(TibetanReview.net, Jun30’24) – China, while not rejecting the idea, has refused to agree to carry out a long stalled joint boundary inspection across Chinese occupied Tibet during its meeting with the Nepali side over Jun 19-20 in Beijing, which was held after a gap of 18 years. The two sides have agreed to hold another round of boundary talks in Kathmandu “very soon”, reported the kathmandupost.com Jun 30.
Besides the agreement to hold the next meeting in Kathmandu, there was no substantive progress in the meeting, Amrit Rai, Nepal’s foreign ministry spokesperson has said.
One participant said the Nepali side proposed an urgent start of the joint boundary inspection that had been stalled since 2006, but the Chinese side did not agree. They did not refuse the idea but wanted more time to prepare, the participant has said.
Although the next meeting is to be held “very soon” no date has been set.
“After the Kathmandu meeting, we might agree on commencing the joint inspection of the Nepal-China border,” another participant has said, adding that the possible schedule of such an inspection could be discussed at the meeting.
The last meeting of the Joint Expert Group was held in 2006 in Kathmandu. The mechanism mandates a joint inspection of the Nepal-China border, dispute resolution, and finalisation of the fourth protocol to be signed by the two sides. The third Nepal-China boundary protocol was signed in 1988, the report said.
The two countries were stated to be waiting for a joint boundary inspection to investigate issues and disputes across occupied Tibet border and to sign the Border Management System, whose initial agreement was signed during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit in 2019.
Nepal and China concluded their first boundary talks in 1961 and signed the Boundary Protocol in 1963.
The 1963 Joint Boundary Protocol provides for three different mechanisms to deal with boundary issues: the Joint Inspection Team, the Joint Expert Group, and the Joint Inspection Committee. The mechanisms were enshrined in the Nepal-China Boundary Protocol signed on January 20, 1963. Later, Nepal and China renewed the Boundary Protocol in 1979 and 1988.
The Nepali participants have said China’s position had remained largely unchanged: They want to tie up the boundary meeting, joint boundary inspection, and signing of the boundary protocol to the signing of the boundary management system, something on which the Nepali side has been dragging its feet.
The Nepali side wants to settle them one by one starting with the joint inspection. These matters are expected to be discussed in detail in the Kathmandu meeting, the report said.
Under the boundary protocol, Nepal and China should conduct a joint boundary inspection every 10 years and sign the updated protocol, but that has not happened. In addition to resolving disputes, both sides should update the boundary status every 10 years.
The report noted that despite Kathmandu’s claims that the Nepal-China border is largely free of dispute, there were reports of several boundary-related issues, such as encroachment, fencing and wiring, illegal construction, missing border pillars, lack of maintenance of boundary markers, and the Chinese side’s use of high-level digital surveillance on the border.
Nepali citizens across the country’s northern border are predominantly ethnically Tibetan.