China tries to build bridges between Nepal’s rival communist factions
- Crisis erupted last week when Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli decided he could no longer work with rival factions within his Nepal Communist Party
- Beijing responded by sending Guo Yezhou, a vice-minister in the Chinese Communist Party’s International Liaison Department to Kathmandu
The crisis erupted on December 20 when Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli, decided he could no longer work with rival factions within his Nepal Communist Party (NCP), which was formed in 2018 to unite the Marxist-Leninist and main Maoist parties following their success in elections in late 2017.
With two years of his term to run, Oli dissolved parliament and called for fresh elections in a move that foreign diplomats say caught China by surprise and plunged the impoverished nation of 30 million people into uncertainty.
Seven ministers quit Oli’s government, and anger over the descent into political infighting comes as the economy is reeling amid coronavirus-sparked protests at which effigies of the prime minister were burnt.
Within days, Beijing dispatched to Kathmandu Guo Yezhou, a vice-minister in the Chinese Communist Party’s International Liaison Department, which manages relationships with foreign political parties of all hues, both in power and opposition.