BRI: What’s the plan?

More than a specific initiative, this is a question of how Nepal balances its strategic interests.

Seven years after Nepal signed up to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s signature Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), there is still no clarity on what being its part means for Nepal. Most recently, meeting in Beijing, Foreign Minister Narayan Kaji Shrestha and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi agreed to ‘very soon’ sign the ‘BRI implementation plan’. Chinese officials say signing it is a prerequisite for economic cooperation with Nepal as well as for executing the projects China has already committed to. As the plan is yet to be made public, it is hard to make definite comments on it. Some believe there is no need for a separate plan for execution of agreed and planned projects. The best course of action would be to take the 2017 BRI framework agreement as well as the recent implementation plan to the sovereign Parliament, and let it settle them once and for all. This was also what happened with the Millennium Challenge Corporation-Nepal compact in 2022 after it attracted much controversy.