Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal "Prachanda" has returned from his two-week- long twin trips to the United States and China. In China, he visited different places seeing reputed institutions in order to decide what can be done in Nepal to step up developmental activities in view of the Everest height attained by China in a very short span of time. After all, China was facing astronomical problems, especially due to its largest population, in the seventies.

China's development trajectory took an upward turn after they embarked on the four modernisation drive in agriculture, defense, education and science and technology. People in the country have now begun to assess the achievements of the Prime Minister's visit.

The Prime Minister signed 12 agreements in total. They range from building electrical transmission lines between Nepal and China to facilitate the export of hydropower from Nepal to support in science, technology and innovation.

But some of these have been carryover of what were already agreed during the visit of President Xi Jinping to Nepal in 2019. This exposes Nepal's inability to implement the agreed projects with neighbouring countries be it with China or India or for that matter any other country.

The Prime Minister had been criticised for his jumbo size official team accompanying him, for which he had to trim down the number of team members.

This was the first stumble in the very first step to his trip to the United States followed by the one to China.

Now he has been lambasted for his unusually long tour, indicating as if he has nothing to do in the country.

Prime ministers generally pay a three-day goodwill visit, and here Prachanda is cruising for almost a week as if he is on a personal vacation.

Prachanda has already been slammed for his sweet nothing addresses that he made during his visit to the United States. He has been deprecated for making conventional speeches with barely any originality when small countries in the past have made a mark in the international arena.

This is against the stark contrast of Nepal's illustrious roles in the nonaligned movement, Band-ung conference and Socialist International. The performance of the post-democracy and republican leaders has left much to be desired in this connection.

The spotlight was, however, on the disregard shown to the pointed spur map of Nepal by China while publishing its map recently. It had also retained parts of Ladakh and that of Arunachal Pradeshwhich India has claimed to be its territory. India lodged a protest, and China instructed India to keep calm.

The relations slumped so miserably that the Chinese President did not take part in the G20 conference held in India with India chairing the summit. The joint communique of Prachanda's visit talks about the peaceful solution of the boundary problem but is silent on this mounting issue of accommodating the pointedspur map of Nepal.

Nepal finds itself in a very precarious situation. On one hand, India has refrained from making any comment on the pointed spur map proposed by Nepal.

During the visit of Prachanda to India, the joint communique made the usual cliché of solving the border problems amicably but did not enter into the pointed spur map at all.Similarly, China has not addressed this problem in the recently published map of Nepal. In fact, both the neighbouring countries had entered into an agreement without paying attention to this problem of Nepal.

Though the Chinese side had assured Nepal after its complaint that it would raise this issue with India on the production of an evidence by Nepal, it has now put this issue in the back burner.Before the visit to the United States and China, the honourable Prime Minister Prachanda had given assurances that the issue of the pointed spur map would figure in the talks with China. But now it appears that the issue was not raised at all. Or it may have been raised, but it is conspicuous by its absence in the joint communique that the Chinese did not want to address this problem as has India.

It has now become clear that no headway was made in connection with the Belt and Road projects. Nor was Nepal keen on energy trade even though the construction of a transmission line has figured in the joint communique. Perhaps, the Prime Minister did not want to annoy India with whom an agreement to export 10,000 MW of power has already been signed.

Small countries sandwiched between two large countries always face such problems. The glaring examples are Bhutan and Mongolia. Bhutan does not face such a problem to the extent that Nepal does as it is looked after by India, which is a net security provider.

So when China had a stand-off in Doklam, which is Bhutanese territory, India came to the rescue. Mongolia also experienced inconvenience when China closed its border just like the Nepali border blockade presumed to be inspired by India.

The only option for Nepal is to build a people-to-people relationship that can moderate the political stand. It already has such a relationship existing with India. The common bond is the Hindu culture and even religion. A similar relationship it has to build with China. It can be done by inviting Chinese people as tourists and waving the Buddhist flag of peace and compassion.

For this, Nepal has to perform diplomacy of the highest order. Diplomacy is considered to be as strong as its diplomats. But they are not as strong due to the higher level of politicisation in their appointment. Nepal should ensure the promotion of career diplomats instead of political ones in this regard.

It is thus clear that Prachanda's visit to China has not yielded the expected results.

It has not fulfilled the pledges that the Prime Minister had made before his departure. It can thus be rated as an average one at the best.

A version of this article appears in the print on October 3, 2023, of The Himalayan Times