Gaurav Bhattarai

Nepal has already built a national consensus on not accepting loans to build Chinese railways and rather prioritise grants (Republica, 2019). Hence, debt trap doesn’t appear as a challenge in the context of Nepal-China railways. But, expressing suspicion over China’s flagship project, even the Unite...

What are the new markers of Nepal’s neutrality when Nepali leaders are redefining Nepal as a bridge between India and China?

Going beyond neighborhood will help free Nepal from clutches of geopolitical vulnerabilities and lessens our asymmetric dependence on neighbors

Fragile internal politics combined with complex geopolitics oblige every political leader in Nepal to try to appease India and China.

Equidistance indicates maneuvering of small states like Nepal while dealing with big powers like India and China

The train will bring cheap Chinese goods. But will we then send it back empty on its return leg?

BCIM will lessen Nepal’s dependence on India by giving it direct access to markets beyond India

Some Chinese scholars openly claim that Nepal’s strategic location provides an advantage to China

Nepal could join OBOR for the strategic purpose of asserting her sovereign rights and for enacting her policy of equidistance

There has in the past been no palpable shift in India’s larger Nepal policy even with government change in UP or Bihar