How Beijing Just Flexed Its Diplomatic Muscle In Kathmandu – And Won

 

 

Kathmandu : Despite recent perceptions in China that the new youth-led government in Nepal might tilt towards the West and not China, the abrupt cancellation of an international meet on Tibetan studies proved otherwise.

That move illustrated that Kathmandu continues to remain responsive to Beijing’s sensitivities, especially when it comes to Tibetan issues, and that it doesn’t matter whether it’s cultural, religious, political or even academic matters.

Nepal shares its northern border, measuring some 1,450m, with the Tibetan Autonomous Region of China, and has been home to nearly 15,000 Tibetan refugees - who fled Tibet, alongside their spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, after the 1959 uprising.

 

That Kathmandu’s close ties with Beijing remain as intact became clear this week when Nepal’s Chief Secretary Govinda Bahadur Karkee requested the organiser of the Tibetan studies gathering, Kathmandu University (KU), to cancel the 17th International Association for Tibetan Studies (IATS) seminar, due to take place in Kathmandu from August 23 to 29.

It was expected to see a gathering of over 7,000 scholars of Tibetan and Buddhist studies from nearly 40 countries, including 159 from the United States and nearly 100 from China.

Karkee’s move followed last-minute Chinese concerns about the gathering, conveyed on July 21 to Nepal’s Foreign Secretary Amrit Bahadur Rai by Chinese Ambassador to Nepal Zhang Maoming.

 

China was particularly concerned about possible representation of delegates close to, or sympathetic to, the Tibetan exile administration based in Dharamsala, India, who, it feared, could have used the forum to criticise Beijing’s recent policies, including those currently being implemented in Tibet promoting national unity, reports said.

“We advised the organisers that it would be better not to hold the event,” a report in The Kathmandu Post quoted Chief Secretary Karkee as saying.

“It could be sensitive, several concerns might arise, and it could pose security risks. So we advised the organisers, in good faith, to cancel the event.”

 

The Post report noted that the sudden order to cancel the meet, which is said to have taken four years for the university to prepare, came despite clearance from Nepal’s Home Ministry and security officials who earlier said that the international conference would not throw up any security risks.

On October 13 2019, visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping famously warned that “anyone attempting to split China will end in crushed bodies and shattered bones”.

He issued such a statement during his meeting with then Nepali prime minister KP Sharma Oli, according to China’s state broadcaster CCTV, now renamed CGTN.