China’s Calculated Response: Huawei’s 5G Push Continues Amid Nepal’s Crisis

China's silence on Nepal's 'Regime Change' speaks louder than words, writes Sanjay Kapoor.

Bewildering as China's silence may seem, there may be more to it than meets the ear.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint) 

China has been unusually quiet after the massive uprising by 'Gen Z' in Nepal against corruption and inordinate privileges that are extended to its corrupt elite and their “nepo kids”. Media outlets like Times China, a newspaper known to be sympathetic to the Chinese establishment, carried only two reports of the grave happenings in the neighbouring country that left 51 dead and scores injured. The reports ignored key aspects of the fallout.

Although Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported graphically on the developments, the official media as well as the information ministry of China, maintained an eloquent silence on the sequence of events that played out in Nepal that exacerbated in the aftermath of the government ban on social media apps.

Incidentally, the ban excluded the popular Chinese app, TikTok.

Casual Silence or Speaking Diplomatese?

Bewildering as China's silence may seem, there may be more to it than meets the eye. The change of government in Nepal has dealt a blow to its quest for stability with the Himalayan nation, with which it shares an 800-mile border. Nepal is key to China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The Gen-Z uprising came ahead of the much-talked about rollout of Chinese Huawei’s 5G network in the Himalayan nation.

The ousted Nepalese Prime Minister, KP Sharma Oli, had visited China a fortnight ago at Tianjin where the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meeting was taking place. Oli was seen lurking around Chinese President Xi Jinping, thereby buttressing an impression that Nepal was close to China.

The view was scotched, somewhat, when Nepal criticised the reopening of border trade between China and India. It particularly resented warming up of bilateral ties on ground, including the opening of the high-altitude Lipulekh pass as part of the rapprochement between the two Asian powers.

Nevertheless, the two Himalayan neighbours continued to make friendly noise, reiterating their commitments to the BRI. Couched in diplomatese, the Nepalese PM committed to bring Huawei's 5G network to Kathmandu. Xi said that he proposes to “jointly advance BRI cooperation (with Nepal) and strengthen connectivity through ports, roads, power grids, aviation and telecommunications.”

Xi may not have mentioned Huawei by name in the speech but it is abundantly clear that in the Chinese scheme of things, Huawei’s 5G network is a key player in strengthening its connectivity across the region.

India, under the pressure of the Western powers that had been lobbying for their telecom technologies, had earlier refused to allow Huawei's entry into the Indian telecom sector. It has been consistently resistant to the idea as it fears the Chinese telecom giant could undermine national security.

Economics of 'Regime Change'

Post the Galwan clash between India and China in the upper reaches of Ladakh, New Delhi redrew its security architecture, aligning itself more with the concerns raised by the US and other Western countries.

India did not just take action against Huawei by preventing it from taking part in the 5G race; it also banned scores of apps, including TikTok, citing national interest. It alleged that the app was passing India data to its servers. Chinese intelligence agencies could, in turn, access and transfer this data under a 2017 National Intelligence law of China.

While Galwan in 2020 was the reason for blocking Huawei from the 5G race in 2021, it will be interesting to watch how Huawei is blocked from the grant of license when it comes to providing 5G services in Nepal.

The big question is: Was this "regime change" a choreographed operation to oust the Maoists from power and bring in a respectable former Chief Justice, Sushila Karki, to power? If so, who choreographed it? “There’s only one country that does regime change. And it's not China, “ claimed a keen watcher of American shenanigans.

A report by an internet news provider, TLDR, claims that Nepal, with the help of China, was building an independent Internet. If the Maoist, pro-China government had succeeded, it would have been a setback for US. The report further claims that the US-based National Endowment of Democracy (NED), accused of choreographing many a colourful revolution, trained the protesters on how to agitate on different aspects of democracy.

It is also being claimed that the charismatic Mayor of Kathmandu, Balen Shah, met the US ambassador in Kathmandu a few days before the violence shook the capital.

Understandably, his name was going around as one who could be the Prime Minister of the Himalayan state. This was when Karki, the first woman to be sworn in as Prime Minister of Nepal, was elected via popular consensus through the Discord app.

India Needs to Watch Nepal with an Eye on China

Interestingly, Karki is a nationalist and a republican with no foreign links. Her husband, Durga Prasad Subedi, is also a radical nationalist and was incarcerated in India for his involvement in hijacking an Indian Airlines plane in 1973. Both Karki and her husband are unlikely to work towards the return of the royalty to power, something that the Indian government would have quietly nodded in favour of.

Despite a move orchestrated by the friends of a certain politician in India, known to be popular with a section of the population, which was agitating in early April 2025 for the ouster of the Maoist government and the installation of a Hindutva-backed PM, Karki is unlikely to be party to this change.

By the same logic, she would not allow the takeover of Nepal’s telecom services by China, even if she does not abrogate the BRI and other deals. If Beijing is quiet then, obviously, there are ample reasons for the silence.

Undeniably, Huawei in Nepal is critical for the BRI and for improving the communication network of China with these parts. Indian security forces fear that Huawei’s 5G network would be the precursor for destablising those regions that share an open border with Nepal.

A section of Nepalese media has been campaigning against the 5G rollout. They argue that the landlocked country is too poor to warrant the presence of a 5G network. Despite such views, the telecom network represented by the government-owned Nepal Telecom Company (NTC) that provides 4G services, is far bigger than the privately owned Ncell. During the agitation, some of the towers of Ncell were also torched. That said, the NTC is now entirely owned by Huawei.

Expectedly, the Chinese do not want to comment after the violent change that has taken place in Kathmandu, as they are aware of its implications.

What needs to be seen is whether the recent thaw in ties between India and China after US President Donald Trump's tariff tirade provide Beijing a hedge from US-alleged machinations. The thing to watch out would be if the social media giant, TikTok, returns to India.

TikTok was allowed to operate in Kathmandu even after the Oli government banned 26 social media apps in Nepal to curb dissent. Many things ride on how China and India kiss and make up. Beijing will watch closely.

(Sanjay Kapoor is a veteran journalist and founder of Hardnews Magazine. He is a foreign policy specialist focused on India and its neighbours, and West Asia. This is an opinion piece. All views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)