China-Nepal: Nepal cut off China’s talk on BRI project, will this increase bitterness in relations?

At a time when Nepal’s Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal is said to be preparing for his visit to China, a controversy has erupted in the country over the issue that any construction has taken place in Nepal so far under China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) project. Yes or No. Pokhara International Airport was inaugurated in Nepal some time ago. Then China had ‘unilaterally’ announced that this airport was built under BRI.

On Monday, two members of Nepal’s parliament – Ram Hari Khatiwada of the Nepali Congress and Aseem Shah of the Rashtriya Swatantra Party – asked Foreign Minister NP Saud and Tourism Minister Sudan Kirati whether Pokhara airport is part of the BRI or not. On this, Foreign Minister Saud said that Nepal and China had signed a framework agreement in 2017 under BRI. He did not name the Pokhara airport, but said no project under the BRI has progressed so far.

Saud said- ‘Nepal and China are currently in talks about the implementation of the project under BRI. No project has been implemented under BRI. This statement of the Foreign Minister has been seen as directly denying China. According to observers, China will probably not issue any public statement on this, but there is a possibility of bitterness in the relations between the two countries.

Nepal had selected nine projects for construction under the BRI after the 2017 agreement. The Trans Himalayan Multi-Dimensional Connectivity Project was included in the document released during the Second Belt and Road Initiative Conference held in China in 2019. But now it is clear from the statement of the Foreign Minister that in the opinion of the Government of Nepal, none of these projects has been implemented yet.

Meanwhile, it has been discussed that the Government of Nepal is reluctant to go ahead with these projects. The reason behind this is said to be the objections of the US and India regarding the BRI project. America and India are of the opinion that China is trying to increase its influence through this project.

Pushpa Kamal Dahal was the Prime Minister when Nepal signed the Framework Agreement for BRI. After that Sher Bahadur Deuba, KP Sharma Oli and once again Deuba became the Prime Minister. Now again Dahal is the Prime Minister. According to analysts, the governments of these leaders from different parties failed to construct any project under BRI. This has led Chinese diplomats to suspect that there is a political consensus in Nepal not to go ahead with the project.

According to analysts, the only positive development regarding BRI in Nepal in the past six years happened in January 2019, when a list of nine projects was sent to China from Nepal.