Chinese President Xi Jinping recently became the first Chinese president in 23 years to visit Nepal. The Chinese President was accompanied by a Chinese delegation and arrived in Kathmandu from Chennai on Saturday for the start of his two-day state visit.
The Chinese leader was received at the Tribhuvan International Airport by Nepal’s President Bidhya Devi Bhandari in a welcome ceremony.
On Sunday, after talks in the capital, Xi and Nepalese Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli witnessed the signing of 18 agreements and two letters of exchange in areas of connectivity, security, border management, trade, tourism and education.
Nepal’s Foreign Minister Pradeep Gyawali called Xi’s visit as one of “historic significance” for Nepal.
“Our priority is to create opportunities for Nepal, joining it to China’s development. We are focusing on connectivity between the two countries,” he said.
According to The Kathmandu Post, during delegation-level talks with President Bidhya Devi Bhandari on Saturday, Xi announced 56 billion rupees ($492m) in economic assistance for Nepal over the next two years.Separate deals for a trans-Himalayan railway link to Tibet and a tunnel were also reached.
The 70-km (42-mile) rail link will connect Gyiron in Tibet with Nepal’s capital city of Kathmandu, making it one of the most ambitious infrastructure projects in the country.
This is seen as a good news for the landlocked Nepal, which is geographically sandwiched between India and China, and has been seeking closer ties and much-needed energy and infrastructure investment from Beijing.
In 2017, Nepal had also signed up to China’s Belt and Road initiative, which is a vast global infrastructure programme, that includes the building or upgrading of highways and airports in the country.
Although India has traditionally been Nepal’s main ally, China has, over the years, intensified its presence, pumping millions of dollars into projects ranging from roads to hydropower plants.
Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’, the ruling Nepal Communist Party’s co-chairman, called the Chinese President visit to Nepal as a “watershed moment” in the bilateral ties and said it has laid a foundation for forging a trilateral partnership involving India.
Talking to reporters at a tea reception hosted by the party in the capital on the occasion of the Vijaya Dashami and Chhath festivals, the former prime minister called for forging trilateral partnership among Nepal, China and India.
“I had taken up the matter of forging trilateral partnership between three countries during my talks with top leadership of China and India some time back. I believe that the recent visit of Chinese President Xi to Nepal has laid a foundation to materialise the idea,” he said.
Prachanda said that President Xi’s visit was a “watershed moment in the bilateral ties between Nepal and China”.
Xi, who is also the General Secretary of the ruling Communist Party of China, held talks with Prachanda on Sunday and the two leaders agreed to reinforce inter-party exchanges. He described Prachanda as a “good” and an “old friend” of the Chinese people.
“Xi’s visit to Nepal has multiple dimensions and one of them is about laying the foundation for forging a trilateral partnership between China, Nepal and India,” Prachanda said.
The visit of the Chinese President has added a new dimension in Nepal’s foreign policy, Prachanda said, adding that the agreements reached between the two sides will be beneficial in the long run.
He said that the recent talks between President Xi and Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the prospect of having “two plus one” format for dialogue is a welcome news at a time when Nepal is pushing forward the concept of trilateral partnership.
“President Xi’s commitment to helping Nepal to realise its dream to transform itself from landlocked country to a land-linked country suggests that our bilateral cooperation has entered a new era,” he also added.
