(TibetanReview.net, Mar31’24) — Despite Covid-19 lockdowns and restrictions having long become a thing of the past across the world, and China having even granted visa-free entry to citizens of a number of countries to boost its tourism industry, the traditional border crossings between Nepal and Tibet has continued to remain restricted for movement of people. This has to be seen in the backdrop of China having failed over the past several years to get the communists in Nepal to patch up their differences to form a coalition government most friendly towards it vis-à-vis India.
Now that such a government has been formed, Nepal has on Mar 29 managed to get China to reopen the 14 traditional border points with Tibet not just for bilateral trade and commerce but also for the movement of people, According to Nepali media reports.
Most of the people in Nepal’s northern border region are of Tibetan-origin and share cross-border family ties, besides being dependent more on Tibet than the rest of their country for their livelihood due to geographical conditions and lack of transport infrastructure.
Nepal was reported to have made the request through its Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs Narayan Kaji Shrestha during his meeting with Wang Junzheng, secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Tibet Autonomous Regional Committee of China.
Issuing a press release, the Consulate General of Nepal in Tibet’s capital Lhasa has said Shrestha reiterated the need for reopening of traditional border points for the promotion of trade and commerce as well as facilitating the movement of people during his Mar 29 meeting.
And posting about the meeting on social media platform X, Chen Song, the Chinese Ambassador to Nepal, has said: “The two sides agreed to reopen 14 traditional border trade points immediately, strengthen practical cooperation between two counties in such fields as trade, investment, tourism, and advance the bilateral relations to a new height.”
Shrestha is also expected to visit the holy pilgrimage site of Kailash Mansarovar in western Tibet during his visit, it was announced earlier last week.
The two sides were also stated to have discussed matters relating to expanding socio-economic cooperation, enhancing understanding and goodwill through high-level exchanges, consolidating the ongoing cooperation and exploring new areas of cooperation.
Shrestha, who assumed office earlier in the month, was on a nine-day visit to China beginning Mar 25, and reached Lhasa on Mar 29. The Nepal delegation led by the Foreign Minister also attended a banquet hosted by Junzheng.
Earlier, on Mar 26, the strategic partnership between the two countries was discussed during Shrestha’s meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang, during which the latter also urged the new dispensation in Nepal to finalise the implementation plan for its ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects that have struggled to make any headway due to continuous political changes in the Himalayan nation, reported the PTI news agency Mar 30.
The fluid world of Nepali politics has seen three changes in the governing coalition in a period of little over a year. The CPN (Maoist Centre) contested the elections in a pre-poll alliance with the Congress which won most number of seats during the 2022 general elections, but not absolute majority. In order to become the prime minister, CPN Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal jettisoned the Congress and instead partnered with CPN-UML, another major communist party, to form the government in late Dec 2022.
But when the Maoist Centre decided to support Congress in the presidential election, the UML pulled out of the government on Feb 27 last year. Dahal then partnered with the Congress to form new coalition. However, a year after that, Dahal revived the “left alliance”, which saw the CPN-UML back in government, exactly what China had kept lobbying strenuously for even before the general elections.