Hira Bahadur Thapa

The much-awaited state visit to Nepal by President of the People's Republic of China Xi Jinping has concluded. The visit has been labeled as the most remarkable diplomatic achievement for Nepal. The country’s sovereignty has been further reinforced by turning the landlocked nation into land-linked one. President Xi has categorically stated that China is willing to cooperate with Nepal in boosting its connectivity by building roads, railways and tunnels that facilitates the movement of goods, services and people between the two friendly neighbours.
Geography and neighbours cannot be chosen. Nations have to adapt to them. While calibrating a nation's foreign policy, the prudent way is to ensure that we have a win-win situation, which requires our diplomatic deft. Geopolitical compulsions continue to impose heavy burden on countries, especially for a least developed country like ours. As Nepal is by two big powers, the severity of such burden is greater. This is why the far-sighted Prithivi Narayan Shah had cautioned that we need to handle our foreign relations very skillfully in order that Nepal maintains balanced relationship with both neighbours.
We cannot afford to have our bilateral relations tilted to any of the neighbours. But geography has played its role that makes us more dependent on one compared to another. Hence, the challenge for Nepal has been to free the nation from the limitations geography poses though we can only reduce the burden but cannot avoid them altogether. Even in doing this, we have to cultivate our relations with the neighbours in a way that we are able to persuade them of shared benefits of mutual cooperation.
At times our bilateral relationship with India has suffered a setback. In post-constitution promulgation period beginning September 2015, India tried to impose her views on a sovereign neighbour leading to economic embargo when Nepal refused to comply with the former's advice.
That part of our bilateral history is unforgettable because in every Nepali mind it is deeply embedded that India wouldn't have applied pressure tactics on us had we not been over dependent on them for daily necessities. The pain we felt then has now been a blessing in disguise as it shocked us and with this very much in mind in 2016 the government led by KP Sharma Oli took a bold decision to persuade China to offer us access to some of its ports in order to lessen our reliance on a single neighbour.
The year of 2015 brought a lot of hardship to Nepalis, first the devastating earthquake and the man-made disaster in the form of economic embargo imposed by India for reasons mentioned earlier. But the following year when Prime Minister Oli visited China as head of the government, he won laurels among his countrymen as he sealed a treaty of transit with the northern neighbour, the first of its kind besides India.
There is no doubt that signing a treaty is not enough and construction of necessary infrastructure especially the all-weather road is indispensable for materialising the benefits of transit facilities. Moreover, working out details for implementing the above treaty is equally needed and having a protocol on this issue was the need of the hour and only last year Nepal was able to finalise and sign the same thus pacing the way for implementation of the transit treaty.
Both Nepal and China are convinced that connectivity becomes the key to meet Nepal's challenges of landlocked position. Realising this, most of the memoranda of understanding and agreements concluded during President Xi's historic visit are related to expanding connectivity. Whether it is the construction of tunnels in the landmark road connecting Kathmandu to Rasuwagadhi, the nearest point to China's Kerung transit spot, or the upgrading of Arniko Highway, the premier road connecting Nepal's capital to China in Tatopani or three corridors viz Koshi, Gandaki and Karnali, all are aimed at enhancing country's connectivity.
Once these projects are completed, Nepal will have definitely better links to China. As the latter has been generous in offering us transit facilities through its natural and dry ports, in the foreseeable future Nepal will be in a position to diversify her external trade, which in other words, will enable her to curtail her over reliance upon one neighbour.
Despite the fact that President Xi's visit to Nepal has been very successful, there are some critics pointing out that Nepal may be lured to pursue strategic partnership with an emerging world power, which may prove counterproductive to the country's national interests. A few of them have presented the recent events like the public statement from one co-chair of the ruling Nepal Communist Party that Nepal opposes foreign interference in the domestic affairs of Venezuela.
But Minister for Foreign Affairs Pradeep Gyawali has clarified that the mention of words “strategic partnership" in the Joint Statement issued at the conclusion of the visit have no military dimension of the Nepal-China bilateral relationship. To him, the partnership is confined to development.
Regardless of how some commentators view the statement from a different angle of vision, the Chinese President has given a very strong message of China's trust and confidence in our friendship as Nepal has been steadfast in adhering to the long-held One China policy supporting Chinese principled stand over its three core issues like Tibet, Taiwan and Hong Kong.
Building on this increasing level of deepened bilateral relations, it behooves on Nepal how she turns her geopolitical limitations into opportunities utilising the goodwill earned from her trusted neighbour.

(Thapa was Foreign Relations Advisor to the Prime Minister from 2008 to 2009. He writes on contemporary national and international issues. He can be reached at thapahira17@gmail.com)