Kathmandu, 21 Aug: Recently, the agreement between two neighboring countries, India and China, to make Lipulek a common trading center has created a stir in Nepal.
Lipulek is an area that both Nepal and India claim as their own. Nepal has included Lipulek in its map, while India has also released a map including this territory.
Nepal has already expressed its disagreement with the agreement to make Lipulek a trading hub, and India has also made its official position public. However, China has not said anything about the latest dispute.
Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli is leaving for China on 30 August to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is also arriving in China at the same time. Diplomatic experts believe that the three sides can resolve the issue by sitting down during the visit.
A Foreign Ministry source says that it is almost certain that Nepali Prime Minister Oli, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and Indian Prime Minister Modi will meet during their visit to China.
Chinese President Xi will host a dinner in honor of the conference guests, during which the three sides are likely to discuss the Lipulek dispute.
Recently, the relationship between China and India seems to have improved. There are continuous high-level visits between the two countries. But there has been no significant improvement in the relationship between Nepal and India. After a long effort, Prime Minister Oli’s visit to India has been scheduled. When it was decided to visit India at the end of Bhadra, a border dispute arose.
He says that since the border dispute in the Lipulek region is very old, efforts should be made to resolve it through diplomatic means. Only then will it be appropriate to talk at the Prime Ministerial level, says Karna. ‘There is bitterness between the three countries regarding Lipulek, this is not the platform to talk about that issue,’ he says. He suggests that Nepal should have diplomatic dialogue not only with India but also with China regarding Lipulek. Because this dispute originated from there.
In 2015, during his visit to China, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had agreed with China to make Lipulek a center for trade and pilgrimage between the two countries. Now, with the Lipulek dispute ongoing, Prime Minister Modi is visiting China again. Before his visit to China, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited India and signed 12 agreements. One of them is the Lipulek Border Trade Agreement.
When Modi reached an agreement with China on Lipulek in 2014, Nepal immediately reacted. The then Prime Minister Sushil Koirala immediately sent a ‘protest note’ to both the Indian and Chinese ambassadors in Nepal, expressing his objection to the agreement.
At that time, India included Lipulek and Kalapani in its new map released in October 2019, citing Nepal’s disagreement. Oli was the Prime Minister at that time. The government had sent a diplomatic note at that time as well.
But instead of correcting its map, India inaugurated the construction of a road from Gunji in Darchula’s Byas Rural Municipality-1 to Lipulek in 2020. Nepal then revised its map to include Lipulek, Kalapani, and Limpiyadhura and passed it with an absolute majority in parliament. The Nepal government released the map in June 2020.
India did not accept that map. China also did not recognize it. China had included the old map of Nepal in the ‘Standard Map of 2023’ issued by China in 2023 August. China has not yet recognized Nepal’s new map. Now India and China have reached a collective trade agreement on Lipulek.
Foreign affairs expert Arun Subedi also says that Nepal should talk to China through diplomatic channels. But he believes that it would not be appropriate to raise the issue at the Shanghai Conference.
“It is not appropriate for a person like the Prime Minister to raise issues like the border dispute after attending a conference. Other channels should be used for that,” he said. “There is a Nepalese embassy in China, we should talk through that. There is also a Chinese embassy in Nepal, we should call the ambassador there and talk.”
He says that raising such sensitive issues in sideline talks when the Prime Minister himself is at a conference does not send a good message to the world.
