PM Oli pulls off surprise, draws a red line for ambassador Hou Yanqi
HT learns that Oli has told his supporters he is open to a split in the party – an eventuality China has been working to avert. China has been seen as playing the role of a peacemaker in the NCP in the past.
Nepal Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli is believed to have suggested to Chinese ambassador Hou Yanqi last week that he is capable of handling challenges within his party without any assistance from other countries, according to people familiar with the matter.
A Nepal watcher in India said the shift in PM Oli’s approach could be attributed to an attempt to reclaim the nationalist agenda that was the mainstay of his campaign that resulted in the NCP’s win in 2018.
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Oli’s comments, the people who asked not to be named added, may have been prompted by happenings in his Nepal Communist Party (NCP). A faction of the party, led by former prime minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ has become strident in its opposition to Oli. HT learns that Oli has told his supporters he is open to a split in the party – an eventuality China has been working to avert. China has been seen as playing the role of a peacemaker in the NCP in the past.
The prime minister’s change in stance comes at a time when he is making a concerted effort to mend ties with New Delhi and get the two countries to start discussions on differences over Kalapani, Limpiyadhura and Lipulekh.
A Nepal watcher in India said the shift in PM Oli’s approach could be attributed to an attempt to reclaim the nationalist agenda that was the mainstay of his campaign that resulted in the NCP’s win in 2018. That China lately appeared indifferent to his continuation in the government if this helps avoid a split in the party is also believed to have contributed to Oli’s stand.
Interestingly, Chinese defence minister General Wei Fenghe is visiting Nepal over the weekend and it is expected that some of the conversations that he has could be linked to the NCP’s affairs.
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“Gen Wei will spend four hours at army headquarters,” a diplomat in Kathmandu said on condition of anonymity, suggesting that the Chinese outreach to the army could also be linked to the political flux in the government.
Through November, Oli has faced unusually sharp attacks from Prachanda who had put out a 19-page document hugely critical of the prime minister. Oli is expected to put forth his counter-proposal at the meeting of the communist party’s Saturday meeting of the nine-member secretariat that comprises the NCP’s most senior leaders, although a discussion on this is likely only later.
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.
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