China backs Nepal's fight against Maoists
July 11, 2002 Posted: 6:22 AM EDT (1022 GMT
BEIJING, China (Reuters) -- China's post-Mao leadership said it supports Nepal's struggle against Maoist guerrillas in a sign of just how much the times have changed in the 26 years since the late "Great Helmsman" ruled China.
State media quoted Chinese President Jiang Zemin on Thursday as telling visiting Nepali King Gyanendra China opposed terrorism and was behind the king's battle to crush a revolt in which more than 4,700 people have been killed.
"China supports the efforts of King Gyanendra and the Nepali government in cracking down on armed anti-government forces," the Communist Party mouthpiece People's Daily newspaper quoted Jiang telling the king in Beijing on Wednesday.
For his part, King Gyanendra said Nepal would not let its territory be used as "venues for any activity undermining China's interests," the official Xinhua news agency reported.
Rebels who control about a quarter of the impoverished Himalayan nation believe in the radical revolutionary theories of late Chinese leader Mao Zedong and say China's current leaders are counter-revolutionaries who have strayed from his teachings.
When Mao was in power, he exported his radical political philosophies and worker-peasant revolution.
But China has distanced itself from the rebellion in Nepal, calling the guerrillas terrorists, dismissing any connection to Mao and asking that they not be associated with the man credited with leading the Communist revolution to victory in 1949.
Jiang is also head of the Chinese Communist Party ?a position Mao held for roughly 40 years until his death in 1976.
http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/east/07/11/china.nepal.reut/index.html
