New Delhi: General M.M. Naravane’s unreleased memoir, Four Stars of Destiny reveals that China opened a second line of pressure on India through Bhutan at the same time that tensions were rising on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh in 2020. Naravane writes that China had been “browbeating smaller neighbours like Nepal and Bhutan” and that its behaviour reflected a pattern of “wolf warrior diplomacy” and “salami slicing tactics” that was already visible before the Ladakh crisis unfolded.In the memoir, the former army chief writes that “ever since the Doklam standoff” the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) tried to build a road toward the Jampheri Ridge “in order to stake their claim” in territory disputed with Bhutan. In 2017, the Indian army “had physically blocked the way leading to a seventy-three-day stand-off, before the PLA pulled back and gave up”.The Doklam crisis in 2017 was a 73-day standoff in which Indian soldiers entered Bhutanese territory to stop the PLA from extending a road toward the Jampheri Ridge, a position that overlooks the Siliguri Corridor and is considered strategically critical. After both sides pulled back later that year, Doklam did not remain static.In March 2018, defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman told the Parliament that although troops of both sides had “redeployed themselves away” from the 2017 face off point, China had built “sentry posts, trenches and helipads” in the Doklam area in order to maintain PLA troops through the winter. She also confirmed that satellite imagery showed China constructing new military infrastructure in north Doklam and stated that these developments had been taken up with Beijing through diplomatic and border management mechanisms.After the Doklam crisis, Naravane reveals that the Chinese “commenced work on a road further to the East along the valley of the Amo Chu” in an area which was not under “direct observation” of the Indian army. The Indian side “knew of this development through other sources, including satellite imagery” which showed that the Chinese had “reached just short of Pt 1621, the junction between the Torsa Nala and the Amo Chu”. Any move by the Chinese “further South would have grave and adverse security implications for India,” notes Naravane.Satellite analysis by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s Mapping Doklam project showed that China continued constructing a five kilometre “rear road” through difficult terrain that would allow the PLA to approach the Jampheri Ridge from a different direction that avoids the point where India intervened in 2017. ASPI confirmed that this alternative alignment has been built in areas hidden from Indian positions on the ridge and that construction accelerated after the 2017 standoff, continuing through late 2020 and early 2021.Naravane warns that the Chinese actions to reach Jampheri ridge were alarming “as Bhutan lies just North of the strategically important Siliguri Corridor.” The Siliguri Corridor – a strip of land around 20 km wide – links India’s northeastern states to the rest of the country. He explains that any ability the PLA gains to change the tactical situation around Doklam threatens the narrow land link between mainland India and the northeast in a crisis.It was for this reason that in early January 2020, only days after he took over as chief of army staff, when Naravane was preparing to travel from Leh to eastern Ladakh, he was asked to return to Delhi urgently. He writes that he was “urgently recalled to the Capital due to a sudden requirement to go to Bhutan” because the government felt that “developments should be shared with the Royal Government of Bhutan, in person to convey its gravity.”That visit on January 10, 2020 was, however, “under the radar” and along with him, the delegation included foreign secretary Vijay Gokhale and R&AW chief Samant Goel.He records meetings during this trip with the Fourth King and the Fifth King of Bhutan. The Indian side conveyed, what Naravane calls, “the absolute necessity of containing the PLA to the North of the Nala Junction” and stressed the need to increase the Royal Bhutan Army’s “strength on the Jampheri Ridge”. India also proposed, “if nothing else, the RBA Check-Post (CP) at Khajathang should at least be converted into a Joint CP by moving some of the IMTRAT personnel up from the Joint CP at Duktengang, which was just South of the Jampheri Ridge”.According to Naravane, the Fourth King felt that India “should not take any major steps in view of impending border talks” but he still “saw the merit” in these recommendations and “agreed to the establishment of a Joint CP at Khajathang.”‘A stated Red Line had been breached’This is an implicit admission that the situation on the India-Bhutan-China trijunction had not stabilised after 2017 despite official claims of disengagement and resolution. But it did not end even after the crisis in eastern Ladakh began. Naravane notes that on May 6, 2020, a day after Chinese and Indian troops had clashed at Galwan, he briefed the Cabinet Committee on Security assessed that “a stated Red Line had been breached” by the Chinese in Bhutan.He “suggested that this latest provocation at PP-14 (in Galwan) could also be brought up” by NSA Ajit Doval in his proposed conversation with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi but that wasn’t accepted because “at that point in time the situation emerging in Doklam was the graver.”Since the area where the Chinese had crossed the Red Line lay “within Bhutan,” he writes that India had to follow up “with the Royal Government of Bhutan,” as “had been discussed during our meeting in January”. Naravane doesn’t mention the Chinese action which amounted to breaching a Red Line but it can be safely believed to be linked to the PLA gaining access to Jampheri ridge. He also recounts an internal hesitation within the Indian system. During the CCS meeting, Naravane proposed to “carry out some joint training on the Southern slopes of the Jampheri Ridge so that we would always have some troops at hand for a rapid response”.External affairs minister S. Jaishankar demurred, arguing that “the proposed area fell within the area disputed between Bhutan and China and that such moves could be seen as provocative” by the Chinese. Naravane reiterated that “we had been doing joint training in this very area till the late 1980s”. The CCS meeting then decided “that as a first step, we could recommend to the RBA to lodge a formal protest with the PLA”. Naravane writes that the next morning Jaishankar revisited the records and told him that the area “was not disputed.”The political significance of these passages lies partly in what they suggest about the Modi government’s decision making. Naravane indicates that even inside the CCS, there was some uncertainty about what could be done on Bhutanese soil at the same moment that the PLA was acting quickly to alter ground realities. This anecdote underscores how Indian caution outpaced Chinese speed.In July 2020, at the height of the Ladakh crisis, notes Naravane, China “even raised a fresh claim on the Sakteng Wildlife Sanctuary deep inside Bhutanese territory”. This area had never appeared in any of the twenty-four rounds of China-Bhutan boundary talks held between 1984 and 2016. After Bhutan issued a demarche, China replied that disputes existed in the “eastern, central and western sectors” of the boundary.By creating a new dispute in eastern Bhutan, China increased pressure on Bhutan while also complicating India’s own strategic calculus in the Doklam sector. Taken together with China’s fresh territorial claim over Bhutan’s Sakteng Wildlife Sanctuary, and the resumption of Beijing-Thimphu boundary negotiations that same year, Naravane’s account depicts an escalation driven not only by direct confrontation with India, but also by leveraging Bhutan as a strategic pressure point on its biggest neighbour.What clearly emerges from the memoir is that the Indian state became aware of a serious Chinese move in Bhutan early in 2020 and took some coordinated action with the Royal Bhutan Army. Yet there was no sustained explanation of this development to Parliament or the public. Naravane does not speculate on the political reasons for this but the gap between internal assessments and external statements gives his unreleased account unusual public interest.