By Our Reporter
Nepal’s poor homework in preparing the agenda, and short time frame negotiation resulted in poor bargaining opportunities with China during the visit of Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ to China in September this year, said lawmakers and foreign policy experts while speaking at a policy dialogue organised by the Centre for Social Inclusion and Federalism (CESIF) in Kathmandu on Tuesday.
Obviously, because of weakening diplomatic skills, visits of our leaders often turned futile for the nation while for those close to the PM and other leaders, the visits become a shopping tour.
They argued that the visit of the PM failed to make tangible progress.
Shishir Khanal, a Member of the IRTC, there were no clear objectives of the visit.
“This visit couldn’t offer any turning point to Nepal in terms of diplomatic and economic fronts. We were not serious while choosing and finalising the agenda of the visit,” he said.
According to him, the visit could not create a stir in bilateral relations and even in trade and investment.
“We also need to observe the coverage given to the visit by the native media in China. Meanwhile, there were no clear updates of information regarding the achievement of the visit,” he said.
Nepal also failed to negotiate and reach favourable outcomes on issues related to the trade imbalance, effective implementation of the Transit and Transport Agreement and other issues that were agreed upon in the 2019 joint statement during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Nepal visit, read a discussion note prepared by the organiser.
Dr. Minendra Rijal, a leader of the Nepali Congress and former minister, said that Nepal needed to set priority in terms of its essential and peripheral needs such as a railway to Raxaul or Tibet, while also making sure that infrastructure connecting China and Nepal developed with either grant or concessional loan.
“We initiate or announce any project, such as the Budhigandaki Hydroelectricity Project, at a whim and seek international support from partners like India and China to develop it but ultimately fail to secure investment,” he suggested, “Cross-border transmission should be created as a preparation for the future export of electricity to China.”
Raj Kishor Yadav, Chairperson of the International Relations and Tourism Committee (IRTC) at the House of Representatives of the Federal Parliament, said that preparations were poor for the visit which made it like a pilgrimage.
Dr. Madhu Raman Acharya said that party-to-party relation between Nepal and China is counterproductive as foreign policy is exercised between the countries, not between political parties of the concerned nations.
“Nepal-China relation features trivialism where you sign as many agreements as possible. The two countries have signed about 70 agreements in the recent past. None of them except the transit treaty has been implemented so Nepal remains to be benefitted from them,” said Dr. Acharya.
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