Like the political crisis in Nepal is intensifying, the Chinese ambassador In Kathmandu, Hou Yanqi waved his tongues that China could make one last attempt to hold the herd of belligerent communist leaders together. The ambassador met on Tuesday with the Nepalese President BD Bhandari, who had wasted no time in approving Prime Minister KP Oli’s recommendation to dissolve Parliament.
While ToI was unable to confirm it independently from an official agency, the ambassador also met PK Dahal Prachanda, co-chair of the verdict, according to a source in Kathmandu Communist Party of Nepal (NCP) and one of the main actors in the political drama in Nepal.
Hou’s meeting with Bhandari is said to have been planned in advance, but the ambassador is known to have worked overtime to prevent a split in the ruling party. She had met Oli in the middle of his argument last month Rival Dahal After that Olis listed alleged failures as both prime minister and co-chair of the party in a document he presented to the party requesting his resignation. Dahal was elected chairman of the party’s parliament on Wednesday.
Hou also had controversy after holding a series of meetings with NCP leaders in July when 30 of the 44 members of the party standing committee called for his resignation.
The NCP was founded in 2018 with the merger of Dahal’s CPN (Maoist Center) and Olis CPN-Unified Marxist-Leninist (CPN-UML). It is no secret that China has worked to keep the alliance of “ideologically like-minded” forces intact. Beijing faces a difficult decision, however, as the position of its favorite Oli is increasingly shaky. With a two-thirds majority in the NCP, Dahal released Oli from his position as co-chairman of the party and demanded that the electoral commission recognize his parliamentary group as a legitimate NCP.
If the party is split, China will continue to want the communist parties to hold elections together, even if it means giving up Oli. Hou’s meeting with Dahal, who finally pulled the plug on Oli, is significant in this context.
In addition to focusing on trade and connectivity, China has also worked to build defense ties with Nepal, as the Defense Minister shows again Wei FengheVisited Kathmandu last month.
India can perhaps afford to be much less nervous, despite signs of rapprochement with the Oli government in recent months, including a visit by Foreign Minister Harsh Shringla to Kathmandu.
Oli is still seen here as perhaps the worst blow to relations with India in recent times when he decided to unilaterally issue a new political map of Nepal listing the territories occupied by India. After resuming bilateral engagements with India, the Oli government continued to refer to the map as one of its foreign policy highlights. However, Nepal justified its decision on the reluctance of India to enter into a dialogue on the border dispute between Kalapani.