KATHMANDU, JUNE 27

Former foreign minister and Nepali Congress lawmaker Narayan Prakash Saud assailed the government for conducting risky foreign policy vis-à-vis neighbors and powerful countries.

Speaking during the special hour of the House of Representatives, Saud said the prime minister mentioned during China's Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs Sun Weidong's recent Nepal visit that the government could soon sign the Belt and Road Initiative agreement with China.

Stating that there had been no discussion with the opposition party on the BRI agreement, he said the way the government was dealing with neighbors and powerful countries had exposed Nepal's diplomatic capacity. The government had not consulted political parties, especially the opposition, on the level of talks it had been holding with the Chinese government on BRI.

He said foreign policy should be conducted on the basis of consensus among political parties. 'Prithvi Narayan Shah had called Nepal a yam between two boulders, which meant two inanimate stones and one animate yam which is dynamic,' Saud said and added that the way the government was conducting Nepal's foreign policy made Nepal a dynamite between two boulders. 'If dynamite between two boulders explodes, it can damage the two boulders but, in that case, the dynamite will cease to exist,' he added. Saud also assailed the government for recalling 11 Nepali ambassadors from foreign missions.

Another Nepali Congress lawmaker Rajendra Bajgain demanded that the government present the BRI agreement Nepal signed with China in Parliament. 'The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), sometimes referred to as the New Silk Road, is China's major strategic program. On May 12, 2017, Nepal and China signed an MoU on the BRI. Why has that framework document not been made public yet?'

He said BRI cannot be a competitive program against Millennium Challenge Corporation, a grant project because China had a plan to provide soft loans for BRI projects at the high-interest rate of 2 to 4 percent. 'The MCC was a grant, and it became a subject of parliamentary debate and was approved after a long tug-of-war. The BRI should also be a matter of parliamentary discussion,' he added.

'We want to hear the government's view on the BRI funding modality. Nepal is serving internal and external debts amounting to 50% of its GDP. A country serving nearly one and a half trillion in debt cannot bear more.' He said the World Bank and Asian Development Bank had been providing loans to Nepal at one percent or less interest rate. He said the country should not take loans from China. 'The loan period from the World Bank and ADB is 40/50 years. The situation is that we are borrowing from the World Bank and ADB at an annual interest rate of 0.50% to 1%. China's interest rate ranges from 2% to 4%. In this scenario, we will fall into a debt trap.'

The BRI needs to be read and understood because it has five declared objectives, among which two are Policy Harmonization & Coordination, Bajgain said while adding that the two objectives of policy harmonization and policy coordination in BRI were not good for Nepal. 'Policy Harmonization & Coordination means making the policies of different jurisdictions identical. How is this possible? We are not the same countries!'

'Two countries' policies cannot be similar,' he added.

Bajgain further stated, 'As far as we know, the BRI MoU mentions that the Implementation Plan document does not include a signature clause. How does the government intend to bypass the parliament and sign the BRI Implementation Plan?'

Saud said as the world was witnessing polarization from unipolarity to multipolarity, the world was witnessing conflicts in Europe, the Middle East, and the Asia Pacific region and there was a risk of Asia becoming embroiled in the conflict. At this juncture when we are supposed to adopt mature diplomacy and reliable conduct, we have recalled our ambassadors from 11 powerful countries, he added. He said the prime minister told the HoR that the government recalled Nepali ambassadors as they were appointed on the basis of political quota. Saud said that the government's move to recall ambassadors without any reason had diminished Nepal's credibility in the international community. Stating that new ambassadors were nominated by the government without any accepted criteria, he said one ambassadorial nominee declined the offer as he was not consulted prior to his nomination. Human rights activist Sushil Pyakurel, who was nominated ambassador to South Korea, declined the offer, saying he was not consulted prior to his nomination.

In an oblique reference to Rastriya Swatantra Party, Saud said that a political party had solicited applications from ambassadorial aspirants in the manner NGOs recruited their human resources and the move had undermined Nepal's prestige and diplomatic norms. He urged the government to withdraw its decision to recall Nepali ambassadors from foreign countries.