Prez Xi sending team to stop the Nepal party split. It’s a last-ditch effort

China’s President Xi Jinping has ordered a high-level team of communist party officials to travel to Kathmandu to stop the Nepal Communist Party from splitting. President Xi’s decision to rush the four-member team to Kathmandu comes after an SOS message from ambassador Hou Yanqi who hadn’t succeeded in her attempts to stop the key players in the Nepal Communist Party (NCP) from pulling the party in different directions, people familiar with the matter said.
The team led by Guo Yechau, vice minister of the International Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, will land in Kathmandu on Sunday and is scheduled to spend the next four days in the Himalayan nation.
Also Read: China sells 50 armed drones to Pakistan, begins psyops. It’s a reminder | Analysis
According to sources based in Kathmandu, Ambassador Hou has already scheduled their meetings with prominent players in Nepal’s ruling party from both sides.
It is, however, not clear yet if Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli, who had earlier turned down requests from Ambassador Hou to meet her, would meet the Chinese delegation. Chances of PM Oli, who has taken a staunch Nepali nationalist role, meeting the visiting delegation are slim. He has already conveyed to Ambassador Hou that China should not interfere in internal affairs of Nepal since the legal challenge to the decision to dissolve Parliament is already before the Supreme Court.
Also Read: Virtual summits’: PM Modi set the template, then nudged the world | Analysis
A Nepal watcher said the ambassador had been in touch with PM Oli camp but had been unable to get through to the prime minister. She has had more than one meeting with Prachanda, the last one on Thursday last week.
On Sunday last, PM Oli had stunned his detractors within the party and China’s communist party when he dissolved Parliament amid a prolonged tussle for power between him and former prime minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ within the ruling dispensation.
PM Oli, who also got President Bidhya Devi Bhandari to sign off on his cabinet’s recommendation to hold parliamentary elections on April 30 and May 10, later told the country in a televised address that his rivals within the party hadn’t been letting him function and had planned to move a vote of no-confidence against him.
Also Read: Chinese ambassador steps up as Nepal’s communist party stares at a split
Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ and PM Oli have been co-chairs of the Nepal Communist Party formed in 2018 by the merger of PM Oli’s Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist–Leninist) and Prachanda’s Communist Party of Nepal- Maoist Centre.
India has adopted a hands-off approach to the developments in the neighbourhood, saying it was an internal matter that should be handled in keeping with the country’s democratic processes.
“As a neighbour and well-wisher, India will continue to support Nepal and its people in moving forward on the path of peace, prosperity and development,” India’s external affairs ministry spokesperson Anurag Srivastava told a news conference on Thursday.
China, however, has been determined to prevent a split in the ruling communist party and has intervened more than once this year to engineer a patch-up between PM Oli and Prachanda, his lead rival in the ruling Nepal Communist Party.
Also Read: Nepal PM Oli seeks control of communist party, rivals ‘sack’ him as party boss
Diplomats in Kathmandu who have been tracking the political developments said the Chinese team is expected to focus on leaders in both the factions who are in favour of the NCP staying united irrespective of the changes that might be required to achieve this objective.
-
Texas clinics halt abortions after state high court ruling
The Friday night ruling stopped a three-day-old order by a Houston judge who said clinics could resume abortions up to six weeks into pregnancy. The following day, the American Civil Liberties Union said it doubted that any abortions were now being provided in a state of nearly 30 million people.
-
Google to delete user location history on US abortion clinic visits
"If our systems identify that someone has visited one of these places, we will delete these entries from Location History soon after they visit," Jen Fitzpatrick, a senior vice president at Google, wrote in a blog post. "This change will take effect in the coming weeks."
-
Two Indo-Canadian academics honoured with Order of Canada
Two Indo-Canadian academics, working on research to advance the betterment of mankind, have been honoured with one of the country's most prestigious awards, the Order of Canada. Their names were in the list published by the office of the governor-general of Canada Mary Simon. Both have been invested (as the bestowal of the awards is described) into the Order as a Member. They are professors Ajay Agrawal and Parminder Raina.
-
Elon Musk's Twitter hiatus, in 2nd week now, generates curiosity
The world's richest person, Elon Musk, has not tweeted in about 10 days and it can't go unnoticed. The 51-year-old business tycoon has 100 million followers on the microblogging site, which he is planning to buy. Since April, he has been making headlines for the $44 billion deal and his comments and concerns about the presence of a large number of fake accounts on Twitter.
-
Taliban's reclusive supreme leader attends gathering in Kabul: Report
The Taliban's reclusive supreme leader Haibatullah Akhundzada joined a large gathering of nationwide religious leaders in Kabul on Friday, the state news agency said, adding he would give a speech. The Taliban's state-run Bakhtar News Agency confirmed the reclusive leader, who is based in the southern city of Kandahar, was attending the meeting of more than 3,000 male participants from around the country, aimed at discussing issues of national unity.