Nepal’s diplomacy of vibes finally meets reality

Balendra Shah’s government spent 100 days performing sovereign equality with foreign envoys. Then someone had to actually go get an invitation.

For the first 100 days, it was a point of pride. Prime Minister Balendra Shah would not sit down one-on-one with foreign ambassadors — not India’s, not China’s, not even U.S. President Donald Trump’s special envoy for the region. In April, Shah met 17 envoys together , in one room, a photograph that conveyed to the diplomatic community in Kathmandu that no relationship ranked above another. When India’s foreign secretary prepared a trip to formally hand over Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s invitation to visit New Delhi, the trip got deferred amid uncertainty over whether Shah would even receive him privately. His own party floated the idea that he might not leave the country at all for a year. Political commentators called it sovereign equality. It was also, unmistakably, a campaign promise still being performed after the campaign had ended.