As Nepal plunges into yet another political crisis, Chinese ambassador to Nepal, Hou Yanqi is back to her older self as she yet again tries to keep the ruling Nepal Communist Party together after the party seemed to be heading for a vertical split after PM Oli’s unilateral decision to dissolve the parliament and call for fresh elections. This time around, with Oli seemingly lost from China’s grip, Yanqi has decided to court former PM Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ as the ambassador held a closed-door meeting with the NCP’s executive chairman.
While China likes to claim that it doesn’t interfere in the internal matters of other countries, Hou Yanqi is a living example of how China actively meddles in the internal affairs of other countries to serve their own vested interests.
Fresh off the blocks from meeting the President of Nepal, Bidya Devi Bhandari, Yanqi met Nepal Communist Party’s Executive Chairman Prachanda perhaps to salvage whatever is left of the NCP after Oli’s shock move to dissolve the parliament and call for fresh elections – a decision which hasn’t gone down well with Prachanda which has further intensified the tug-of-war between him and Oli for the reins of the NCP.
According to local reports, Yanqi met Dahal at his residence in Khumaltar, Lalitpur with a member of Prachanda’s secretariat terming the meeting as “informal”.
“Ambassador Hou met with Dahal today…… discussions must have revolved around contemporary political developments,” said a member of the Dahal’s secretariat.
After it seemed like Nepal was on its way to become the latest client state of China, Indian diplomacy worked overtime to restrict Chinese influence in Nepal which led to Oli changing his tunes and siding with India. He even removed his pro-China Defence minister which was followed by the visits of Foreign Secretary Harshvardhan Shringla, Army Chief General Narvane with the RAW Chief Samant Kumar Goel meeting Oli in October.
Oli’s move to dissolve the parliament has poured cold water over Hou Yanqi’s sustained efforts to repeatedly save the alliance between Oli and Prachanda. In the last few years, China has not only encroached on Nepalese land but also tried to entice Dahal’s Maoist faction, given the fact its ideology more closely aligns with that of Beijing. But, both the factors did not go well with the Oli faction, and with the encouragement from India, he started acting to restrict the Chinese involvement in Nepal’s internal affairs and encroachment over its territory which finally culminated to Oli calling for fresh elections in Nepal.