China on Thursday announced the opening of a new rail and road trading route to Nepal, coming amid fresh strains in the country’s relations with India following the cancIndia, first sparked by unrest over the new Constitution and an ensuing trade blockade, has seen Kathmandu turning increasingly to Beijing, primarily to step up fuel imports amid an energy crisis caused by the blockade. Further tensions were triggered this week after Nepal announced the cancellation of a scheduled visit by its president to India, with Kathmandu blaming New Delhi for what it described as efforts to destabilise Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli’s government. In March, China told Oli when he visited Beijing that it would back his government against “any external interference”, and would support stability in Nepal and aid his government within its capacity, with trade and investment. Oli had during the visit secured a landmark deal with China for extending its Tibet railway network into Nepal, a long-discussed proposal that Nepal had in the past spurned because of Indian sensitivities. In a reversal, Chinese officials said it was Oli that raised it in Beijing. As both sides shortly begin a feasibility study into the railway plan, Beijing on Thursday flagged off a new rail-cum-road trading route, with an international freight train loaded with 86 cargo containers carrying goods from China’s western Gansu province bound for Kathmanduellation of its president’s visit and the recalling of its envoy from New Delhi earlier this week