarship offers, promised railway connections and development dividends through its Belt and Road Initiative. Chinese diplomats have visited Thimphu and spoken of “traditional friendship". Yet Bhutan has never wavered. No diplomatic relations, no Chinese embassy, and no compromises on sovereignty. The kingdom has looked at China’s promises and seen through to the hard truth beneath: other nations have tried the same path, and they are paying the price.

Cautionary Tales China Hopes Bhutan Will Ignore

Sri Lanka serves as Exhibit A. Between 2006 and 2022, the island nation borrowed 13.2 billion US dollars from Chinese state-run banks for infrastructure projects that generated insufficient returns to service the debt. When Colombo could not repay, China stepped in. The Hambantota International Port built with Chinese funding lost money year after year and was handed over to China Merchants Port Holdings on a 99-year lease. Strategic control was surrendered to Beijing over a single port’s red ink.

Pakistan tells a similar story, albeit with higher stakes. Today, nearly 30 per cent of Pakistan’s external debt is owed to China. Annual repayment obligations alone consume billions that could otherwise flow toward education, healthcare, or poverty reduction. The nation that Beijing heralded as its greatest South Asian partner now finds itself ensnared in a debt trap of its own making.

Nepal, Bangladesh, and a constellation of other nations across the developing world have discovered the same lesson: Chinese infrastructure investment comes with invisible clauses written in compound........

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