Kathmandu, September 3
It has been more than three months since Nepal signed an agreement with China to be a part of the One Belt One Road initiative announced by Chinese President Xi Jinping. However, the Chinese government and intellectuals still doubt its commitment to the ambitious regional project.
Wang Ruibin, Associate Research Fellow at China Institute of International Studies, says Nepal’s decision to send a deputy prime minister, not the government head, to the first summit of OBOR is a hint towards Nepal’s low priority accorded to the project.
Even Nepali foreign affairs officials agree with Wang to some extent. It might be the reason why Nepal has not prepared any concrete plan to implement the OBOR till today.
Deputy Prime Minister Krishna Bahadur Mahara, who had attended the OBOR summit in May, is visiting Beijing next week. However, nothing much can be expected from his visit towards the implementation.
It is significant to note that Nepal’s another giant neighbour India has not accepted the idea behind OBOR. Beijing intellectuals say New Delhi has already ‘targeted’ two early entrants of the OBOR–Pakistan and Sri Lanka. They further claim that India has some hand in impeding Nepal from concretely bringing out any plan towards the implementation of Xi Jinping’s flagship project.
The Chinese doubts can be addressed only if major political parties stand united on national issues.
“But we do not have that unity. We have been unable to put forward our priorities in a united fashion. Our priorities change as soon as the government leadership changes,” a Nepali official says, “China does not want it to happen.”
Meanwhile, Beijing says it has understood that changing the perspective of New Delhi might takes some time, but Nepal can play a role in bringing its two neighbours closer.
That is why Nepal is an important part of the OBOR and China has expected more from it, comments Guo Suiyan, Deputy Director and Associate Professor of Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences.
