Published by: World Tibet Network News Thursday, November 13, 1997

TIN News Update / 13 November, 1997

- Nepal Incursion by Tibet Police -

One of Nepal's leading newspapers has called on the Kathmandu government to make a public protest to Beijing after armed Chinese police crossed from Tibet into Nepalese territory last month.

The incident came only days before a visit to Nepal by a leading Chinese official, Chen Muha, a vice-chair of China's National People's Congress. The Chinese side issued a statement on the visit which noted that Nepal's Prime Minister, Surya Bahadur Thapa, had said that Nepal and China "are friendly neighbours with no contradictions or problems existing between them", according to a Xinhua report on Tuesday 11th November.

The incursion into Nepal occurred on 19th October when armed police from the Tibetan border town of Dram (known as Zhangmu in Chinese) crossed the Nepal-Tibet border by the Friendship Bridge at Kodari and raided and searched a house in Tatopani, 5 km south of the frontier.

The police were searching for a Nepalese businessman, Bhakata Bahadur Shreshta, in order to enforce an debt that Shrestha had failed to pay to a trader in Dram.

Sources in Nepal claim that the police "manhandled" Shrestha's wife when they could not find the trader, and tried to arrest her in his place until they were prevented by locals, according to the Kathmandu Post. The next day the police, probably members of China's People's Armed Police, returned to Shrestha's house in Tatopani and demanded the money from him at gunpoint.

Shrestha, who is said to have owed 146,000 Nepalese rupees (c. US $2,600) to the businessman, claims that the previous day he had been in Dram where he had been tied up by a group of Chinese traders and held for several hours before he was able to escape back to Nepal, a few hours before the first police raid on his home.

The issue was resolved on 24th October after several rounds of talks between local Nepalese and Chinese officials, and the Nepali trader was obliged to hand over the money.

A lengthy editorial in the Kathmandu Post on 30th October said that the incident could not be justified "under any circumstances" and said it violated "all norms of international behaviour", while local politicians in the border area described it as "open aggression".

A Home Ministry official told the SCMP that there had been no unauthorised entry by Chinese security officials. The bilateral agreement between China and Nepal allows citizens and officials from either country to enter each other's territory up to 35 kilometres from the border, according to Kulchandra Shrestha, the Director General of the Immigration Department in Kathmandu.

There are a number of reports of disputes in Dram leading to the confiscation of Nepalese vehicles by police there and Local officials in Tatopani said the incursion was not unique. Such incidents "area a very common phenomenon here", said Amrit Kumar Khadka, chairman of the Village Development Committee in Tatopani. Dram officials could not be reached for comment.

- Chinese Trip Reaffirms Ties and Trade Links -

The visit of Chen Muhua to Nepal was presented by the Chinese authorities as a re-affirmation of Nepal's continued support for China on the Tibetan issue.

The Nepali Prime Minister Surya Bahadur Thapa told Ms. Chen that his country views Tibet as an autonomous region of China, and that it is "strongly opposed" to its territory being used for "unfriendly activities for splitting Tibet from China", according to a Xinhua report on 11th November.

Ms Chen's visit follows an exchange of visits between Chinese President Jiang Zemin and King Birendra of Nepal over the last 12 months.

Tibet's economic links with Nepal remain important while Indian relations with the Chinese continue to be sluggish. Ninety per cent of Tibet's foreign trade is made up of exports to Nepal and border trade with Tibet has risen by an average of 14% per year in the past five years.

Tibet exports light industrial, electrical and mechanical products to Nepal, as well as textiles, agricultural produce and livestock, according to a report by the semi-official Chinese news agency Zhongguo Xinwen She on 9th September.

Nepal is involved in 28 joint ventures and cooperative projects in Tibet, with a total investment of over 103 million yuan ($12.5 million), but has a large trade deficit with China: Nepalese exports to China were worth only US $4.7 million in 1995, while imports worked out at around US $57 million. During his November 1996 visit to Kathmandu, President Jiang Zemin urged his hosts to produce more marketable goods for export to Tibet as a means of trimming Nepal's trade deficit with China. In 1995 only about 37% of Nepal's trade with China involved the Tibet Autonomous Region.

66 Tibetan and Nepalese businesses took part in the Tibet-Nepal Trade Fair, held in Lhasa in September. The fair, which featured "100 products in 30 categories", was aimed at the expansion of border trade in the region, according to Xinhua on 15th September. The fair focused on attracting bilateral cooperation on projects such as the breeding and processing of edible fungi, and the production of cashmere wool, garments and nutrients.

Nepal is hugely vulnerable to Indian competition for trade with Tibet, but Beijing and New Delhi have still not settled a dispute over the trading post at Yadong, near Gangtok in Sikkim, India's point of access to Lhasa. The Sikkim-Yadong route would allow transit of goods between the port of Calcutta and Tibet in three to six days, potentially revolutionising Tibetan commerce. When Yadong was closed as a result of the Sino-Indian war of 1962 the annual volume of two-way trade between India and Tibet was about 330 million yuan (US $36.7), according to a Xinhua report in August 1996.

The re-opening of Yadong is part of the China's current five year plan for Tibet, but it remains closed despite frequent announcements that it is due to open.