China’s construction of 11 buildings in a part of the remote Humla border district that Nepal claims as its own territory has triggered a border row between the two countries, according to Nepalese media reports.
A border pillar has been missing since Nepal built a road in the area several years ago, and now China has built the buildings. There was only one shack in the area in 2005, according to Nepalese officials who visited the disputed area recently.
“The Chinese side claimed that the area where the houses are built is within Chinese territory,” said Bishnu Bahadur Tamang, president of the rural municipality of Namkha, who visited the area on Sunday with the team of officials.
The Nepalese Ministry of the Interior was informed of the construction of the buildings by the Chinese border and security forces.
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During an inspection on Sunday by a team led by the district director, Chirinjbi Giri, Chinese security officials claimed that their territory stretched one kilometer further south from the area where the buildings are located.
Tamang, however, said that Nepal’s territory stretches two kilometers north of where the buildings are, The Kathmandu Post reported. “Of the 11 houses in the disputed area, the security forces live in one and the others are empty,” Tamang said.
After Nepalese officials arrived at the disputed site on Sunday, Chinese security personnel arrived in a truck, a tanker and a jeep. They used a microphone to speak to Nepalese officials and asked them to come to the border to chat.
“We spent about an hour and a half in the disputed area. After we arrived, a team of security officers and the Chinese army came and said that the talks cannot be held on their territory. Then we left, ”Tamang said. “We claimed that this area was our territory, they showed us the map and said it was theirs.”
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The Interior Ministry sent a team consisting of government officials, the head of the security agencies and representatives of the local government of Humla to the rural municipality of Namkha to carry out an inspection and present a report, which is expected by the end of the week.
Chakka Bahadur Lama, the Humla MP, said the dispute arose after a border pillar disappeared in the area.
“As long as both parties do not determine the location of the missing pillar, the dispute will continue,” Lama said. “The pillar was damaged during the construction of a road in the Nepalese territory about 12 years ago. That area where the Chinese supposedly built the concrete buildings is on the old yak caravan route used for trade between Nepal and Tibet. ”
During a meeting in 2015, Nepal and China agreed to determine the location of the missing pillar, but no action was subsequently taken, local officials said.
The officials further said that if a straight line of demarcation is drawn from the last existing pillar to the location of the missing pillar, the disputed land falls within Nepalese territory.
MP Lama blamed the negligence of the Nepalese government for the problem, as the country’s security presence in the border area is less than on the Chinese side.
Zhang Si, spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Kathmandu, told The Post in an email: “The buildings mentioned by the media are on the Chinese side. The Nepalese side can check it again. ”
The spokesman added that China respects the sovereignty of Nepal and that any question from the Nepalese side can be “reviewed together. [sic]”.
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