Soon after changing his governing alliance with the Nepali Congress, Prime Minister Pusha Kamal Dahal is sending Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs Narayan Kaji Shrestha to China.

Whenever the two major left parties, Dahal’s CPN (Maoist Centre) and the CPN-UML led by KP Sharma Oli, band together, rumours make rounds in Kathmandu of a possible China hand behind the works. The Chinese ambassador in Kathmandu meeting UML and Maoist leaders with a possible message from Beijing for communist unity in Nepal has often made headlines.

This week, political leaders openly traded charges against the plan to implement the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative in Nepal. The Congress, the largest party, has been projected to be against the BRI’s implementation as Beijing wants. Prakash Sharan Mahat, who was the finance minister until being replaced by Barsha Man Pun two weeks ago, has said publicly that his party’s concern is that Nepal cannot afford costly loans, not only from China but any other country or a development partner.

An agreement on the BRI implementation plan was said to be on Shrestha’s China visit agenda. However, a Cabinet minister said there was no such plan. There was no progress on advancing the flagship initiative of Chinese President Xi Jinping in Nepal in Prime Minister Dahal’s visit to China last year.

Deputy Prime Minister Shrestha embarks on a nine-day visit to the northern neighbour on Sunday. Apart from meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Monday, Shrestha will tour some Chinese cities, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. An official announcement of the visit will be made on Friday.

“It is a goodwill visit where we will discuss the state and status of our bilateral relations,” Shrestha told the Post without giving further details. His visit was approved by the Cabinet on Thursday.

This is a standing invitation from China, extended to former foreign minister NP Saud, a foreign ministry official said. Saud had to quit the government before he could visit China.

Officials knowledgeable of Chinese affairs say Beijing is unhappy with the sluggish progress on implementing the Belt and Road Initiative ever since Nepal signed up to it in 2017. Despite Beijing’s pressure to sign the BRI implementation plan, the Dahal government is likely to take more time as Nepal still has reservations over the text of the implementation plan, a minister told the Post. It was not discussed in Thursday’s Cabinet meeting. It is expected that the Chinese side will raise the issue during the meeting between Shrestha and Wang on Monday.

Ahead of his visit, Shrestha is meeting with various line ministries on Saturday to discuss the status of projects he will take up with his Chinese counterpart. There will be some new projects, a senior foreign ministry official said.

On Sunday evening, Shrestha and his team will leave for Beijing via Guangzhou. On Monday, he will reach Beijing. On Tuesday, there will be delegation-level talks during which Shrestha will tell Chinese officials about the priorities and preferences of the new government in Kathmandu and its global outlook, the foreign ministry official said.

The head of China Division at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Krishna Prasad Dhakal, Nepal’s Ambassador to China Bishnu Pukar Shrestha, Deputy Chief of Mission at the Nepali Embassy in Beijing Surendra Yadav, his personal assistant Suresh Kaji Shrestha and two officials from the foreign ministry are part of the delegation. On Tuesday, Shrestha will attend a function related to Nepal’s upcoming investment summit as its chief guest. On Wednesday, he will leave Beijing and reach Chongqing. On Thursday, he will leave Chongqing for Lhasa. In Tibet, Shrestha will go on a tour of Mansarovar. In October, during an event related to the Belt and Road Initiative, Shrestha had failed to visit the holy lake after he suffered a cardiac arrest and underwent treatment at a hospital in Beijing.

As a vice-chairman of the Maoist party, Shrestha is scheduled to meet the Communist Party of China regional secretaries of Sichuan, Chongqing and Lhasa.