Nepali, Chinese officials to meet soon in Kathmandu for border negotiations

Senior Nepali and Chinese officials have agreed to hold a new round of border negotiations in Kathmandu “very soon”.

Nepalese and Chinese officials in charge of border issues met in Beijing on June 19-20, after a gap of 18 years, and discussed border issues.

Apart from the agreement to hold the next meeting in Kathmandu, no substantial progress was made at the meeting, said Amrit Rai, spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Prakash Joshi, director general of the Department of Topographical Survey, led the Nepali side, which included members of several line ministries, in the meeting.

A participant said the Nepalese side had proposed to urgently launch the joint border inspection, which has been stalled since 2006, but the Chinese side did not agree. They did not reject the idea but wanted more time to prepare, the participant said. The upcoming Kathmandu meeting may take a decision in this regard. According to foreign ministry officials, the meeting will be scheduled through diplomatic channels.

The last meeting of the Joint Expert Group was held in 2006 in Kathmandu. The mechanism provides for joint inspection of the Nepal-China border, settlement of disputes and finalization of the fourth protocol to be signed by the two sides. The third Nepal-China border protocol was signed in 1988.

The two countries are awaiting a joint border inspection to investigate the problems and disputes on the Nepal-China border and sign the border management system, the initial agreement of which was signed during the Chinese president’s visit Xi Jinping in 2019.

According to a joint secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Chinese side has sent a copy of the border management agreement, which is currently under review by the Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs. According to a senior official familiar with the matter, although the text of the border management system has not yet been released, it envisages the formation of two panels: a joint commission on Nepal-China border issues and a border representative committee headed by relevant authorities from both countries. Nepal has not yet ratified the border management system.

The good news is that the cycle has changed, Rai said. The next meeting in Kathmandu will focus on issues of mutual interest.

The deputy secretary said the meeting also discussed some pending issues, such as timing and format. of the inspection and whether it should resume or pick up where it left off in 2006.

“After the Kathmandu meeting, we may agree to start joint inspection of the Nepal-China border,” another participant said, adding that the possible timeline for such an inspection could be discussed at the meeting.

Earlier, Nepal and China were all set to sign the fourth border protocol, which would address, among others, issues such as the height of Mount Everest and the exact location of pillar number 57 in Dolakha district. But the government canceled the meeting at the last moment and delayed the plan to sign the delimitation protocol.

Nepal and China concluded their first border negotiations in 1961 and signed the Boundary Protocol in 1963.

The 1963 Boundary Protocol provides for three different mechanisms to address border issues: the Joint Inspection Team, the Joint Expert Group and the Joint Inspection Committee. These mechanisms were enshrined in the Boundary Delimitation Protocol between Nepal and China signed on January 20, 1963. Nepal and China subsequently renewed the Boundary Delimitation Protocol in 1979 and 1988.

While the joint expert group is headed by the chief surveyors of the two countries, the joint inspection committee is headed by the deputy director-general or undersecretary of the surveying department and one of their Chinese counterparts, in accordance with the practice and arrangements. The joint inspection committee is headed by a joint secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

One of the major border disputes was over the height of Mount Everest, which was resolved in 2020 when both sides jointly announced the new height as 8,848.86 meters. However, several other issues remain unresolved.

The Chinese position was more or less the same, participants said. They want to link the border meeting, joint border inspection and signing of the border protocol with the signing of the border management system, on which the Nepali side is dragging its feet. The Nepalese side wants to resolve them one by one, starting with the joint inspection. These issues are expected to be discussed in detail at the Kathmandu meeting.

According to the border protocol, Nepal and China must conduct a joint inspection of the border every ten years and sign the updated protocol, but this has not been done. In addition to resolving disputes, both sides must update the status of the border every ten years.

The Nepalese side, during the official visit of Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who is also the State Councilor of China, in March 2022, had proposed to form a mechanism to carry out joint inspection of the border and to update the latest status. The border between Nepal and China is 1,439 kilometers long.

Despite the Nepalese government’s claims that the Nepal-China border is largely dispute-free, several border-related issues have been reported, such as encroachment, fencing and cabling, illegal construction, absence of border pillars, lack of maintenance of border pillars, and the Chinese side’s use of high-level digital surveillance at the border. Nepalese security agencies deployed at the border have reported these issues to the Ministry of Home Affairs.