BRI In Spotlight Once Again

As Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda told the parliament that the government would soon sign an agreement on implementing the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), lawmakers started to speak for and against China’s 1 trillion dollar global project. Main opposition Nepali Congress (NC) lawmakers have again invoked debt trap theory, arguing that the country would fall into the trap of Chinese loans if the BRI projects came into execution. They insisted on taking grants, instead of loans, for the purpose. On the other, a lawmaker from Rastriya Janamorcha, Chitra Bahadur KC, said that by protesting the BRI, they were bolstering Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) to make Nepal an anti-China base of USA. Interestingly, lawmakers from three ruling communist parties – CPN-UML, CPN-Maoist Centre and CPN-Unified Socialist – kept mum about the fierce debate on the BRI in the House of Representatives (HoR).