By Dr. Upendra Gautam

As 2025 draws to a close, Nepal looks back with solemnity on this year, which marks the 70th anniversary of its time-honored diplomatic relations with China—a significant milestone that heralds a more trustworthy and interdependent future for this enduring partnership.

The people of Nepal, situated between two neighbors—China, with a socialist system with Chinese characteristics, and India, with a Western parliamentary system—have long yearned for accelerated reform, stable development, and a governance system that is fair and inclusive. For decades, Nepal’s parliamentary system has promised democracy, accountability, and service to the people. Yet Nepali citizens feel frustrated by changes that have led to dead-end, oligarchical patterns of feudal rule, unenforced accountability, and low outcomes in key areas of employment, infrastructure, industrial development, and public service delivery.

China, under President Xi Jinping, has offered an indigenous example of governance (Xi Jinping, The Governance of China, Vol. I, 2014). He has emphasized governance that centers on the “rule of law,” “people-first” development, strict Party discipline, and a sustained anti-corruption campaign (Xi Jinping, The Governance of China, Vol. II, 2017). In moving toward realizing the Second Centenary Goal of the PRC, the “Four Comprehensives”—building a moderately prosperous society, deepening reform, governing according to law, and strictly governing the Party—have become guiding principles of modern Chinese governance (“Four Comprehensives: Strategy Blueprint for China’s Development,” Xinhua, March 2015). Xi has declared that corruption is among the biggest threats to the ruling party and to national rejuvenation (Xi Jinping’s Address at the 19th CPC National Congress, Beijing, October 2017). Under his leadership, China has pursued institutional reforms such as a national supervision system, improved inspection mechanisms, stricter discipline over officials, and a renewed focus on people’s livelihoods (Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, Annual Report on Anti-Corruption Progress 2023, Beijing).

At the beginning of the year, President Xi and Nepal’s leaders exchanged congratulatory messages highlighting mutual respect, sovereign equality, and cooperation in trade, tourism, infrastructure, and people-to-people exchanges (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, China, Commemorative Statement on 70 Years of Sino-Nepal Diplomatic Relations, Beijing, 2025). Kathmandu hosted exhibitions and cultural events reflecting seven decades of shared friendship. Both sides reaffirmed that their relationship rests on the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence (Embassy of Nepal, Beijing, Press Release on the 70th Anniversary Celebrations, September 2025). Nepal firmly restated its commitment to the “One China Principle” and its resolve not to allow its soil to be used for any inimical activities against China (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Nepal, Nepal-China Relations, 17 March 2025 Update, Kathmandu).

Meanwhile, Nepal faced growing pressure from the shifting global environment—a new geopolitical “cold war” in South Asia. International media, social media, and NGOs are being used to shape narratives and influence domestic debates. Nepal’s young citizens, globally connected through technology, have become acutely aware of corruption, inequality, and political privilege. They demand visible change and fair opportunity.

In September 2025, this simmering frustration exploded. On 8 September, a mass of youth—many from the “Gen Z” generation—filled Kathmandu’s streets. They protested corruption, power capture by a few, and rising inequality (Upendra Gautam, “Gen-Z Unrest: The Protocol of a Courteous Watcher,” The People’s Review Weekly, October 8, 2025). The government’s social media restrictions acted as immediate triggers. The protests the next day turned violent, indicating networked planning and coordination. The use of sophisticated arms, chemicals, and trained intruders was reported. Several government buildings and political offices were attacked. Police used tear gas, water cannons, and live ammunition to disperse crowds. Dozens were killed, and many were injured. The next day, the prime minister resigned, and parliament was dissolved. Calm returned only after the imposition of curfews in major cities.

The September 8, 2025 protest in Nepal symbolizes the rupture between two sides of governance. On one hand, the people expected stability, development, and reform. On the other, the system continued to deliver dead-end changes and failed to meet the acceleration and fairness expectations of an e-media-connected generation exposed to the world. The upheavals in Nepal squarely reveal the internationally weakened architecture of development and security in Trans-Himalayan South Asia. Partisan politics in the region have for too long politicized governance stability at the cost of people’s security and development.

Why has Nepal’s long-drawn-out political party–based parliamentary leadership—where a sizeable segment professes socialist values—been unable to learn from Deng Xiaoping’s pragmatic modernization and Xi’s people-centered governance model? China’s model is built around a holistic approach to democracy, a rich history and civilizational values, an ever-harnessed capacity for self-learning and self-reform, disciplined leadership, and a vision focused on delivering results and people’s welfare. Nepal’s parliamentary parties theoretically operate in a more plural and cut-throat competitive space, but whenever they get an opportunity to share or control executive power, they can travel any distance to align with one another. Where people find their access to justice and fair reform incentives weaker, short-term power politics often find the vacuum to dominate. The absence of consistent, long-term, and honest institutional reform, the lack of enforced accountability, and the fragile linkage between governance and citizen well-being have prevented China’s pro-people lessons from permeating Nepali governance practices.

Has the Trump Administration’s Indo-Pacific Strategy (IPS) played an added instability-inducing, low-governance, fragmentary role in Nepal because of its adherence to the One China Principle and the Belt and Road Initiative? Henry Kissinger, an authority on American strategy, realistically assesses approaches such as the IPS. He argues that the IPS may overemphasize U.S. containment of China, risk forming bloc confrontations, and underestimate the structural rise of other powers (Japan, India, Indonesia). For him, “The balance of power … is the classic expression of the lesson of history that no order is safe without physical safeguards against aggression” (Henry Kissinger, quoted in Campbell, Kurt M., and Doshi, Rush, “How America Can Shore Up Asian Order: A Strategy for Restoring Balance and Legitimacy,” Foreign Affairs, January 2021). He consistently emphasized legitimacy as a requirement for any international order. The IPS way of framing ties in “Trans-Himalayan South Asia” (India’s rise, Pakistan’s choices, Himalayan states’ neutrality) may appear like putting the cart before the horse.

Nepal does not seek to replicate China’s model; it seeks to replenish its own native capacities and potential by learning from China’s methods of planning, execution, and institutional follow-up. The goal is not substitution but reinvigoration of governance in priority areas—quality transport and energy connectivity, agriculture, water, forestry, and industries—through lessons of disciplined governance, anti-corruption vigilance, and effective delivery systems. To realize this, China and Nepal must go beyond visit-based diplomacy and establish systematic follow-up mechanisms to internalize the outcomes of bilateral decisions. Regular joint monitoring, technical cooperation, and project- and local-level audits can help ensure that learning from China permeates into visible improvements in Nepal’s rural livelihoods, industrial productivity, and intergenerational employment opportunities. Through such grounded and sustained quality engagement, both sides can transform friendship into a practically relevant geo-strategic development partnership.

The 70th year of Nepal-China diplomatic relations offers a promising opportunity for Nepal to sincerely revisit China and self-learn from a neighbor that has been on its path toward regaining superpower status. The youth uprising in September 2025 demonstrates the depth of expectations for reform, development, and stability with fairness. For Nepal’s parliamentary leadership, the challenge is clear: reforge the link between political parties and the people’s democratic aspirations; build institutions that deliver; anchor accountability; define the “Strategic Partnership of Cooperation” with China as a platform for self-learning in good governance and development practices while adapting them to Nepali realities; and, above all, treat China as a strategic replenisher of Nepal’s native capacity (Upendra Gautam, “With China, Nepal Loses Nothing but Chains,” The Rising Nepal, January 19, 2017).

The success of future cooperation depends not only on official visits and decisions but equally on how they are taken care of at the operational level and modernized accordingly. They need to be faithfully internalized, followed up, and localized in Nepal’s development governance practices. Regularized—not on-and-off—events and exchanges, communication, joint work, and research among governing units, people-to-people indigenous community organizations across the country, and think tanks may become priority areas of cooperation on a grand platform of knowledge and experience sharing in the framework of public cultural diplomacy. So far, autonomous students, farmers, forest users, and labor communities—who form the basis of national entrepreneurship—remain outside the public cultural diplomacy loop. If ties can move in this direction, the promise of stability, development, and reform will gain a solid foundation and become more than a hope—turning into a correlated lived reality.

Learning about good governance from China is practical and implementable if Nepal’s parliamentary leaders are sincere enough to internalize the following words of President Xi: “We must … humbly learn from the people, listen to their voices, and draw on their wisdom. We must ensure that the basic criterion of our work is whether we have the people’s support, acceptance, satisfaction, and approval” (Xi Jinping, “Always Put the People First,” February 11, 2022).

Indeed, at the foundation of our ties are the people. King Prithvi Narayan Shah once said, “If the people are healthy, the state is strong.” To ensure such a condition, he instructed: “Do not let the courtiers become paupers, nor the paupers become courtiers.”

These ideas have met across centuries. Across systems. Across the Himalaya.

The writer is the Secretary General of the China Study Center Nepal.

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