In a cabinet reshuffle for the 18th time on Friday, June 4, Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli appointed a follower of the Dalai Lama as a minister, saying China must be divided.
It is understandable that a comfortable cabinet has been formed to please India in order to stay in power. At the behest of India, the conclusion of the Dalai Lama’s Free Tibet activists living in exile in a hospice in India in the Council of Ministers has jeopardized Nepal’s foreign policy.
Some time ago, two parliamentarians, Pradip Yadav and Iqbal Mia, attended a meeting of the International Network on Free Tibet in Latvia. The then speaker Krishna Bahadur Mahara had also conducted research in this regard. One of them has become Nepal’s minister since Friday. At the time, China and its embassies had raised the issue seriously, and had written to the Foreign Ministry. The foreign ministry had replied that Nepal was adhering to the one-China policy and prevented the situation from rising tension. But China has taken the issue seriously since the cabinet was formed, which raised doubt to China. Even though the open revolt of Free Tibet has been stopped in Nepal for some time, the followers of the Dalai Lama are said to be gaining strength at a rapid pace. Let this issue not make the Nepal-China relations cold.
Translated by Muna Chand, News from Gorakha Express Weekly.
