In early November, during a visit to Nepal by Ellen Sauerbrey, a United States official in charge of refugee policy, the news suddenly became public that the Kathmandu government was refusing to give the green light to the resettlement process of some 5000 Tibetan refugees in Nepal. The offer of resettlement had been made by the US government in September 2005. "We are talking about the sensitivity of the government of Nepal to a very large and very immediate neighbour," Sauerbrey ruefully noted, "and that is something that the government of Nepal is going to have to address in the future".
For the past two years, several visiting US officials have repeated Washington, DC's interest in taking in this group of individuals, but the process has been continually stymied due to opposition from Beijing and diffidence of the Kathmandu government, itself reeling under continuing political instability. To the frustration of many, this stance did not change even after the official go-ahead was given for the initial processing for resettlement of the 107,000 Bhutani refugees who have also made Nepal their home for the past decade and a half. Indeed, the US infrastructure in Kathmandu meant to process more than 60,000 Bhutani refugees – a process that began in early November – was originally meant also to oversee the resettlement of these 5000 Tibetans.
The Nepali policy on Tibetan refugees within its territory has long been directly influenced by Beijing. While Tibetans who came to Nepal before 1989 are officially regarded as refugees, those who came after that year are considered 'illegal immigrants'. Since 1989, Kathmandu has refused to issue any official Refugee Certificate to Tibetans. This not only almost completely halts any opportunity for new refugees to integrate into Nepali society, as happened in the past, but makes it significantly more difficult for them to legally leave the country, for onward journey to Dharamsala in India or to Western countries keen to have them. (The Nepal government does issue one-time exit permits for this purpose.)
Despite Nepal's toeing of that line for the past decade and a half, however, Beijing viewed the US's September 2005 offer with increased suspicion, particularly due to the large numbers involved. As such, during a visit to Nepal in July 2006, Chinese Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs Wu Dawei warned that some serious thinking needed to be undertaken by the Nepali authorities over their decision to provide travel documents to the 5000 Tibetan refugees. During that same trip, the Nepali media began trumpeting an announcement by Beijing that it would be increasing its aid to Nepal by more than 50 percent. Since then, whether or not that pressure had ultimately been successful seemed up in the air.