Nepal torn both ways as stand-off between India and China continues
A visit by a senior Beijing official highlights Kathmandu’s difficult balancing act as relations between its two giant neighbours deteriorate
A senior Chinese official’s visit to Nepal next week will highlight the dilemma faced by the Himalayan country amid the ongoing standoff between its two giant neighbours China and India.
Chinese Vice Premier Wang Yang’s four-day official visit to Kathmandu, starting on August 14, will come at a sensitive time as Beijing and New Delhi are at loggerheads over a protracted military standoff in the Himalayan Doklam plateau.
Wang’s visit, which will be followed by Nepalese Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba’s official visit to India between August 23 and 27, is seen by analysts as part of Kathmandu’s delicate balancing act between Beijing and New Delhi.
Krishna Bahadur Mahara, Nepal’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs, is also planning to visit Beijing after Deuba’s return from New Delhi, according to Nepal’s English-language newspaper The Kathmandu Post.
Mahara was quoted as saying that Nepal “will not get dragged” into the border dispute, nor be “influenced” by either China or India.