Encouraged by China and India, Nepal’s intellectual elite think big

Was Nepal a part of the ancient Southern Silk Road? How is Nepal’s development related to China’s efforts to revive the Southern Silk Road through the economic corridor linking Bangladesh, China, India and Myanmar (BCIM)? How could Nepal benefit from international cooperation for future projects aimed at developing new silk roads?

Nepalis began to ruminate about these new and interesting questions again after the official visit of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Nepal on August 3-4. Mr. Modi proposed a hit formula, which he described as building highways and information super highways, and trans-ways, or transmission lines, through which India and Nepal could enjoy greater cooperation on multiple fronts.

“Regional cooperation presupposes land connectivity in order to benefit from the economics of geography,” former finance minister Dr. Madhukar SJB Rana said in a recent interview with APD. About two months ago, some esteemed diplomats, bureaucrats, academics, private sector actors, and journalists participated in a small gathering held under the title “Revival of the South-Western Silk Road: Role of trilateral cooperation between China, India, and Nepal.” The interaction program was organized in Kathmandu three days ahead of the second China-South Asia Expo, which was held in Kunming, the provincial capital of Yunan.

Kunming, according to Pradumna B. Rana, an associate professor at the Singapore-based Nanyang Technological University, is both the beginning and ending point of the South-Western Silk Road that passed through Myanmar, India, Nepal and China’s Tibet. Delivering his keynote speech at the interaction program, Dr. Rana said there is a dire need of trilateral cooperation between China, India, and Nepal for the revival of the South-Western Silk Road, which, compared to the northern silk road, is less well-known due to lack of serious initiatives.

In his presentation, Dr. Rana, a former senior official at the Asian Development Bank, where he served for 25 years, proposed four economic corridors to connect South/Central Asia with Southern China and the association of Southeast Asian Nations, paving the way for a seamless Pan-Asian connectivity. A fact worth pondering is that Kathmandu is not absent from all these multimodal imaginary economic corridors. The linkages between Nepal and its neighbors in the region were strong and Nepal, as a connector between states, was a prosperous country, according to Dr. Rana

Besides Mr. Rana, five other researchers Prof. Madhukar SJB Sana, Dr. Prakash Chandra Lohani, Dr. Bhaskar Koirala and Dr. Geeta Kochhar also gave speeches and presentations focusing on the subject of regional connectivity. At the program, Chinese ambassador to Nepal Wu Chuntai lauded the well researched presentations made by the scholars, saying they were “far-sighted”, “full of vision” and “encouraging.”

Furthermore, the Chinese envoy advised Nepal to take advantage of the soon-to-be launched Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, a brilliant idea floated by Chinese leaders. According to the ambassador, the bank would be “another financial platform for big-scale infrastructural development in this region.”

Meanwhile, Indian envoy to Nepal Ranjit Rae said, “The idea of reviving the south silk route is very fascinating.” The envoy also urged the scholars to do a more detailed cost-benefit analysis, because statistics show at present most of the trade between India and China takes place through maritime route, instead of land route.

“Work needs to be done to demonstrate that the revival of this route you are proposing will actually be much more cost-effective. That’s when the companies will start utilizing it,” said ambassador Rae.

(It was published by the 11th edition of APD newspaper in 2014)