Nepali President Bidya Devi Bhandari Meets with Wang Yi

On March 27, 2022 local time, Nepali President Bidya Devi Bhandari met with visiting State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi at the Presidential Palace in Kathmandu.

Bhandari asked Wang Yi to convey her sincere greetings to President Xi Jinping, saying that President Xi Jinping's historic visit to Nepal in 2019 remains fresh in her memory. She said, the friendship between Nepal and China dates back to ancient times, and we are the best neighbors and friends. Nepal is sincerely glad for China's achievements, from which Nepal has also benefited a lot. Nepal will always stay committed to developing amicable relations with China and continue to unswervingly adhere to the one-China principle. She thanked China for its selfless help for Nepal's economic and social development, especially for the rescue and reconstruction in the aftermath of the earthquake and for the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. Whenever Nepal encounters difficulties, China always lends a helping hand in time. Nepal is ready to work with China to fully implement the outcomes of President Xi Jinping's visit to Nepal, advance Belt and Road cooperation, and turn the mountains and rivers between the two countries into passageways connecting each other instead of obstacles blocking the two sides.

Wang Yi first conveyed President Xi Jinping's cordial greetings and best wishes. Wang Yi said, China and Nepal are good relatives, good friends and good partners, with the friendship dating back to more than a thousand years ago. The two sides have always supported and helped each other, setting a good example of treating each other as equals, mutual respect and win-win cooperation between large and small countries. After the earthquake in Nepal in 2015, the Chinese rescue team immediately headed to Nepal. During my visit to Nepal to attend the international conference on Nepal's reconstruction, I made a special trip to visit and express sympathies to the disaster-affected people in Nepal who were settled in tents aided by China. I told the Nepali children that beyond the mountain is brotherly China, and we will do our best to help you rebuild your home as soon as possible. China cherishes the traditional friendship between China and Nepal, and will continue to firmly support Nepal in safeguarding independence, sovereignty and national dignity, exploring a development path suited to its own interests, and pursuing independent domestic and foreign policies. China is ready to work with Nepal to deepen amicable relations, and continue to firmly support each other in safeguarding core interests.

Bhandari said, Nepal appreciates the fact that the Communist Party of China (CPC) has been consistently committed to pursuing the path of democracy development, striving for the wellbeing of the Chinese people, and endeavoring for the progress of humanity. We never subscribe to the slanders by certain international forces against both China and the CPC. Nepal wishes and firmly believes that China's path and China's model will achieve greater success.

Wang Yi stressed, since the CPC's founding, it has been firmly committed to promoting democracy and safeguarding human rights, and has made unremitting efforts to this end. Because of this, the CPC has always won the broadest endorsement and support from the Chinese people. China has found an effective way to develop socialist democracy in line with its national conditions. China's democracy integrates electoral democracy with consultative democracy, process-oriented democracy with results-oriented democracy, procedural democracy with substantive democracy, and direct democracy with indirect democracy. President Xi Jinping takes stock of the experience of party-building in the past century and summarizes Chinese socialist democracy as the whole-process people's democracy. The CPC and all Nepali parties enjoy traditional friendly relations. We are glad to see that developing amicable relations with China has become a social consensus transcending all parties in Nepal, and we are ready to strengthen experience-sharing on state governance with all Nepali parties to jointly promote the development of the causes of democracy and human rights.

During the visit, Wang Yi met with Nepali Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, held talks with Nepali Foreign Minister Narayan Khadka, and met with Chairman of the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist) KP Sharma Oli, and Chairman of the Communist Party of Nepal (CPN) (Maoist Center) Pushpa Kamal Dahal, also known as Prachanda, respectively.