Foreign and Military Affairs

Nepal signs deal with China

By Zhang Jin and Li Xiaokun (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-12-30 08:02

China and Nepal yesterday inked an economic deal that may channel more Chinese aid to the Himalayan nation, as Beijing strengthens strategic ties with neighbors.

The economic and technology pact was signed after Premier Wen Jiabao met with visiting Nepalese counterpart Madhav Kumar Nepal.

The details of the deal were not immediately available, but a source with the Nepalese delegation told China Daily that China was likely to increase aid to Nepal by 50 percent. The source didn't reveal the amount of the aid China has given or how many years the new aid would span.

An ongoing Chinese-assisted project in Nepal is the construction of a mountainous road for a second vehicular link with Tibet, which will boost border trade. The road is likely to be ready by next October. China helped Nepal open its first road link for Kathmandu in the early 1960s.

The other document signed yesterday was on youth exchanges.

During yesterday's meeting, Wen and Nepal vowed to promote a "comprehensive cooperative partnership through generations" - a term analysts said is usually used between very friendly countries - according to a Foreign Ministry release after the meeting of the two leaders.

"China's wish to intensify ties with its neighbors is apparent, and Nepal bears strategic and geographic significance to China," Zhou Hongjiang, an expert at Beijing-based Peking University, told China Daily yesterday.

Prime Minister Nepal reiterated that his country would stick to the one-China policy and would not allow its territory to be used to split China. China's Tibet shares more than 1,400 km of mountainous border with Nepal.

Zhou said common interest brings Beijing and Kathmandu together. "Both want the Himalayan region to be in peace," he said.

Nepal hoped his China trip would help garner support from the opposition party, while China wanted Nepal to reaffirm its commitment not to let Tibetan separatists use Nepalese land to split China, Zhou said.

Beijing is the third leg of the Nepalese prime minister's China tour, which has taken him to Lhasa and Xi'an and will send him to Shanghai. It is his first official visit to Beijing since he took office in May.

President Hu Jintao and chairman of the Standing Committee of National People's Congress Wu Bangguo will meet the premier today.

Political tensions have run high in Nepal since a Maoist-led government resigned in May after Nepalese President Ram Baran Yadav declined to sack the army chief who would not include former Maoist fighters into the military.

Since May, the main opposition Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) has staged massive protests, a move at one time paralyzed the parliament.

The protests resulted in a free fall of tourist arrivals to Nepal, Xinhua News Agency reported on Friday, citing local restaurateurs and tour operators.