Over the recent past, the Communist regime in Nepal seems to have seriously compromised its position to China and has started using its State power for advancing Beijing’s interests in the region, jeopardising bilateral ties with India.
What Beijing, however, failed to take into consideration are the Nepalese citizens, and while the CCP regime in China has been able to buy out the Communist government in Nepal, it has failed to influence the Nepalese citizens who joined India in calling out Beijing’s attempt to alter the status of Mt. Everest by claiming that it is located entirely in China-occupied Tibet.
Chinese State media outlet, China Global Television Network, recently tweeted, “An extraordinary sun halo was spotted Friday in the skies over Mount Qomolangma, also known as Mount Everest, the world’s highest peak located in China’s Tibet Autonomous Region.”
In 1960, Nepal and China had resolved that the Southern slope of the peak belongs to Nepal, while the Northern slope falls in China-occupied Tibet. The China-Nepal border passes through the summit of Mount Everest. However, Beijing has highlighted the Northern, Tibetan slope of Mt. Everest in a desperate attempt to alter its status.
Here is the tweet the @CGTNOfficial has deleted. Cheers. https://t.co/MC7DzuPQY9 pic.twitter.com/jZfmxZkd3s
— Palki Sharma (@palkisu) May 10, 2020
Kathmandu remained oblivious to the Chinese transgression and rather chose to bring up the imaginary Kalapani dispute after India inaugurated the Dharchula-Nepal road link, a strategic project that creates easy road access only 4 kilometres away from the China border.
While the Nepal government acted as Chinese proxy in an attempt to thwart India’s strategic inroads towards the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with China, the Nepalese citizens have recognised how Beijing is transgressing into the Himalayan country’s sovereignty.
#BackOffChina trended on Twitter as Nepalese citizens joined Indians in protesting against China’s outrageous claims. Mount Everest (locally known as Sagarmatha in Nepal) is a matter of prestige in Nepal, being the highest peak in the world which the Nepalese citizens usually boast about.
China’s attempts to claim monopoly over Mt. Everest didn’t enrage the Nepal government, but it did enrage the people of Nepal who have been mistreated by the Chinese for quite some time.
Wherever China invests heavily under the BRI project, the CCP and the Chinese officials start treating the local citizens as second-class citizens. The case of Nepal is no different and only last month when the Wuhan virus was wreaking havoc across the world, Chinese workers and officials defied the lockdown ordered by Nepal government.
Not only did the Chinese companies and workers imperil the lives of Nepalese citizens amidst the COVID-19 outbreak leading to clashes between local Nepalese citizens and Chinese workers at several places, but the Chinese citizens were also seen beating up Nepali policemen, while protesting to go back home.
Such instances have led to extreme hatred towards China in the minds of Nepalese citizens who resent China’s detestable expansionism and repression in the country, as against the ruling Communist party which has been trying to hush up all disputes with Beijing.
Video shows Chinese agression towards @NepalPoliceHQ while protesting to go home during lockdown. (Why not protest at Chinese Embassy?). And then direct attacks on Police when police respond.
Nepal’s political kowtowing to China has all kinds of costs.
Vid by @hemantagautam2 pic.twitter.com/oq40POuZgk
— Kashish Das Shrestha कशिश दास श्रेष्ठ (@kashishds) May 8, 2020
Chinese influence in the Himalayan nation extends to severe human rights violations in the landlocked, Himalayan country that was on display recently with reports of Chinese people and companies getting involved in bride trafficking from Nepal.
China has one of the worst ratios due to its failed one-child policy, therefore many Chinese companies are involved in trafficking women from countries like Pakistan and Nepal which shows how Nepalese women are being forced into bride trafficking and prostitution by Beijing-backed companies.
The CCP plans to hijack Kathmandu through its trans-Himalayan rail line that would cut through the Himalayan country, connecting the Chinese city of Kerung to Lumbini on the Indo-Nepal border. This Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) project, Nepal’s very own Hambantota, is likely to slip Kathmandu into a severe debt crisis for which the country will pay in terms of diluted territorial sovereignty.
Combined with 90 per cent of FDI into China, China plans to reduce Nepal into a Client State and its citizens into virtual slaves. While the Nepal government has obliged, the Nepalese citizens are not relenting.
Even last year, when the ruling Communist Party had raised the Kalapani dispute after India released its political map, Nepal’s government report to counter India’s map had ironically revealed massive Chinese land grab. There were anti-China protests within Nepal, but the Nepal government sought to hush up matters saying that there no major border disputes between Nepal and China.
The Nepal government has started raising the Kalapani dispute all of a sudden at Beijing’s instance as China has succeeded in using Kathmandu to speak up against India’s ambitions of building robust road networks giving New Delhi access to the Sino-India border near the Kalapani tri-junction, but it has not been able to mould the opinion of the Nepalese citizens who share a strong civilizational link with India and see themselves as Indic people.
On the other hand, the people of Nepal share no civilizational bond with China, and they are also fed up of China’s blatantly illegal and inhuman treatment of Nepalese citizens on their own land.
Beijing has been carrying out a plethora of illegal activities in Nepal- harassing Nepalese citizens, trafficking Nepalese women and even the Chinese telecom major has been emboldened into data theft. Last year, Huawei had reportedly hacked 200 Nepali websites, including some government websites.
The Nepal government has reduced itself into a spineless proxy turning a blind eye against Chinese aggression, but the Nepalese citizens are poles apart from Kathmandu.
The Nepalese citizens have no aversion to Indians despite the anti-India narrative being weaved by the ruling party and they have certainly grown into a disillusioned community when it comes to Beijing’s influence in the country.
