KATHMANDU: Landlocked, impoverished Nepal has always struggled to punch above its diplomatic weight, but its new Maoist leader has lost no time in shaking up ties with giant neighbours India and China.

In office for barely a month, Prime Minister Prachanda, a former warlord, has already visited both countries, signalling his desire for closer ties with Beijing and a stronger voice in dealings with traditional ally New Delhi.

In an apparently calculated snub to India, Prachanda broke with long-standing precedent by visiting China first. Past Nepali leaders have always made New Delhi their first port of call and Prachanda’s move ruffled official feathers in India which is extremely wary of any regional shift that might complicate its difficult relations with China.

“His China visit broke a long tradition and sent a message that the Maoist-led government wants to change position,” said Gunaraj Luitel, an editor with New Republic, an English language daily in Nepal.

Although Prachanda insisted that his attendance at the closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games did not constitute an “official” visit, he did meet with President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao.

His subsequent official visit to India was a warm one, but on his return to Kathmandu, Prachanda explicitly laid out Nepal’s aspirations for a diplomatic realignment.

“In the past Nepal has had closer connections with India ... I am of the view that Nepal will now build equal relations with both neighbours,” said the prime minister, whose real name is Pushpa Kamal Dahal but who prefers his nom-de-guerre Prachanda, meaning “the fierce one”.

While in New Delhi, Prachanda also pushed for the re-negotiation of a treaty that has governed bilateral relations for more than half a century.

Many Nepalis argue that the 1950 Indo-Nepal pact allows India an excessive say in their country’s political and economic affairs — most notably a clause preventing Nepal buying arms and weapons from a third country without Indian permission.

Some analysts say Prachanda’s efforts to project the image abroad of a more assertive Nepal are largely aimed at appeasing nationalist sentiment at home, and that his overtures towards China are little more than an unsubtle bid to gain more leverage in dealings with India.

“Playing India off against China ... has never really worked in the past,” said one Western diplomat here.

The fact is that Nepal’s landlocked status makes it hugely dependent on India, which supplies all of the Himalayan nation’s oil products and the vast bulk of its consumer goods.

This severely restricts Prachanda’s room for manoeuvre, and provoking any serious rift with New Delhi could result in a repeat of the crippling economic blockade imposed by India in the late 1980s following a dispute over transit rights.

“The Maoist-led government may try to decrease Indian dominance in Nepal but it won’t happen anytime soon because we are not yet politically stable and we are economically dependent,” said researcher and political analyst Basker Gautam. Gautam also suggested that the new prime minister’s pro-China leanings were partly motivated by a desire to underline his party’s “revolutionary image”.

For the 20,000 exiled Tibetans living in Nepal, however, they pose a very real threat. Last week, the Nepalese Ministry said any Tibetan who did not have any official refugee papers would be deported.

The move followed large protests by the exiles in Kathmandu over a Chinese crackdown in Tibet.

“This is one area where the new government has made a change to keep China happy,” said Yubaraj Ghimire, editor of the weekly magazine, Samay.—AFP