Prachanda is the second Prime Minister in Nepal to pay the first visit to China. Tankaprasad Acharya had undertaken such a trip some 52 years ago, and had apparently declined Nehru’s request to first visit Delhi saying: “I have already accepted the first invitation I got.”

Prachanda has a standing invitation from Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to be his “guest at the earliest convenient date”, but given India’s anger over Prachanda first visiting Beijing, it is not yet known whether the invitation still stands.

Maoist leaders including C P Gajurel, in charge of the party’s foreign affairs, however, maintain that the Beijing visit was purely in connection with the Olympic concluding ceremony and had no other signficance.