China trying to extend Nepal rail project to India border

NEW DELHI: Even as China revives the Trans-Himalayan Railway Project with Nepal, India has alerted its diplomatic, security and strategic experts to keep a close watch on the development in the neighbourhood. A high-level meeting to take stock of the Chinese government’s move to start the project aimed at establishing a railway link to Nepal took place at South Block recently, sources told The Sunday Guardian. This project is being seen in India as China’s attempt to break New Delhi’s monopoly over Nepal, as India continues to be the only country through which Kathmandu carries out trade with various countries. “The meeting of Indian officials took into consideration this aspect of the project as well,” sources told The Sunday Guardian.
Sources said that China is also likely to seek permission for extending the railway from Kathmandu to Pokhara and Lumbini, which are near the Indian border. “China’s main objective is to use this project to somehow increase its presence and strength near the Indian border,’’ said sources. Diplomats here believe that China is trying to give a fillip to the project of rail link between Chinese and Nepalese regions after getting a green-signal from the new Prime Minister of Nepal, Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda, who is understood to be a pro-Beijing leader. According to sources, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar has asked the Indian embassy in Kathmandu to share every single update on the progress related to the project. “Indian envoys in Kathmandu have also spoken to their counterparts there with regard to the Chinese project, and tried to understand what the Prachanda government’s plan is all about regarding it,” sources added.
In fact, a day after the formation of the Communist government in Nepal, China sent a team of technical experts to Kathmandu to carry out the feasibility study of the Nepal-China cross-border railway line. This project was lying dormant due to technical challenges for a long time. “With a pro-China PM at the helm in Nepal, Beijing has expedited efforts to soon start work on this project and finish it,” says a diplomat. Six Chinese experts from the state-owned China Railway First Survey and Design
Institute Group visited Kathmandu on Tuesday. They made a study about the 170km (106-mile) Trans-Himalayan Tibet-Nepal railway. The project is part of Beijing’s transnational Belt and Road Initiative. It aims to link Gyirong county in southern Tibet to Nepalese capital Kathmandu.
A Chinese embassy spokesperson in Kathmandu issued a statement, terming it as a solid step forward to turn Nepal from a landlocked country to a land-linked country. China’s motive is to give Nepal a railway link for the trade for which it depends on India, and this is the message that the embassy official has given, said diplomats here. The project may have come as part of bilateral agreement between Beijing and Kathmandu, but India would definitely explain to Nepal about the debt risks of taking loans from China, sources said. Nepal must take a look at the case of the Chinese built-Hambantota port in Sri Lanka which was also a Belt and Road Project. It was leased to China for 99 years after Sri Lanka failed to pay up. Colombo is currently undergoing debt restructuring as it struggles to pay off its massive external debts, officials said. “This kind of China’s debt trap tricks need to be kept in mind before Nepal goes ahead with any joint project with Beijing,” officials said. “The EAM is planning to touch upon this issue when he meets Prime Minister Prahcanda and his Nepalese counterpart in the near future. A meeting is being planned on the earliest possible date,” a source said.