KATHMANDU -- Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected in Nepal over the weekend on a rare trip aimed at consolidating ties with Nepal's communist government, which is keen to deepen its relations with the colossus to the north but also to take advantage of any ambitions its southern neighbor, India, might be harboring in the region.
Xi's two-day visit, which begins on Saturday, comes with landlocked Nepal realizing its Himalayan location is one of Asia's most desirable neighborhoods, one that the world's two most populated nations are perhaps coveting as a gateway to expanded trade.
