China, India broadening ties with Nepal for its geopolitical significance

KATHMANDU - Analysts believe that China, which once regarded Nepal with intermittent interest, is now exerting itself more due to concerns that Nepal could become a place of Tibetan agitation.

“Nepal has become a very interesting space where the big players are playing at two levels. One is their relationship with Nepal. And the second is the relationship between India and China,” The New York Times quoted Ashok Gurung, Director of the India China Institute at The New School, as saying.

India and China share similar goals in Nepal, each wants Nepal’s political situation to stabilize and is watching closely as the country’s Maoists negotiate with other political parties over a new constitution that would fundamentally reshape the government.

Experts believe that both countries are also worried about security, as India is concerned about political agitation on the Nepalese side of their shared border, as well as the possibility that terrorists trained in Pakistan could transit through Nepal.

While, from China’s perspective, Nepal’s geopolitical significance rose after Tibetan protests erupted in March 2008, five months before Beijing hosted the Olympic Games. Those protests began inside China, in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, and other Tibetan regions, but also spread across the border to Katmandu, where an estimated 12,000 Tibetans live.

“Nepal has become a very interesting space where the big players are playing at two levels. One is their relationship with Nepal. And the second is the relationship between India and China,” The New York Times quoted Ashok Gurung, Director of the India China Institute at The New School, as saying.

India is also paying close attention to what many experts consider newfound Chinese activism in South Asia, whether by building ports in Sri Lanka and Pakistan, or signing new agreements with even the tiniest South Asian nations like the Maldives.

And an expanding Chinese presence in Nepal would be especially alarming to India, given that India and Nepal share a long and deliberately porous border.

“India has always been concerned about what access China might have in Nepal. India has always considered South Asia to be its backyard, like a Monroe Doctrine,” said Sridhar Khatri, Executive director of the South Asia Center for Policy Studies in Katmandu.

It was recently highlighted when Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh met visiting Nepal President Ram Baran Yadav in New Delhi and signed a bilateral agreement and three Memorandum of Understanding (MoUs).

An agreement on New Air Service was signed between the two countries besides three memorandums of understandings (MoUs) comprise on development of railway infrastructure at five points along India-Nepal border, development of Nepal Bharat Maitri Polytechnic at Hetauda Makwanpur district and establishment of Nepal Bharat Maitri Sabha Griha, Birgunj. (ANI)