Kathmandu, 3 January: Chinese ambassador Hou Yanqi said that some western countries don’t want to see a prosperous China, and they are attacking China on issues related to Hong Kong and Xinjiang. At a press conference organised in the Chinese embassy premises Friday morning, the envoy said, “Continuing violent crimes in Hong Kong have challenged the bottom-line of the “one country, two system” principle, and have pushed the city to an extremely dangerous situation”. “The current problem in Hong Kong, by no means the issue of freedom and democracy, but whether to stick to the rule of law,” she said. Talking about Xinjiang, the envoy said: “It has suffered a lot from terrorism from the 1990s to 2016. Domestic and overseas separatist, extremist and terrorist forces had planned and implemented thousands of violent terrorist incidents, which had caused great loss to the lives and property of people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang.” The ambassador informed that currently security situation has improved and life in Xinjiang is peaceful and normal. Responding a question on China’s possible reaction on the Millennium Challenge Corporation, an American grant project, the ambassador said that Nepal needs international support for her development. Nepal is an independent and sovereign country and it is upto the Nepal government to decide on the grant project freely and independently on the basis of Nepal’s own interests but not under the pressure of any other country. The ambassador briefed that those 122 Chinese nationals arrested in Kathmandu had travelled here in a tourist visa and staying here illegally. Some of them were also involved in Cyber crime in China. On the basis of sharing information between the two countries, they have been arrested and still they are under the investigation of the Nepal government. In another question on China-India plus one, she explained that this is not the policy of treating the third country on the basis of China-India relations but a trilateral cooperation on equal status of the three countries. This formula had become effective on Afghanistan, she explained. China-Nepal trans-border railway is a very challenging task, although, every option of connectivity will be given high priority, the envoy said. Works for construction of two tunnels in Kathmandu-Kerung Highway are in progress, she said and added that the project was initiated during the visit of President Xi to make short the distance between Kathmandu with the Chinese border. Evaluating the year 2019, the ambassador remarked, “2019 is a year in which China-Nepal relations have blossomed in an al round way. Describing progress made in different bilateral projects supported by China, ambassador Hou further remarked that the biggest highlight of Nepal-China relations this year is the exchange visits between the two heads of state. At the end of April, President Bidhya Devi Bhandari paid a state visit to China and attended the second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation. President Xi Jinping’s state visit to Nepal in mid-October is the highest leader of China to visit Nepal after 23 years, the Ambassador said. People’s News Monitoring Service