Chinese Premier Li congratulates Nepal PM Deuba

By Shirish B Pradhan
    Kathmandu, Jul 28 (PTI) Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Wednesday congratulated Sher Bahadur Deuba on becoming Nepal’s premier for the record fifth time and expressed his willingness to work together to take the strategic bilateral ties to new heights.
     Deuba, 75, was appointed as the prime minister of Nepal for a record fifth time on July 12 following the Supreme Court's intervention. He secured 165 votes in the 275-member House.
     “On July 28, 2021, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang sent a congratulatory message to Rt Hon. PM @SherBDeuba. Li Keqiang said that he would like to work together with his counterpart to push forward the strategic partnership between the two countries to a new height!” tweeted Chinese ambassador to Nepal Hou Yanqi.
     In the message, Li said China and Nepal are “friendly neighbours” linked by mountains and rivers and standing closely together like “passengers in the same boat,” according to the Chinese state-run Xinhua news agency.
     “Li said that he would like to work with Deuba to overcome the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, promote high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, expand and deepen mutually beneficial cooperation in various fields, and continuously lift the two countries' strategic partnership of cooperation, featuring everlasting friendship for development and prosperity, to higher levels,” the report said.
     Deuba thanked Li for his congratulatory message.
     “I look forward to working closely with you to further strengthening our bilateral relations,” Deuba tweeted, adding: “We will continue our cooperation in COVID - 19 response and recovery.”
     China's political profile in Nepal has been on the rise in recent years with billions of dollars of investments under Beijing's multi-billion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), including the building of the Trans-Himalayan Multi-Dimensional Connectivity Network.
     In August last year, Chinese President Xi Jinping said that he attached great importance to the development of China-Nepal relations and was willing to work with his Nepali counterpart Bhandari to push for the continued advancement of the bilateral relationship.
     During his two-day state visit - the first by a Chinese leader in 23 years- in October 2019, President Xi said China will provide Nepalese Rs 56 billion assistance to Kathmandu over the next two years to help Nepal's development programmes and transform the landlocked nation into a land-linked country.
     During his brief tenure in 2016, former Nepal prime minister K P Sharma Oli widened China-Nepal ties by signing the transit trade treaty with China to reduce the dependence of his landlocked country on India at the height of the Madhesi agitation. He had sought expansion of road links through Tibet, besides extension of China's railway to Nepal through the Himalayas. PTI SBP MRJ AKJ MRJ

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)