By Nirmal P. Acharya
Last week, I stumbled across Buddhiprasad Sharma’s masterpiece published in one of the local daily newspapers under the title “The Chinese are still the same!” Despite the long article, the message from the author was actually very simple: the Chinese can’t be trusted, better give up building the China-Nepal railway.
There might be some truth to the accusation that China is not credible because its cooperation projects with Nepal haven’t been as good as they should be. However, by comparison, China’s credibility is higher than that of the US. At least China respects Nepal’s sovereignty. Look at the MCC that the US forced us to sign, which clearly states that its projects are not managed by the Nepalese government. Although matching funds are invested by Nepal, it does not accept Nepali audits, the project is in Nepalese territory but is not governed by Nepalese law. Such unequal agreements cannot be mutually beneficial and are usually signed only between victorious and defeated nations.
Unlike the MCC, the China-Nepal railway is entirely based on a shared vision that dates back to 1973. It was 50 years ago, King Birendra and Chairman Mao Zedong first exchanged their shared vision of building the China-Nepal railway in Beijing. Unfortunately, both sides had the vision but didn’t have the resources to build it then. However, now that China can build such infrastructure, it has been delayed or obstructed due to intricate factors, perhaps more from the Nepal side. Despite all the difficulties, China and Nepal are still pushing forward the project patiently, bit by bit, without giving any ultimatums or set deadlines to the other side.
It is obvious that with the global geostrategic environment turning increasingly Asia-centric, the geographically distant Americans came all the way to Nepal to expand their options in countering China in the name of MCC. Furthermore, Sharma’s suggestion to call off the China-Nepal railway project further tipped me off and I suddenly realized that the MCC has been really aiming at the China-Nepal railway project. Nepal must be careful not to allow such geopolitical games in the country under the pretext of MCC.
