Chinese air activity goes down, limited troop pullback effected

NEWDELHI: Indian and Chinese air force fighters remained on the ground, with negligible air activity noticed over the past two days, even as disengagement of troops picked up at two out of four points in the eastern Ladakh sector, officials watching the situation said on Wednesday. The PLA Air Force fighter activity has come down considerably since military commander talks on June 6.

Fighter air activity was nil on Tuesday while there was some air movement in Aksai Chin region on Wednesday, the officials said, adding that there was significant reduction of Chinese vehicles at patrolling point 14 at Galwan Nullah and a decrease in PLA troops at the contentious finger 4 in the Pangong Tso sector.

The PLA has already moved out 15 high-speed interceptor boats from the finger 4 area of the high-altitude lake.

According to officials, reduction of air activity and withdrawal from the two points in Ladakh mean that disengagement will pick up in the coming days.

NEWDELHI: As Nepal’s parliament took the first step on Tuesday to formalise the country’s new political map that has set up a row with India, foreign minister Pradeep Gyawali made another request to New Delhi for a dialogue. Gyawali told news agency AP that Kathmandu wanted to sit across the table with India for formal negotiations so that the two countries “with a very unique type of partnership” could develop a more inspiring relationship.

New Delhi hasn’t responded to requests for foreign secretary-level talks made after Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli’s cabinet hurriedly passed a new political map that counts Indian territories of Lipulekhand Limpiyadhura as Nepal’ s. Senior government officials told Hindustan Times that Kathmandu shouldn’t expect any dialogue on the three Indian territories either.

“Once Nepal drew the red lines on the map to serve its domestic and foreign interests, there was nothing to talk about,” said a top official. In Kathmandu and New Delhi, PM Oli, who came to power on a nationalistic agenda, has been widely perceived to have rushed through the new political map to whip up an ultra-nationalistic sentiment to consolidate support within the ruling Communist Party of Nepal. That sentiment, quite similar to his election rhetoric, targets New Delhi.

Domestic politics apart, the map also helps O li score pointsNepal’ s other giant neighbour. It hasn’t gone unnoticed in New Delhi that O li timed themap around the same time India and China were engaged ina stand off in the Lad akh sector. Nepal, and O li, have a track record of trying to steer the India-China rivalry to their advantage. But increasingly, analysts in Kathmandu concede that China’ s influence over the government is rising rapidly.

In some ways, one analyst in Kathmandu said, China, which poured millions of dollars into Nepal, has gradually encircled the Himalayan nation. Chinese investments in Nepal started to surge from 2008 onwardsswitched from a monarchy to are public in 2008.

By 2014, China out ranked India in terms of total investment. In 2015-16, China contributed 42% of the total F DI into Nepal. According to the latest available data, China has again surpassed India as the top investor in Nepal in the first quarter of 2019-20 with a total pledge of $88 million F DI representing 93% of the total committed F DI of $95 million. Britain came next with $1.85 million followed by India’s $1.76 million.

Nepal is also getting a second Chinese cement plant being setup with a $140 million investment; the first was Hongshi Cement. This increase is also seen in Chinese overseas development assistance where Chinese aid over took India’ s in 2015, growing steadily from $19 million in 2010-11 to $38 million in 2014-15 as compared to India’s $22 million.

Nepal has also been nudging Beijing to build projects worth an estimated $3 billion via a grant, not the soft loan that China has agreed to. If Nepal does eventually sign off on the soft loan, it would dwarf other Chinese loans including the ones extended to build the Pokhara international airport and the Trishuli 3A hydropower project.

Chinese influence was on display earlier this year too when its mission in Kathmandu rebuked Nepal’s media on February 19 and accused The Kathmandu Post editor of “ulterior motives” because the newspaper had published an article critical of China’s handling of the coronavirus virus. The public reprimand, ironically, coincided with the Democracy Day of Nepal. But there were no protests from the Oli government, seen to pursue a “nationalist” agenda.