evidence: On June 8, a platoon-sized unit of Chinese border guards moved into territory claimed by both China and Bhutan, a client-state of India. They destroyed stone bunkers used sporadically by the Royal Bhutan Army, and shortly afterward a Chinese road construction crew arrived with excavators, bulldozers, and a larger military escort. On June 16, Indian troops arrived and blocked the road-building effort. The next two months saw periodic scuffles at Doklam, as well as a mass rock-fight (captured on video and posted to YouTube) by the disputed banks of the Pangong Lake 800 miles away. On August 28, both nations agreed to what India termed an "expeditious disengagement" of forces, and both declared this non-resolution a victory. [...] Beijing has objected vociferously to each of these steps, with the Foreign Ministry noting in April, "China will firmly take necessary measures to defend its territorial sovereignty and legitimate rights and interests." China intends to select the Dalai Lama’s successor—as it did in 1995 for Tibetan Buddhism’s second-ranking cleric, the Panchen Lama. China’s claim to the areas held by India (and Bhutan) flows from its claim to Tibet. If Tibet is an integral part of China, then all territories ever controlled (or claimed) by Tibet are also integral parts of China. A high-profile scare on the Doklam Plateau—inhabited only by seasonal Tibetan and Bhutanese yak-herders—may have been intended to send India an implicit message: namely, not to repeat its decision to shelter the Dalai Lama 1959, a key cause of China’s 1962 invasion.