evidence: The developments in the 1950s in relation to Bhutan and China are recounted in Penjore (2004), Kumar (2010), and Bisht (2012). In almost all these texts, Chinese policy is described as ‘carrots and sticks’, the carrots being assurance of independence and economic assistance, and the sticks being border claims or encroachments. Following a border incursion by China in September 1979, Bhutan and China border talks commenced in 1984 (the preliminary talks began in 1981) and a peace agreement was signed between the two sides in 1998 (after Chinese activities in the disputed areas in 1996) that contained a Chinese acknowledgement of Bhutanese sovereignty with the text that ‘China fully respects the territorial integrity and independence of Bhutan’. There was also an agreement to maintain peace and tranquility in the border areas, and pending final settlement, to maintain a status-quo on the boundary as before March 1959. [...] There was a boundary realignment between Bhutan and China in 2007; Bhutan revised its total area from 47000 sq kms to 38394 sq kms (see Phuntsho, 2013). This does not conform with observations drawn from post-Soviet landlocked states where ceding territory in order to maintain cooperative relationships with transit states is an exceptional feature of the foreign policy of such states (see Idan and Shaffer, 2011), since China is not a transit state for Bhutan.