As mentioned before, the Kingdom of Bhutan is now separated from India and wants to break away from India's control, and the Indian government is well aware of this, so the question is, why can't India directly annex Bhutan like it annexed Sikkim?
Bhutan, like Sikkim, is one of the three Himalayan countries, and from the map, Bhutan is indeed two or three times larger than the Sikkim dynasty, and its national strength is naturally much stronger, but considering India's national strength, this gap has obviously been narrowed.
After all, compared with India, whether it is Bhutan or Sikkim, they are like ants, but they are weak, and the other is stronger
What really makes India afraid is international influence, or interference by other countries
At that time, India annexed Sikkim, and it was still a good time
When India annexed Sikkim, the international community also unanimously condemned, especially Western countries that flaunted freedom and democracy, all of which had a negative evaluation of India, and some radical countries even verbally demanded that India spit out the Sikkim dynasty
Of course, just by paying lip service, India dared to do this, and he already expected that no country would dare to actually help Sikkim
First of all, India chose this time well, in 1974-1975, the Soviet Union overwhelmed the United States but was unstable, and the United States retreated everywhere to protect itself. It can be said that at that time was the most critical time for the hegemony between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Although the United States and the Soviet Union did not like India's actions, they also feared that excessive intervention in India would lead India to the other side, so they tacitly chose to turn a blind eye to India's annexation
The two bosses did not express their opinions, and the members of the Warsaw Pact and NATO were even more powerless, and could only watch the excitement
In fact, at that time, the only one who could interfere with India's annexation of Sikkim was us
First, because our strength is strong enough and close enough, the Indian army can be said to have suffered enough for us in the self-defense counterattack war against India, so it can make India fearful, and second, India's annexation of Sikkim has a direct conflict of interest with us, and we also have reasons to intervene
The king of Sikkim was also very aware of this, so in order to obtain our assistance, Sikkim at that time even proposed to join China and give up sovereignty to become one of our administrative regions
This is a bit like the Shangdang County in Korea that chose to join the State of Zhao in order not to be annexed by the State of Qin
But out of various interests, we rejected Sikkim at that time
Perhaps the biggest consideration at that time was the risk of military action, because Sikkim was not a truly sovereign country from beginning to end, India has always deployed a large number of troops here, and if we want to support by force, we can only send troops from Yadong County, which is close to Sikkim
But at that time, we only had a standing strength of one regiment in Yadong, and it was too late to transfer troops from the Central Plains
At the end of the day, it's not infrastructure
But now that I think about it, I still lose money. Because after getting Sikkim, India's situation in the northeast region has become clear
First, India's annexation of Sikkim has consolidated its national security situation in the northeast, a move that not only dismantled the alliance between Nepal Bhutan and Sikkim, but also deterred the Nepalese and Bhutanese governments and even Bangladesh in the south, making them honestly obey for decades
At the same time, after the annexation of Sikkim, India's border with us was added out of thin air (that is, the previous border between Sikkim and ours), and we had to confront India three times when the national strength was not so strong
As for India, after integrating the land of Sikkim into its own territory, India's seven provincial administrative regions in the northeast region were completely connected, and the national situation was suddenly cleared
India's annexation of Sikkim made the Indians happy and the people of Sikkim bitter
The current Sikkim is the Indian state of Sikkim, not only is it tightly sealed by India, but also the Indian central government has immigrated to this place in large numbers, and the Sikkim people have long lost their independence
But India's rule has not allowed the people of Sikkim to live well, and Sikkim now has four times the suicide rate of India and an unemployment rate of 15%, the highest in India