Caught unawares by the KP Sharma Oli government’s move of dissolving the House of Representatives, which then had an immediate impact on Nepal’s governing Nepal Communist Party, Beijing hurriedly sent a team led by a senior leader of the Communist Party of China to Kathmandu.

The four-member delegation, led by Guo Yezhou, a vice-minister of the International Department of the Communist Party of China, over the past three days has held a whirlwind of meetings. After meeting with President Bidya Devi Bhandari and Prime Minister Oli, who is now leading a caretaker government, on Sunday, the day they arrived, the Chinese team on Monday met with Pushpa Kamal Dahal, Madhav Kumar Nepal and Jhala Nath Khanal of the other faction of the Nepal Communist Party. The same evening, it held talks with Baburam Bhattarai, chairman of the federal council of the Janata Samajbadi Party.

On the third day of the visit—the Chinese team is in Kathmandu for four days—on Tuesday, it held talks with Sher Bahadur Deuba, president of the Nepali Congress, which was the main opposition until Oli dissolved the House on December 20.