NATIONAL 1 (Spotlight Weekly)]

Security Concerns?

Amid growing rivalry in South Asia, China's defense minister makes his first visit to Nepal

By KESHAB POUDEL

Two years ago, a senior Chinese leader reminded a visiting Nepalese leader in Beijing that China's ties with Nepal were very important not just because the Himalayan kingdom is the communist giant's neighbour.

Former prime minister Li Peng told former Nepal's prime minister Sher Bahadur Deuba point blank that China did attach importance to relations with Nepal for "security reasons" as well.

Still one of the most powerful persons -- No. 2 in the leadership rung after President Jiang Zemin -- Li's remarks on relations with Nepal was the first by any senior Chinese leader since the Sino-Indian war nearly 40 years ago.

Acharya welcomes Haotian: Symbolic gesture

Those remarks were followed by yet another "first" in Sino-Nepalese relations last week. Gen. Chi Haotian became the first Chinese defense minister to visit Nepal.

Having initially embarked on a three-nation South East Asian nation tour, which took him to Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, Defense Minister Chi hastily put Nepal on his itinerary. The purpose and the details of his visit of the only South Asian nation, at such short notice are not yet clear, tight-lipped as the Chinese authorities are.

But there are some important indicators worth pondering. The visit of the Chinese defense minister to Nepal took place at a time when India started changing its policy on its eastern neighbour, Myanmar, to make compromises with the Myanmarese military regime in an obvious attempt to tame the growing Chinese influence there.

Instead of making a halt at Myanmar, at the end of the region's tour, Chi decided to take a long flight to another region, South Asia. And it was clearly not just a simple stop-over on his way back to Beijing. Chi spent a full four days in Nepal.

He met with the king and the senior government officials. Chi spent hours with the leaders of the "pro-Indian" Nepali Congress government, including the prime minister, the foreign minister and, of course, his Nepalese counterpart, Mahesh Acharya.

But he apparently made it a point to avoid the "anti-Indian" Nepalese communist leaders, including those from the main opposition party, United Marxist-Leninist. Chi's visit did also coincide with the crisis the "pro-Indian" Prime Minister Koirala is currently facing from the "anti-Indian" communist opposition. Interestingly, Koirala's crisis deepened soon after the government reached an agreement with China to build an alternative road linking Nepal with Tibet Autonomous Region of China. Equally interestingly, there are no reports yet about any Communist Party of Nepal welcoming that economically and strategically crucial agreement between Nepal and China.

No less important is the fact that Chi's hastily planned visit to Nepal took place barely days after a Chinese national was injured in a Maoist attack near the Chinese border in Sindhupalchok. The Chinese national is the first foreigner to have been wounded by the "anti-Indian" Nepalese Maoist rebels since they took up arms five years ago to set up a communist regime in Nepal.

The timing of the visit was important for other reasons as well. The first ever visit of Nepal by the defense minister of one of the world's Big-5 nuclear powers took place immediately after Chinese strongman Li Peng was greeted by regional rival, India, with the test of the long-range Agni missile that has the power to penetrate deep inside the communist republic.

Having changed into his military uniform upon arrival at the Tribhuvan International Airport -- coincidentally on Nepal's Army Day -- Chi made it a point to be seen in all official programs in uniform.

The only occasion he shed the military uniform was when he visited Lumbini. And it was no less meaningful, either. Even as the Nepalese disciples of the Mao Zedong continue their five-year-old campaign to capture power from the barrels of gun and establish a people's republic in Nepal, the powerful defense minister of the people's republic that the late Chinese leader established 50 years ago was busy offering prayers at the birthplace of the lord of peace and non-violence, Buddha.