ISAS Insights

Nepal’s new Prime Minister K P Oli made his first foreign visit to India from 6 to 8 April 2018 after his party, the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) [CPM(UML)], won a watershed national election in December 2017. This was closely followed by the visit of Nepal’s Foreign Minister Pradip Gyawali to China from 16 to 21 April 2018 and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Nepal from 11 to 12 May 2018. These visits are notable as they come amidst a growing consensus among analysts that Nepal would tilt towards China as a strategic partner after the ‘pro-Chinese’ CPM-UML’s victory, and, consequently, lead to a chill in Indo-Nepalese ties. This paper seeks to contextualise the visits against the larger picture of factors which underpin the India-China-Nepal triangular relationship.