NOTE: This NEFview is tailored from the speech Aneka Rebecca Rajbhandari (Co-founder, The Araniko Mission) gave in commentary on the keynote by Dr. Brian Wong (Assistant Professor, HKU), as a part of the Nepal-China 101 report launch occasion. The complete transcript was initially revealed on The Araniko Mission’s Substack right here.
A little context and I need to point out, I first went to China just a little over a decade in the past and commenced pursuing China significantly as an instructional curiosity virtually six years in the past. Since then, I’ve attended many seminars on Nepal-China relations, each right here and in China. A lot of our dialogue has understandably targeted on main points: geopolitics, BRI, infrastructure, smooth energy, and connectivity.
Over time, I’ve discovered myself questioning: when did we skip the foundations and transfer straight to the larger questions?
That’s the reason I’m genuinely glad that we lastly have one thing referred to as Nepal-China 101. “101” could sound primary, even perhaps like one thing we must always already know. Fairly often, we don’t.
A robust understanding of commerce, enterprise, vitality, tourism and the establishments that form them offers us a significantly better basis for discussing the bigger questions. And I believe this report makes an essential contribution by establishing that baseline from Nepal’s perspective.
Brian spoke as we speak about transferring from the static thought of “equidistance”, which now we have heard fairly often, in direction of “equal proximity.” I discover this a helpful mind-set about Nepal’s overseas relations. Equal proximity offers Nepal area to domesticate all these relationships with confidence.
China and India are our neighbors, whereas the opposite nations will stay essential companions and I’m questioning if that is what Chinese language Overseas Minister Wang Yi meant when he quoted 远亲不如近邻（Shut neighbor is best than a distant relative）.
The report led me to consider what makes that proximity significant for Nepal. For me, the reply is functionality.
Throughout commerce, renewable vitality and tourism, the report identifies substantial alternatives alongside gaps in authorized frameworks, regulatory capability, infrastructure, fee mechanisms, market data and implementation. We have now ambition, and functionality is what connects that ambition with outcomes.
Contemplating the point out of orthodox tea. The report notes that Nepal’s orthodox tea exports to China elevated by greater than 88% throughout the first eight months of 2024. This jogged my memory of my latest go to to the 20th Beijing Worldwide Tea Expo, the place I discovered that this was the primary time in two many years Nepali tea entrepreneurs themselves had participated on this main annual occasion.
Nevertheless, Nepal was already represented on this Beijing expo however by way of Chinese language distributors, however repackaged and offered at significantly greater costs. Nepali producers themselves had little or no visibility in that market. I additionally should point out that the expo was held on the Nationwide Agriculture Exhibition Middle, and for anybody who has lived in Beijing lengthy sufficient, everyone knows it’s only one subway cease away or roughly 2km from the Nepali Embassy in Beijing.
That is what the report aptly describes as “geographic proximity coupled with institutional distance.” And I believe this concept travels nicely throughout the three sectors lined within the report.
Market entry turns into beneficial when companies perceive how one can enter the market. Border openings change into helpful when exporters can meet high quality and inspection necessities. Vitality cooperation turns into productive when authorized and technical frameworks assist it. Tourism grows after we perceive how Chinese language vacationers uncover, consider and navigate locations.
This is the reason I discover the information that Nepal’s Ministry of Overseas Affairs is creating nation technique papers for key bilateral companions encouraging.
China requires China-specific capability, as now we have written in The Araniko Mission extensively, success in as we speak’s China is finest performed by people who find themselves already embedded into the Chinese language society. And importantly, a lot of this experience already exists inside Nepali society. Nevertheless, we nonetheless hear many Nepali analysts and specialists complaining saying “we don’t perceive China”, to me it is a fairly awful argument and disregards the Nepali diaspora together with Nepali college students in varied self-discipline, entrepreneurs and professionals who’ve spent years if not their complete life navigating the Chinese language ecosystem and have succeeded
Capability-building can subsequently start by recognizing, organizing and utilizing the data we already possess.
This brings me to a different acquainted thought: Nepal as a bridge between India and China, a metaphor that has already been exhausted.
A bridge derives its worth from connecting two locations, and its usefulness relies upon upon the motion happening throughout it. India and China have already got substantial direct commerce, their very own routes and crossings, and a number of channels of engagement. Their relationship additionally evolves based on calculations largely outdoors Nepal’s management.
This raises a helpful query: How can Nepal make its geography beneficial by itself phrases?
Brian provided an fascinating risk in his Nepali Instances article: Nepal as a comparatively impartial “whisperer” between China and India, and as a cradle of individuals capable of converse throughout the Himalaya.
I might prolong that thought to data connectivity. China is investing enormously in AI, renewable vitality, superior manufacturing and scientific analysis. India has deep capabilities in know-how, digital infrastructure, prescription drugs, area and better training. Nepal sits between to each.
Our universities, analysis establishments, companies and younger individuals are subsequently geographically positioned beside two huge facilities of information, know-how and financial transformation. This, to me, is one sensible expression of equal proximity. Every relationship brings completely different prospects. Nepal’s process is to grasp what it seeks from every relationship and develop the institutional capability to pursue these priorities. That requires readability about our pursuits, our purple traces, the areas the place cooperation is most respected, and the outcomes we wish from engagement.
And finally, I assume this offers us a helpful mind-set about the way forward for Nepal-China relations. We must always proceed asking: How a lot worth stays in Nepal? And maybe most importantly: Is engagement increasing Nepal’s selections?
So, if I may place one enabling situation beneath Brian’s concepts of historical past, autonomy, transparency, creativity and humanity, it might be functionality. The aptitude to grasp our companions, to barter successfully, to implement what we agree upon, and to mobilize the experience Nepal already possesses.
Geography offers us proximity. Diplomacy builds relationships. Functionality determines what we will do with them.
Lastly, if Nepal-China 101 offers us a basis for constructing that functionality, then it has already made an essential contribution: serving to Nepal perceive the present relationship extra clearly and figuring out the alternatives extra exactly and hopefully, we will interact China with better confidence and company.
