Leading a four-member delegation, Guo Yezhou, vice-minister of the International Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC), arrived in Kathmandu on Sunday to assess the ground situation after the dissolution of the House of Representatives by Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli.

Guo was received by Chinese Ambassador to Nepal Hou Yanqui at Tribhuvan International Airport.

No one from Nepali side was present to welcome the Chinese delegation that came in a scheduled Air China flight from Beijing, sources at the airport said.

“Even we could not even recognise them because they were wearing personal protective equipment,” said the source.

As soon as they landed at the airport, the Chinese delegation did not speak to anyone or spent any time at the airport, sources said.

The visit comes at a time when the ruling Nepal Communist Party has split vertically and Beijing is concerned over political stability in Nepal and the unity of the ruling party, according to party leaders.

Earlier Gou had visited Kathmandu on February 2018 when the two communist parties — CPN-UML and Nepal Communist Party (Maoist Centre)—were all set to merge and form a unified communist party following victory of their alliance in the 2017 general elections.

Later in May, the two communist parties merged and formed a new party named Nepal Communist Party.

With the ruling party split, Gou will assess the situation inside it and will encourage Nepal Communist Party leaders to seek some kind of common ground for party unity, leaders said.

He will communicate the message of Chinese leadership, including that of President Xi Jinping’s, to the party leadership, a Nepal Communist Party leader aware of the communication with the Chinese side said.

“Besides this, the Chinese side has not communicated to us anything about the visit,” the leader told the Post on condition of anonymity.

As Gou personally knows all senior Nepal Communist Party leaders, Beijing has carefully chosen and sent him at a time when unity inside our party is shaken, a Standing Committee member said.

Before the party merger and ahead of the provincial and federal polls in 2017, the two communist parties had reached a seven-point deal and fought the elections forming an alliance.

Gou knows the inside story of the party unity so Beijing sent him to remind the leaders what had transpired between him and ruling party leaders, the ruling party leader said.

During that visit in 2018, Gou had also met with Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba. But this time, according to Deuba’s personal secretariat it has not received any request for a meeting with Deuba.

The Chinese Embassy has sought time with President Bidya Devi Bhandari, Prime Minister Oli, Nepal Communist Party chairs Pushpa Kamal Dahal and Madhav Kumar Nepal, Foreign Minister Pradeep Gyawali and Home Minister Ram Bahadur Thapa among others, according to party leaders and security agency sources.

No meetings were scheduled for Sunday.