Image: Reuters
A NEW international airport rises near the city of Pokhara, its modern terminals and long runway carved from the Himalayan foothills. Funded and built by China, it is a gleaming white elephant. Few commercial flights use it; international aviation authorities question its construction standards. For Nepal’s government, however, the airport stands for more than flights: it represents a new and dangerous strategic reality. Sandwiched between Asia’s giants, this small republic is learning to play the great powers against each other. The lessons are as old as the mountains that define its borders.
Nepal’s geopolitical balancing act predates its existence as a modern nation. For centuries, its kings manoeuvred between the Qing emperors in Beijing and the British Raj in Delhi. Treaties were signed, tribute was paid and high-altitude trade routes thrived. The core dynamic remains unchanged, though the players have changed. The end of British rule in India left Nepal nestled between a democratic India and a newly communist China. The Chinese annexation of Tibet in 1950 turned a porous frontier into a fortified border. Suddenly, Kathmandu had a powerful, wary neighbour to the north, obsessed with controlling its Himalayan periphery.
China’s primary interest is stability in Tibet. It views Nepal as a potential leak in the fence, a haven for exiled Tibetans and a channel for dissent. Securing the border is its non-negotiable priority. For Nepal, the relationship offers a chance to escape the overwhelming influence of India, which dominates its trade, provides employment for millions of its migrant labourers and, until recently, controlled its access to the sea. A tilt towards Beijing gives Kathmandu leverage. This was made clear in 2015, when a dispute with India led to a months-long border blockade, causing severe fuel and medicine shortages. The event was a political trauma that convinced Nepali leaders of the urgent need for alternatives.
China was happy to provide them. Its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) promised a trans-Himalayan network of roads, railways and ports. Although many projects remain on paper, the physical and diplomatic inroads are real. China is now the largest source of foreign investment pledges. It has built highways and dry ports, and secured access for Nepali goods to Chinese seaports, breaking India’s monopoly on transit. The relationship is not between equals. Nepal runs a big trade deficit with China, importing far more than it exports. A Chinese decision last year to eliminate tariffs on Nepali goods is a generous gesture, but Nepal has little to sell that China needs.
The geopolitical courtship extends beyond economics. Nepal reliably supports China at the United Nations, voting against discussions on its treatment of minorities in Xinjiang and supporting Beijing’s Hong Kong security law, widely seen as curbing the city’s political freedoms. In return, Kathmandu quietly polices its Tibetan refugee community, restricting protests and symbols linked to the Dalai Lama. This diplomatic bargain is managed with care. Nepali politicians, whether from left-leaning or centrist parties, all profess a policy of non-alignment. In practice this means a delicate oscillation: leaning towards India for migration and open borders, and towards China for infrastructure and diplomatic cover.
India watches this dance with unease. It still views Nepal as within its natural sphere of influence, linked by culture, kinship and commerce. Over a million Nepalis live and work in India. India remains the dominant partner in trade and energy. Yet it can no longer take Nepal’s compliance for granted. The growing Chinese presence, from cellphone networks to proposed railways, challenges a long-standing status quo. The competition is rarely overt. It manifests in aid packages, development projects and political outreach to Kathmandu’s fractious parties.
The risks for Nepal are huge. The much-discussed railway from Lhasa to Kathmandu (a symbol of Himalayan connectivity) would be an engineering marvel of dubious economic value, threatening to bury the country in debt. There are more immediate frictions. Reports persist of Chinese encroachments across the poorly demarcated northern border, which the government in Kathmandu is reluctant to confront. The promise of Chinese investment is often undercut by the reality of small, fragmented projects that do little to build local capacity.
Nepal’s strategy is one of survival (rather than ambition). It seeks not to pick a winner between its neighbours, but to ensure neither can dominate it completely. The Pokhara airport, for all its impracticality, is a token in this game: a physical manifestation of an alternative future. The kingdom of old is gone, but the buffer state endures, now recast as a democratic republic navigating the ambitions of two rising powers. Its success will depend on accepting enough help from both to develop, but not so much from either that it loses the power to say no. In the high Himalayas, the air is thin and the footing is treacherous. ■