Quadrilateral Corridor under B&R?

By Hari P. Chand

China's Belt and Road Initiative aims to build a trade and infrastructure network linking Asia with Europe and Africa along the ancient trade routes, with the ultimate goal of connecting remote economies and driving prosperity.

Photo taken on Aug. 10, 2016, shows the "China-Nepal-India Economic Corridor: Feasibility and Approaches" workshop in Kathmandu, Nepal. The establishment of a China-Nepal-India economic corridor will help secure economic prosperity of the entire Asian region through enhancing cooperation on trade, tourism, energy and connectivity, experts said here on Wednesday. [Photo: Xinhua]

The Belt and Road is a major pillar of China's going global policy, introduced by Chinese president Xi Jinping in September 2013 in Kazakhstan and in October 2013. Realizing this initiative is the core objective of building the "Community of Common Destiny" among countries in Eurasia and beyond.

Most of the developing states believe that it will reshape the western 'win-lose' trade patterns, to build a non-western model founded on win-win sustainable economic prosperity for all stakeholders involved in the Belt and Road project. Opening markets, exporting overcapacity, generating employment, reducing regional inequalities, promoting political stability and security through prosperity are the overall objectives of the Belt and Road. 

To achieve those objectives, China has conceptualized six major corridors, namely: a) the New Eurasia Land Bridge, b) China-Mongolia-Russia, c) China-Central Asia-West Asia, d) China-Indochina Peninsula, e) China-Pakistan (CPEC), and f) Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar (BCIM). Out of the six major corridors, two belong to South Asia, showing the importance of South Asian countries to China.

Despite being a very close, friendly and neighboring country of China, Nepal still remains outside any of the afore mentioned corridors. The situation begs the question how China's peripheral diplomacy can be interlinked with the realpolitik of the Belt and Road. How has it been possible for Nepal neither to join the BCIM nor to be involved in the CPEC.

In redress this situation, a Nepal-China economic corridor has been proposed under the Belt and Road initiative. China-Nepal-India trilateral cooperation is another proposed corridor, however because of India's disapproval, trilateral cooperation has been limited to a bilateral corridor so far.

Nepal has already been involved in the Belt and Road following a Memorandum of Understanding signed on May 12, 2017. According to a news release issued by the Nepali Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the MoU is aimed at promoting cooperation to promote connectivity of facilities, trade connectivity, financial integration and connectivity of people. The content of the MoU placed emphasis facilitating connectivity between the two countries. A rail link, road links and air links are the anticipated outcome of the connectivity.

Once China's rail link arrives at Nepal's border, it is widely anticipated by both sides that that rail link will be extended to Kathmandu, Pokhara and Lumbini. Meanwhile, talks are underway with India aimed at building rail links up to Lumbini and finally on to Kathmandu from the southern border of Nepal. If China extends the rail links up to Lumbini and if India supports the construction of rail links up to Kathmandu from the southern border, trilateral cooperation would definitely take place from that point on, regardless of India's disapproval. India would be unable to deny the development of a trilateral corridor i.e. China-India-Nepal Economic Corridor.

On the other hand, the shortest distance between Nepal and Bangaladesh is just 27 KM. In 1976, a transit agreement was made between Nepal and Bangaladesh however; even after 41 years, it is still not effective. Nepal's former Prime Minister, KP Oli, expressed the belief that bilateral trade between Nepal and Bangladesh would be strengthened after the operation of the Singhbad-Rohalpur and Phulbari-Banglabanda routes as it was agreed with India during his India visit in 2016.

According to Bangladesh's Information and Communication Minister, Hasanul Haq Inu, more than 27,000 Bangladeshi tourists visit Nepal each year and almost 2,000 Nepali students go to Bangladesh to study medicine each year. During his visit Nepal in 2016, Mr. Inu said to Mr. Oli that the Bangladeshi government was interested in further consolidating relations between both the two countries at the public level.

India has agreed to provide a land transit facility to Nepal through the Rohalpur-Singhbadh broad-gauge railway line to Birgunj dry port and the Kakarvitta-Fulbari-Banglabandha route. Bangladesh has also allowed the use of both of her sea ports (Chittagong and Mongla) by Nepal. If Nepal utilized these trade promotion facilities, her trade relations would be enhanced significantly.

If Nepal made diplomatic moves to make effective use of the transit agreement with Bangladesh and to renovate the afore mentioned routes in trilateral cooperation among Nepal, India and Bangladesh, Nepal would be able to directly access Bangladesh's sea ports. On the other hand, if rail links from the southern and northern border of Nepal became possible, pragmatically, the trilateral cooperation initiated through the bilateral deal between China and Nepal, will be shifted towards a Quadrilateral Corridor i.e. China-Nepal-India-Bangladesh (CNIB) Economic corridor under Belt and Road which is quite a new debate.

-The Author is Kathmandu based foreign policy analyst and Asst. Professor and researcher at Kathmandu School of Law