Nepal And China A Case Of Model Relationship

By Prof. Bishwa Pradhan

THE establishment of diplomatic relation between the Kingdom of Nepal and the People’s Republic of China in 1955 marks the beginning of a new era in their relationship. Previously, Nepal had formal relations with only four countries—United Kingdom, India, USA and France. In the wake of the Nepal’s plan for diversification of its foreign policy initiated by Late King Mahendra in mid-fifteen, China was the first country to formalies diplomatic relation with Nepal in 1955 which is being celebrated this year as the forty fifth anniversary of this notable event.

The mid-fifties were thus significant in the sense that since then the bilateral relations between Nepal and China were molded on a new footing. It was immediately followed by an agreement to develop friendly relations on trade and intercourse in September 20,1956 which was ratified on January 17, 1958 by both governments. These were the s starting points of the modern period of Nepal-China relations which Ipso-facto meant the flashpoints of the new epoch of bilateralism between the two countries.

At the very outset of this new ers of formal relationship, the official visits of prime ministers Tanka Prasad Acharya and B.P. Koirala in 1856 and 1960, and the state visit of King Mahendra in 1961 to China were the significant landmarks is laying the foundation of productive relations between the two countries. Likewise, the official visits of premier Chou En-Lai. Deng Ziao-Ping and other top Chinese leaders to Nepal served excellent opportunities to promote closer ties between Nepal and China. Those early years were very important in culminating the bilateral relations into a new height in the context of the changed situations and circumstances in consonance with the spirit of mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, non-interference, equality and mutual benefit. These were the fundamental principles which guided the Sino-Nepal relationship.

Like India, the Peoples’ Republic of China is our next-door neighbour. Like India, the geographic proximity socio-cultural contacts and economic linkages have made China close to us. There are plenty of opportunities to develope bilateral ties into a more broader framework through trade expantion, tourism and investment. Nepal can, at best, serve as entrepot to TAR of China by openning up additional Trans-Himalayan routes for inter-regional trade and commerce.

The Chinese cooperation to Nepal’s development effort has been loudly appreciated. Starting with a moderate grant-in-aid of IRs. 60 million in 1956 during Tanka Prasad Acharya’s visit to China, which was later augmented during to IRs. 100 million in 1960 at the time of prime minister Koirala’s visit were the nice gesture shown by the China. Since then, the area of co-operations extended to Nepal has been wide-ranging. The 114 km long Arniko Highway stretching right from Kathmandu to Kodari, built with the idea of linking Tibet Autonomous Region of China, was an important project necessiated from the point of view of enhancing commercial and cultural ties between the two countries. The Kathmandu-Bhaktapur Road, the Prithvi Highway, the Mugling-Narayanghat Road, the Majhuwa Khaireni-Gokrha Road, the Kathmandu Ring Road and the Kathmandu-Bhaktapur Trolley Bus System are the important projects in transportation area. In the industrial sector, the Bansbari Shoe and Leather Factory, Hetauda Textile Factory, Harisidhi Brick and Tile Factory, Bhrikuti Paper Mill and the Lumbini Sugar Mill are major projects. The Sunkoshi hydel plant and Pokhara water conservancy and irrigation project in the development of water resources in addition to the construction of international conference centre at Baneswar, City Hall, National Trading Complexes and the were housing facilities at Kathmandu and Birgunj, apart from BP Cancer Hospital, are the glaring evidence of Chinese help and assistance to Nepal.

One outstanding landmark of Nepal-China relations was the conclusion of 1414 km long Nepal-China boundry, agreement on the basis of scientific demarcation and delineation. It was during the visit of prime minister BP Koirala to China in 1960, the importance of regularising the boundary question was agreed; and a joint boundary committee was set up to go into the details of it and to prepare a boundary treaty which was consummated during the state visit of king Mahendra in 1961.

The Chinese aid projects were basic infrastructures of development which had immediate impact on the local economy. The terms and conditions of the Chinese aid were attractive as they were turn-key projects on a long term easy repayment basis. It was markedly differently from that of the aid giving pattern of other aid giving countries. The Chinese projects were completed in time and, the most interesting part was the deployment of Chinese technicians and experts in the projects with salaries made in local currency not exceding to that of Nepalese counterparts.

The quantum of Chinese aid thus started from a modest beginning in mid-fifteen steadily increased to such proportion that by the end of the sixties. China became the second largest donor country for Nepal. The Chinese aid programmes were so popular that it was without any string attached and had positive effect on the Nepalese economy.

For us China, like India, is very important; and, like India, it too significantly holds great importance in our foreign policy formulation and operational aspects. As we are so close to these two emerging world powers in Asia, we have every reasons to justify the maintenance of our correct and balanced relations with both of them. Basically, in this context, His Majesty King Birendra had broached the idea of making Nepal a land of peace in the shape of ZOP, in the true spirit of the noble doctrine of non-alignment and peaceful co-existence. It should be well remembered here that China was one of the first two countries which unequivocally had extended their support to ZOP.

China today is growing like a continental power and has acquired much added importance in world affairs. As a major power in the world centrally located in Asia, it undoubtedly holds a commanding position not only in the regional politics of South East Asia or South Asia but the whole world in general. Towards the Third World countries, China’s benign policy and specially on issues of peace, security and development, her involvement particularly has remained considerably important. This is well examplified by her actions and attitudes displayed towards the Third World countries. These were the reasons for the attachment of small Third World countries with the Chinese posture in international affairs.

So far as China’s attitude and behaviour toward Nepal is concerned, it was marked by a sense of positive out-look. She never resorted to the practice of interfering in the internal affairs of Nepal. She always remained a well-wisher and did extended, to whatever extent possible, cooperative help and assistance to the economic development of Nepal. Her attitude, to quote Gen. Padma Bahadur Khatri, former foreign minister, towards Nepal was "an example of correct international norms and practices-a correct norm of relationship between big and small power." Sino-Nepal relationship therefore portrays a strong evidence of it; and, in that no ideology came in the way of developing close and congenial relationship between Nepal and China.

Nepal’s support to the people’s Republic of China for its legitimate right to get into the United Nations as one of the five Veto powers in the early years and its views on Tibet as autonomous region of China and assurances of no hostile activities against China from the Nepalese soil have been taken as a sign of good gesture by the Government of China. In similar vein, China’s main interest in Nepal has been to see a prosperous and friendly independent sovereign state, friendly to both its neighbours, without falling into the spheres of influence of extraneous forces. China regards Nepal’s self-assertion to maintain friendly relations with all the countries of the world as an eloquent proof of its nationhood.

Nepal is an intermediate zone between South and Central Asia; and as such, she is destined to lead a life of peaceful zone as bequeathed by its great tradition and culture from time immemorial. This synchronistic character is the fundamental character behind the workings of Nepalese foreign policy and its solemn attitudes towards the regional countries and the world at large.

NGOs Hit The High Road

By Nadia Khauri-Dagher

INTERNATIONAL non-govern-mental organisations (NGOs) are having more and more influence on the policies of governments and international organisations, says Thomas Risse, who teaches international relations at Florence’s European University Institute. "They’re no longer protest movements by young people, but professional bodies. We can hardly do without their expertise now," he told the French economic daily Les Echos recently.

Tool

Eric Denici and Gilles Somm, writing in the French National Defence Review in December 1998, think "humanitarian action, hitherto a vehicle for development and aid, has now started to be a tool of economic and cultural influence."

NGOs have become ever-present participants in development and humanitarian aid, but people disagree about their relevance and their legitimacy. NGOs are nothing new of course. The International Committee of the Red Cross, today the world’s biggest NGO with 105 million members and 230 beneficiaries annually, was founded in 1863 and honoured with a Nobel Prize in 1901. Christian missions were building schools and clinics in the colonies at the same time. And in 1946 Europeans received the first parcels from the Cooperative for American Remittances to Europe (CARE).

Today, NGOs are springing up all over the place. In 1909, there were 176 international NGOs (defined as operating in at least three nations, with funding from several countries). By 1993, there were 29,999. In 1994, Oxford University Press reckoned there were 50,000 home-grown NGOs in the countries of the South. And "it’s impossible to say how many there are now because new ones are being set up every day," says Neda Ferrie, respon-sible for relations between UNESCO and NGOs.

The term NGO covers a range of organisations: international NGOs that also lobby for a cause - such a human rights (Amnesty International, more than one million members), the environment (Greenpeace, 2.7m), children (Save the Children), landmines (Handicap International)-local NGOs which serve a village or a neighbourhood, and a huge number of community organisations (of women, of Journalists), craft federations and trade unions, at local, national and international level.

"NGOs have long provided services in health and education, but this was usually by default rather than design, as governments in Africa and Asia lacked the resources to provide universal coverage," wrote Michael Edwards of Save the Children, and Prof. David Hulme of Manchester University (U.K.), in the journal World Development in 1996. Nowadays "NGOs are seen as a preferred channel for soical welfare and this is a fundamental change."

It is no coincidence that NGOs have taken off since the 1980s, which the World Bank calls "the lost decade." Structural adjustment programmes imposed on various countries have squeezed government social service budgets and free market polices have increased poverty and social exclusion in many parts of the world. In this context, the NGOs appeared as "stripped down organisations that could provide social services cheaply," says Jacques Bugnicourt, who heads ENDA, and NGO based in Senegal.

The 1980s also saw the spread and acceptance of notions such as sustainable, human and intergrated development involing local people and focusing on improving their lives.

Governments, like international organisations, worked more and more with local NGOs on projects ranging from urban waste management to digging a village well. The World Bank put out a "policy note" in 1981 to recommend the inclusion of NGOs in its projects.

The growing presence of NGOs at international United Nations conferences since the 1980s illustrates their desire to be recognised as "the voice of the people" and as participants, alongside national governments, in debating the burning issues of the day. From conferences on women (Mexico 1975, Nairobi 1985, Beijing, 1995) to population problems (Cairo, 1994) and the environment (Rio de Janeiro, 1992) and the environment (Rio de Janerio, 1992), the demands of NGOs have left their mark on major international documents agreed on by all parties. Air pollution, the shrinking ozone layer, female circumcision and child prostitution are some of the once-taboo issues that NGOs have managed to bring to the world’s attention and sometimes to inspire campaigns against.

So where does the recent criticism and doubts about these universally approved of "civil society" organisations come from? "The defenders of non profit organisations think they know best what is good for public welfare, and they want to impose their views on us," grumbles former Czech prime minister Vaclav Kalaus. "How represen-tative of local grassroots people are the NGIs?" asks Pranay Gupte, editor of the bi-monthly New York-based newspaper The Earth Times.

"They are often far from being ‘non-governmental’, as they claim," said the British weekly The Economist last January, because they get funding from govern-ments and international organisations.

As many experts note, Africa is in a bad way despite getting more NGO aid per capita than any other continent. And plugging gaps and salving wounds is not enough to escape the vicious circle of under-development.

Support for the NGOs can be taken by governments as a green light to pull out of the social services sector. "Much of the case for emphasising the role of NGOs rests on ideological grounds rather than empirical verification," said Edwards and Hulme.

The NGOs have nevertheless "managed to make human welfare the main yardstick of international intervention," notes Ramesh Thakur, the vice-rector of the United Nations University. And the internet has given them even greater scope for action. The massive mobilisation by NGOs in Seattle last November to protest agaisnt the World Trade Organisation, and in Washington in April against the International Monetary Fund, showed the world that they ahve become a real force to be reckoned with. They are certainly the only internationally-organised lobby against the free market policies that underpin globalisation. "We want fair trade, not free trade," the demonstrators shouted.

Campaign

The campaigns against hormone-fed beef, child labour, genetically-modified plants or cultural domination have won public support in both rich and poor countries. NGOs have been fighting silently for human dignity for the past 20,30, even 100 years. They now have the numbers and the weight to make themselves heard beyond a circle of militants, to the world at large.

UNESCO Sources Commercialisation Of Education

By BT

IN RECENT years, nothing is so commercialised in Nepal in an unwanted manner than education. Now it has become quite clear in the public that the embracing of the 10+2 system of higher education was actually a major step towards commer-cialisation of education. The new mode will go to the free market fully once the proposed scrapping of the Certificate Level from all campuses comes into place.

Launching of the ten plus two model was stated to be a move towards getting at par with the international standard of education. It is not known whether the international norm is to educate only those who are well off, but the new system is bound to do so in Nepal. Education, that had to be made easily accessible to all, has now become a commercial commodity unaffordable for the larger chunk of the populace. One wonders whether the unpre-cedented commer-cialisation is being applied as a remedy to the increasing volume of educated un-employment getting difficult to cope with.

If the government has something to perform as its duty at all, it is the education, health, daily consumer’s necessities and infrastructure. When the government takes care of these vital sectors, only then it can leave other sectors to the hands of free market. What is actually happening is that these basic sectors are being insensitively transferred into the cruel hands of market. Fair price food depots that served the needs to people residing in remote corners have disappeared in the lame assumption that free market will reach those outlying places and cater the helpless hungry. Negligent number and facility of government hospitals and other health institutions have given birth to mushrooming private nursing homes and clinics. These health facilities deliver first class services, but how may people can afford to go to them is a critical question.

In education front, there is no mechanism to uplift the downtrodden with the light of learning. Their lot is to remain where they are forever. Darwinian model as a scholar has put it, rules the roost. Survival of the richest is today’s value. In such a model, weak and backward ones are never rising up from the gutter. The authority is a mute spectator to the widening gulf between the haves and have nots.

It is the admission time. Media is flooded with catchy ads of 10+2 colleges than any other sectors. The volume of ads aired and printed tells us how fast these private institutions have mushroomed. They trumpet of this and that packages and offers to appear more attractive than the other. They seem to entice anyone but those who have no money. "Don’t worry if you have poor percentage in SLC," says one higher secondary school ad. Others talk of freeships to excellent SLC performers, scholarships abroad and so on. They boast of facilities of transportation, libraries, labs and even the area the school premises has occupied. These commercial baits are necessary when education is turned into a marketable commodity.

Education is becoming more expensive and inaccessible. The govern-ment wants to be less involved in delivery of public education. Slowly, education (market) is coming under control of private hands. Quality of education at government institutions is ever degrading. This creates a vast chasm between public and private education. Top bosses who design curricula and textbooks for govern-ment schools send their children somewhere else.

Until and unless good education becomes available to all, societies cannot advance. Education is something that should be the right of those who are left without resources, ideas and infrastructure. Here, the government has still a big supporting role to play. Poverty is the obstacle to development. Access to education is the key to fight poverty. So, leaving education in the market will not solve the problem.