The prolonged controversy over Lipulekh Pass—an ancient Himalayan pass located near the trijunction of Nepal, India, and China—illustrates Nepal’s increasing difficulty in navigating its way between its two big neighbours.

India and China have repeatedly bypassed Nepal’s concerns by announcing bilateral trade through the pass. Last year, during Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s New Delhi visit, the two sides agreed to resume trade through Lipulekh Pass without notifying Nepal. Then, on March 20 this year, the Press Trust of India (PTI) reported that preparations were underway to reopen the pass and resume trade, which had been stalled for the past six years.

Nepal makes a claim for complete sovereignty over the territory, which India also claims. India terms Nepal’s claim on Lipulekh ‘untenable’ given the long history of India-China (Tibet) trade through the pass. China has adopted a rather ambiguous position, saying that it is a “bilateral” matter to be sorted out between Nepal and India.

Nepali leaders often struggle to balance relations between New Delhi and Beijing. When their ties are strained, Kathmandu is often asked to pick sides, mostly by the Indians. The complete lack of progress on Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects in Nepal is partly because of India’s reservations. Yet when the relations between India and China seem to improve, as is the case now, Nepal again becomes the victim, as the case of Lipulekh shows. If the two big powers wanted, they could have put a condition that they would open trade through Lipulekh only in consultations with Kathmandu.

Nepal is a changed country following a youth revolution last year that overthrew the then government and led to successful holding of new elections. These elections diminished the country’s traditional political behemoths and gave an overwhelming mandate to a new outfit, the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), and its charismatic new prime minister, Balendra Shah, who is only 35-year-old.

There is thus likely to be some changes in the handling of Nepal’s foreign policy. The party, for instance, says that it wants to benefit from India’s rapid progress, particularly on digital infrastructure, public infrastructure, and state capacity enhancement. In the case of China, it says it will mobilise concessional finance to build world-class infrastructure. The focus seems to be on getting the two neighbours’ help in Nepal’s development without getting enmeshed in any ideological tussle.

Yet even a drastic change in Nepali politics that has been brought about by the Gen Z uprising and the subsequent elections are unlikely to change the fundamentals of Nepal’s foreign policy architecture. Given the land-locked country’s precarious position between the two neighbours, the country has no option but to continue to carefully balance their influence. It cannot afford to alienate any one of them. Of late, Nepal has also looked to cultivate relations with its ‘third neighbour’, the United States (US) as well as other partners such as the European Union (EU) and Japan.

Such broadening of the scope of Nepal’s foreign policy architecture is in Nepal’s interest. For instance, during the 2015-16 border blockade imposed by India, the Americans helped get the message of the hardships being faced by Nepalis out to the international community. Such messaging helped put pressure on India to eventually lift the blockade. Again, the goal is maximum diversification so that the country can develop economically and preserve its sovereignty.

One thing going for the RSP is that it does not have the baggage of old political parties. For instance, the liberal-minded Nepali Congress was traditionally seen as being close to India, while the CPN-UML, the country’s biggest communist party, had an affinity for China. These two parties were the mainstays of the post-1990 Nepali polity.

If the newly elected RSP government can take Nepal’s major international partners into confidence that it is simply not interested in ‘playing off’ India and China, or any other powers for that matter, but instead wants to leverage their economic heft for its own development, its message could resonate—especially compared to the older parties that were tainted by bias towards a particular country.

However, it would be foolish to assume that the new government will not have to navigate similar geopolitical challenges that its predecessors did. In fact, South Asian geopolitics is getting increasingly complicated. More and more, India is keen to preserve its sway in its old backyard. The Chinese want a new foothold in South Asia lest the Americans beat them to it. The Americans, meanwhile, want smaller countries such as Nepal to stay as far from China as possible.

In a similar vein regarding Lipulekh, it is difficult to see how the new RSP government’s position will differ much from that of its predecessors.

Governments come and go, Geography stays the same.