Prosecutors try to link alleged bribes of Sen. Bob Menendez to appointment of federal prosecutor Oil City Derrick
Day: June 18, 2024
You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who would deny that we are living through an age of staggering cultural change, and that has as one of its more salient features a generalized decline in human attentional capacities, as well as individual and collective memories.;
Whether this change is environmentally induced by, for example, the enormous and historically unprecedented amount of information available to each of us on a daily basis, or the increasingly disembodied way in which that same information is dispensed and consumed, I cannot be sure.
What I do know, however, is that the tandem of attention and memory (the former is the obligatory precondition for the activation of the latter) are among the most basic and important cognitive functions we have as human beings. This is why both of these elements of our minds have been the object of constant speculation among philosophers for centuries. And without them, as anyone who has lived with a loved one with Alzheimer’s knows, our individuality and our core identities rapidly dissipate.;
Cultural institutions are the place where our individual experiences of the past are melded into something approaching a collective historical heritage. At least that’s what we are often told.;
It would probably be more accurate to say that cultural institutions are places where empowered elites choose from among the fragments of memory extant in the broad national or religious cultural field and package them into compelling and coherent-sounding narratives. These narratives are then effectively “sold back” to the people as their groups’ precious collective heritage.;
This, of course, places an enormous burden of responsibility on those who lead and staff our cultural institutions as they must simultaneously preserve the collective heritage that the non-elites have come to depend upon psychologically to bring a sense of order to their existence, while at the same time updating that same narrative to keep it compelling.;
What they absolutely cannot do if they are sincere about the preservation of the collective in which they have been given a leading role is demonstrate open disdain for the;very ideas of attention and memory;in the daily rituals of the collective. Doing so would be like having an architect openly disdain the idea of structural integrity when explaining the ins and outs of his design to a client.;
Yet, this is exactly what the unquestioned head of one of Western culture’s most important and enduring;social institutions did the other day in Rome. In an appearance in St. Peter’s Square, the Pope said:;
Homilies should be brief. An image, a thought and a sentiment. A homily should not last longer than eight minutes, because after this attention is lost and people fall asleep. And they are right in doing so. A homily should be like this—and I want to say this to the priests that talk so much and so often that you can’t understand what is being said. A brief homily. A thought, a sentiment and an element of action, of how to do something. No more than eight minutes because the homily should help to transfer the word of God from the book to life.
Leaving aside the well-documented fact this same Pope has been known to talk for well more than eight minutes when given the floor, think of the subliminal message he is sending to his flock. It goes something like this.;
While I know one of my jobs as a spiritual leader is to encourage you to elevate yourself and discover the enormous capacities that God has given you but that so often remain untapped inside you, I’m not even going to make an effort at doing that. Awakening you to the better angels of your nature by encouraging you to redouble your efforts to be attentive to the wonderful and often hidden wonders of the world around you, well, that’s just too hard. And besides, if I tasked you with trying to do this, it might upset you and make you like me less.;
I know you’re all distracted and there’s nothing I care to do about that, so I’ll pander to you and your disengaged state. In fact I’ll tell you that you are right to be inattentive and that the real problem lies not with your own spiritual and intellectual passivity, but with my own priests, the backbone of the organization I lead, who I am charged with supporting, but am now throwing under the bus. Oh, and you know that passage from the gospels where the disciples fall asleep when Jesus asked them to pray with him in the garden of Gethsemane on the eve of his crucifixion? Well, the responsibility for their snoozing was not, as you might have been told, on them and their inability to be attentive, but on Big J for not providing them with enough stimulation to keep them awake.;
In 1930, Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset, an extraordinarily prescient analyst of contemporary Western culture, published;The Revolt of the Masses; (La rebelión de las masas). In it, he harshly criticizes the triumph of what he calls the “mass-man” in European culture. Superficial readers, often imbued with a Marxian understanding of society, have often portrayed the text as a screed against the lower classes.;
It is nothing of the sort.;
Rather it is an exploration of the effects of the industrialization, urbanization, and abundant material comfort on the psychology of contemporary Europeans. While the mass-man could very well come from the lower strata of society, he could just as easily be found in the boardroom or the surgical ward.;
What distinguishes him from most people in earlier times, and the minority of “noble” thinkers of his own (nobility understood here as the ability to fearlessly ask new questions and embark on the arduous path of seeking solutions to them), is his combination of self-satisfaction, incuriosity, and generalized disdain for how the labor and sacrifices of people in the past has allowed him to live the life he leads.;
Largely bereft of wonder, reverence, and memory he turns life into a long presentist tournament of going-along-to-get-along in which the highest goal is to avoid conflict or anything else he deems might imperil his enormous sense of psychological and material comfort.;
As the head of an enormously diverse organization with a very long and rich history, the last thing a Pope can afford to be is a “mass-man.” But this one, like so many of the political figures of our times we falsely call leaders, is exactly that, a person clearly unaware and perhaps frankly unable to understand that his job as the custodian of a millenary institution is not to please his flock or make things easy on them, but rather ennoble them (in the Orteguian sense) by encouraging them to be deeply attentive to the world around them and to become conscious of the reality of own existence in the light of accumulated history.;
In this sense, he is sadly, also very much a man of his time, devoted to what—if you do a Google search for the term—you will clearly see is the core goal of our empowered elites: the creation of a “culture of compliance.”
In an;earlier essay, I explored the effects that our culturally generated conceptions of time can have on our social and moral comportments and suggested that our largely unconscious embrace of the concept of linear time, and its corollary of inevitable progress, had made it difficult for our elite classes to acknowledge the possibility that not all the innovations they bestow on us might be useful or moral.;
Another important effect of the ideology of inevitable linear progress that I did not address, and that Ortega touches on obliquely in the;Revolt of the Masses;is its enormous ability to induce spiritual and social passivity in a broad swath of our society.;
Who among us has not listened to a lament from someone about the loss of important affective and human elements from their lives only to end the story with some variety of the following: “But that’s the way the world’s going and I guess there is nothing much I can do about it.”;
Put another way, once “history” is anthropomorphized and credited with having an unambiguous “direction” that in the end always tips toward human betterment, what am I? What is my radius of volition and action?;
The answer, of course, is very little, something akin to the amount of directional protagonism possessed by a passenger seated on a speeding train.;
Is that really the life role we wish to accept and play? Dare we consider whether the doctrines of linear time and inexorable progress might, in fact, just be the latest in a long line of “religious” doctrines designed to guarantee our docility before centers of accumulated social power?;
If the present Pope is representative of those currently presiding in those precincts of power, and sadly I think he is, then it’s probably best not to waste our time in seeking their counsel in these matters.;
Like it or not, those of us who want something more out of life than a pre-programmed journey to volitional impotence are on our own. And the way we do or do not come together to forge more human and dignified ways of living will determine our fate.
- This article was published at Brownstone Institute
By William Chislett
The Spanish economy is performing relatively well. It grew 0.7% in the first quarter year-on-year, more than double the EU average. The number of social-security contributors surpassed 21 million in May for the first time, underscoring more robust job creation. International tourist arrivals surged 14.5% in the first four months to almost 24 million, putting the country on track for a record 100 million for the whole year. Meanwhile the current account is in surplus. The unemployment rate, however, remains more than double the EU average (see Figure 1).
Figure 1. Main economic indicators 2020-23 and forecasts for 2024
| 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gross domestic product | -11.2 | 6.4 | 5.8 | 2.5 | 2.4 |
| Headline inflation (average) | -0.3 | 3.0 | 8.3 | 3.4 | 2.9 |
| Unemployment rate (%) | 15.5 | 14.9 | 13.0 | 12.2 | 11.8 |
| Current account (% of GDP) | 0.6 | 0.8 | 0.6 | 2.6 | 2.6 |
| Fiscal balance (% of GDP) | -10.1 | -6.7 | -4.7 | -3.6 | -3.0 |
| Public debt (% of GDP) | 120.3 | 116.8 | 111.6 | 107.7 | 105.6 |
Source: IMF.
A worrying development is that Spain has stopped steadily converging with the rest of the EU since;the 2007-08 global financial crisis. The current gap is 15 percentage points (pp) in GDP per capita (EU = 100; Spain = 85). The Bank of Spain’s governor, Pablo Hernández de Cos, who left the post this month after a six-year term,;attributes;the lack of convergence to sluggish productivity and the low employment rate (65.9% of the working-age population was employed at the end of 2023, 4.5 pp below the euro-zone average). Productivity per hour worked has stayed between 10% and 15% below that of the euro area since 2008 (see Figure 2).
Figure 2. Spain’s scant convergence with the euro zone
Notes: flash estimates for 2023; per capita income: Spain’s GDP per capita vis-à-vis the 19 euro-area countries expressed in current prices and purchasing power parity; employment rate: total employment divided by working age population, aged 15 to 64; the line shows the ratio of Spain to the euro area; productivity per hour worked: GDP per capita divided by total number of hours worked; the line shows the ratio of Spain to the euro area. Source: Eurostat.
These problems are, in turn, linked to four;longstanding structural challenges: business size and demographics; human capital; physical and technological capital and innovation; and the institutional framework. The corporate sector has a high share of small companies that tend to be less productive; the educational attainment level remains below the EU average; innovative firms are relatively few and R&D spending (1.4% of GDP) is low; and the quality of institutions and of economic agents’ trust in them has declined.
The technological shift, as a result of a greater use of robotics and developments in artificial intelligence, should increase productivity but at the cost of increased unemployment in some sectors and occupations. The OECD estimates 28% of employment in Spain is in jobs at high-risk of automation. This shift is happening at a time when the working population is ageing, due to the declining birth rate, one of the EU’s lowest, and greater life expectancy, the bloc’s highest. This too is impacting productivity. The average employee age so far this century has risen by six years to 43.5.
On the labour market front, says Hernández de Cos, policies are needed to improve employability, particularly for older workers affected by technological change; unemployment benefits should provide sufficient protection without deterring job-seeking; and collective bargaining requires some degree of flexibility to enable employment conditions (including working hours) to adapt to firms’ individual circumstances. The last labour reform reduced the flexibility.
As regards public finances, the fiscal deficit and high public debt make Spain more vulnerable to external shocks. When the global financial crisis was brewing in 2007, Spain had a fiscal surplus, for the third year running, of 2% of GDP and public debt stood at 35.5% of GDP compared with the euro zone average of 66%. Last year saw a fiscal deficit of 3.6% of GDP, down from 10.1% in 2020 when there were exceptional;COVID pandemicmeasures, while debt stood at 107.7% of GDP (with a euro-zone average 88.6%). On the revenue side, the tax system needs an overhaul and spending needs to be made more efficient. The rapid ageing of the population is causing pension expenditure to rise significantly. Analysis of the pension reforms in 2021 and 2023 points to greater long-term spending obligations not being fully offset by revenues. The reforms allow for an escape clause to be activated if the system is out of kilter, but correcting an imbalance solely by raising social security contributions would hit employment.
The impact of NextGenerationEU funds, of which Spain is the second-biggest beneficiary (€77.2 billion in grants, up to €83.2billion in loans and €2.6 billion of RePowerEU) after Italy, is beginning to be felt, albeit more slowly than hoped for as investments are taking longer than expected. Disbursement of the funds is conditional on implementing reforms, such as in pensions, where the jury is out on whether the measures are sufficient.
Hernández de Cos also weighs in on the growing problem of affordable housing for young adults, pointing out that Spain is the EU country with the highest percentage of tenants at risk of poverty or social exclusion (an average of 27.6% since 2014, the highest in the EU). The rise in the population of more than 8 million since 2000 has far outpaced the increase in the housing stock, particularly the rental segment. The stock of social rental dwellings (a paltry 1% of the total housing stock) is almost the lowest among the 38 OECD countries. In the Netherlands it is 35%. The proportion of homes owned by those under 35 dropped from 15% in 2002 to 7% in 2022.
Lastly, following a deep crisis in 2008-14, the banking sector is more financially sound and profitable thanks to a more rigorous regulatory framework, and the ratio of non-performing loans (NPLs) to total loans is low at around 3%. The governor’s remarks were followed by the;IMF’s annual assessment of Spain’s financial system;which said it has shown resilience against shocks but needed to improve solvency buffers that are lower than European peers on a risk-weighted basis.
Hernández de Cos took over as governor in 2018 when Spain had emerged from the devastating impact of the global financial crisis and the bursting of its massive real-estate bubble, which saw the jobless rate reach 27% in 2013, the collapse of many banks and companies and political fragmentation and polarisation. The economy then took a big hit from the COVID pandemic in 2020 when growth plunged 11.2%, the steepest fall in the EU, and did not recover the 2019 level of output until the second quarter of 2023. Inflation returned with a vengeance in 2022 (at 8.4%).
Under Hernández de Cos’s stewardship the Bank of Spain has modernised internally, becoming notably more transparent and independent in presenting its views, based on rigorous research, and dissenting at times from the government’s policies. Hernández de Cos is widely seen as the most effective governor since Luis Ángel Rojo, who held the post between 1992 and 2000. Like Hernández de Cos, Rojo had headed the research department.
Normally the new governor is known when the outgoing one leaves, but this is not the case this time around. Under an unwritten pact, the government, which is Socialist, chooses the governor and the main opposition party, the Popular Party (PP), the deputy governor. This was not so in 2006 when the then Socialist government went ahead and appointed Miguel Ángel Fernández Ordóñez, a leading member of the economic team of two Socialist governments, without the consent of the PP, which rejected him because he was a politician.
As a result of the dispute, the government also appointed the deputy governor. This time the government is offering the PP a pact if it agrees to help renew the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), which makes judicial appointments and oversees the system and whose five-year mandate expired in December 2018. Its members were appointed during the last PP government. All 20 Council members are chosen by a qualified majority of parliament (requiring agreement between the two main parties).
Hernández de Cos repeatedly called for cross-party consensus for the reforms that Spain needs, though it always fell on deaf ears. He will be a hard act to follow; it would be fitting if, when deciding who will be his successor, his call is heeded and even better if the CGPJ is also renewed by consensus after a disgracefully long saga.
- About the author: William Chislett (Oxford, 1951) is Emeritus Senior Research Fellow at the Elcano Royal Institute. He covered Spain’s transition to democracy for The Times of London between 1975 and 1978. He was then based in Mexico City for the Financial Times between 1978 and 1984. He returned to Madrid on a permanent basis in 1986 and since then, among other things, has written 20 books on various countries.
- Source: This article was published by Elcano Royal Institute
By Seth Hays and Morgan Hughes
The regulatory drive to encourage businesses to adhere to environmental and human rights standards in their global supply chain operations was exemplified by the European Council’s March 2024;approval;of the;Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive. The approval was;followed by;the 2024 United States Government’s National Action Plan on Responsible Business Conduct.;
These rules and action plans will most likely impact the Asia Pacific due to European and US businesses’ deep supply chain integration in the region.;
A raft of guidelines and voluntary best practices have existed for years, such as the OECD’s Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Business and the United Nation’s Business and Human Rights Guidelines. Multilateral discussions at the United Nations on best practices are ongoing, most recently at the 37th session of the Working Group on the Issue of Human Rights and Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises. Cross-sectoral and geographically diverse stakeholders continue to convene around the world, including at the 13th United Nations Forum on Business and Human Rights to be held in November 2024.
While the United Nation’s efforts are notable, other multilateral activity and developments in ‘soft law’ evidence the growing attention paid to the nexus between business and human rights. Trade agreements in Asia — such as the;Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership;(CPTPP) — contain obligations to address labour rights violations. Chapter 19 of the CPTPP obliges member states to affirm their commitments to the 1998 International Labour Organization Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. The commitments include allowing freedom of association and collective bargaining. The chapter also promotes initiatives to reduce forced labour, child labour, and discrimination in employment and occupation.;
The evolution of binding ‘hard law’ shows that compliance with the rules governing businesses and human rights is moving from ‘good to have’ to ‘must have’. Examples of this shift include the;2021 US;Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act,;which addresses a form of infringement of rights in a specific country, and Germany’s more broadly applicable 2023;Supply Chain Due Diligence Act.
Within the ecosystem of firms and non-profits that assist businesses in navigating these rules, international business associations seek to bridge the gap between commerce and rights advocacy.
Though business associations are non-profits, they represent the interests of their for-profit members. But their diverse corporate memberships empower them to assess the impacts of due diligence and supply chain rules across industries, identify industry-wide problems with due diligence reporting on rights and engage both host governments in Asia and home governments in the West. This is especially useful when individual companies may not be politically positioned to advance discussions on human or environmental rights.
The COVID-19 pandemic saw rapid policymaking embolden many infringements of rights. International business associations played a significant role in Asia during the crisis as force multipliers, ‘matchmakers’, fundraisers and lobbyists for rights-based principles, according to a;survey;conducted by non-profit management consultancy;APAC GATES.
The research found that business associations active in Asia during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic advocated for human rights where business interests aligned with rights-based principles such as access to information, freedom of movement, equal treatment and non-discrimination. Some associations undertook even greater social and public interest roles in organising the distribution of personal protective equipment and matchmaking civil society needs with the resources of member businesses. They occasionally collaborated with national human rights committees and lobbied local governments over policies relating to internet access and access to medical treatment.
Businesses have long self-regulated using strategies aligned with the concepts of corporate social responsibility (CSR), ESG and ethical financing to maximise their social impacts. Leading enterprises such as OpenAI have chosen to incorporate as non-profits or accredit themselves under standards such as the B Corp certification to signal to stakeholders their commitments to public interest principles.
Business associations can play a vital role in advocating for and supporting international businesses in Asia and those bound to adhere to US and EU laws as their rights-based obligations become increasingly fundamental to strategic and operational decisions. They can also ensure that politically motivated or superficial ‘rightswashing’ — the deceptive promotion of a business’s social responsibility — is identified and avoided.
Important advocacy is already underway in relation to the EU;Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive;(CSDDD). In June, the European Business Organisation Worldwide Network — a group of 54 European Chambers of Commerce — issued a;white paper;to the European Union identifying practical challenges in complying with the Directive. For example, one chamber noted that in China national security laws may make due diligence impractical or impossible legally and emphasized that it’s provisions ‘must also be commercially viable to ensure that the CSDDD does not become unenforceable…contrary to the [European Union’s] aims of advancing human rights and responsible environmental stewardship’.;
Beyond direct advocacy to governments, there is room for improvement in the communication and collaboration between civil society organisations (CSOs) and business associations’ corporate members. Business associations across the Indo-Pacific should establish a platform and forum for their respective CSR committees to convene regularly. This would enable them to more effectively review the impacts of certain laws and would also allow for improved sharing and aligning of their views on best practices, allocating resources and publicising the value of these efforts.;
An example of how a business association is actively collaborating to uphold rights in supply chains is the EuroCham Cambodia’s;Responsible Business Hub. This initiative is a help desk which provides support for local businesses in Cambodia to mitigate negative social and environmental impacts in the country’s export supply chain — in particular the garment and textile industries. In addition to education, the Hub provides business actors with toolkits, education and research on a range of issues, from child rights impact assessment for mobile operators to feasibility studies on fabric recycling.;
As international businesses increasingly focus on their supply chains’ impacts on human rights and the environment, CSOs should consider establishing constructive advocacy channels with international business associations representing these enterprises.
It is essential for enterprises, CSOs, and associations in Asia to actively participate in shaping the rules directly implicating both human rights and business in order to successfully bridge the commerce and rights advocacy gap.
About the authors:
- Seth Hays is a lawyer and co-founder of non-profit management consultancy APAC GATES.
- Morgan Hughes is Director of Research at and co-founder of APAC GATES.
Source: This article was published at East Asia Forum and draws upon the APAC GATES report Bridging Commerce and Rights Advocacy: International Business Associations in the Indo-Pacific and How They Engaged on Behalf of Human Rights Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic.
By Hari Bansh Jha
China, which has been nurturing unity among the left political parties in Nepal, seems highly satisfied with Nepal’s new political dispensation. In 2018, it not only played a crucial role in uniting the CPN-UML led by KP Sharma Oli and Maoist Centre leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal, but it also facilitated the merger between the two parties, which was renamed the Nepal Communist Party (NCP).
However, the unity between the two parties could not last long because just within three years the two erstwhile parties, i.e. the CPN-UML and the Maoist Centre were separated due to the intervention made by Nepal’s Supreme Court. On 4 March this year, Beijing again successfully brought the CPN-UML and the Maoist Centre together and enabled them to form a new coalition government. In this effort, the Maoist Centre had to sever its 15-month-long alliance with the Nepali Congress, the single largest party in Nepal, and form a new government with the CPN-UML that had withdrawn its support to Dahal in February 2023.
To woo Nepal, China;reopened;all 14 trade points with Nepal, including the Kimathanka transit point in Sankhuwasabha district for trade with Nepal. Those border points were lying closed for nearly four years following the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020. The Nepalese traders, seasonal workers and border inhabitants living in the northern part of Nepal were affected most due to the closure of the border. Most of the border inhabitants living in Nepal’s northern region are largely dependent on the market across the border in China to meet the daily necessities of life. Commenting on this development, Chen Song, Chinese ambassador to Nepal;observed, “That will greatly boost cross-border trade and improve residents’ livelihoods and connectivity.”
In Nepal, China happens to be the largest source of;FDI. Chinese FDI in Nepal include projects like;Hongshi Shivam Cement,; Pokhara International Airport, Upper Trishuli hydropower project, and West Seti Dam. Several small shops have also been opened by Chinese investors in major tourist hubs in Nepal, including Thamel in Kathmandu and Pokhara to attract Chinese tourists. Recently, Nepal signed two memorandum of understanding (MoU) with this country on the occasion of the Third Investment Summit of Nepal Nepal (28-29 April). The first MoU was signed between Next-Gen Management Solutions Pvt Ltd of Nepal with MABC Investment Pvt Ltd of China; while the second MoU was signed between the Federation of Nepalese Industry and Commerce (FNIC) of Nepal and the Dongguan Jingliang Lighting Product Company Ltd. of China.;
In the meantime, the Tibet Autonomous Regions of China assured Nepal that it would provide funds to Nepal for five years for;building schools, health posts, solar electricity, etc. for those Nepalese living in 15 districts bordering China. Before this, China provided;US$1.53 million;annually to Nepal between 2014 and 2018 for the livelihood support of the people in northern Nepal in the health, education, and road sectors.
Furthermore, China launched a new platform known as;Silk Roadster;under the Belt Road Initiative (BRI) for Nepal. Accordingly, China is expected to launch small projects in Nepal to impart technical training, promote overseas study programmes, foster cooperation between enterprises, and organise cultural exhibitions and exchange visits. Involvement of the Nepalese;political parties and social organisations;is expected in the implementation of some of these activities.;
China also declared that it would exempt;visa fees;for the Nepalese from 1 May. It;promised;to launch commercial flights from China to;Pokhara and Bhairahwa International Airports;of Nepal. As it is well known, the Pokhara International Airport was constructed through Chinese funding worth US$216 millionand it was opened on 1 January 2023. Similarly, the Gautam Buddha International Airport in Bhairahawa was built by Chinese contractors with a loan amounting to;US$76.1 million. But both the Airports in which China was involved failed to handle international flights simply for the reasons that India did not provide air routes for such activities. Now the Nepalese have been given the impression that the air route-related issues would cease to exist as the Chinese airlines would enter and exit these airports from the northern and eastern border points of Nepal without entering into Indian space.;
Nepal signed the BRI agreement with China on 12 May 2017. In the beginning, Nepal proposed;35 projectsunder BRI, which is now reduced to;nine. Major projects under the;BRI, include Kathmandu-Kerung Railway (US$2.15 billion), Rasuwagadhi-Kathmandu Road upgradation, Kimathanka-Hile Road and Dipayal to South of China Road. Besides, Nepal also wants China to construct the Tokha-Bidur Road, Galchhi-Rasuwagadhi-Kerung 400kv Transmission Line, Tamor Hydropower Project, Madan Bhandari Science and Technology University and Phukot-Karnali Hydropower under BRI.;
In the wake of his official visit to China between 24 March and 1 April, Nepal’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Narayan Kaji Shrestha proposed to the Chinese to develop the;Nepal-Tibet-Chongqing-Sichuan Development Corridor;to foster economic growth and enhance connectivity between the two countries. The Chinese side also exhibited an interest in resuming the;Kathmandu-Lhasa direct bus service. Apart from this, vital agreements were signed between the two countries for forming a Joint Commission at the Foreign Minister level to discuss issues related to Nepal-China and to;finalise;the BRI Implementation Plan at the earliest.;
Over the years, China has supported Nepal in several activities ranging from education, health, culture, infrastructure development and hosts of other areas. However, never before had the two countries been as active in promoting cooperation in certain areas as seen now. Such cooperation between the two countries is bringing the two countries closer. The probability is high that under the present political dispensation, the relations between the two countries would reach a greater height especially;if all deals are carried forward in a transparent manner, be it the BRI implementation plan or other strategic issues. Such a move could safeguard Nepal’s long-term interests considering the geoeconomic and geopolitical realities in the region.
- About the author: Hari Bansh Jha is a Visiting Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation.
- Source: This article was published at the Observer Research Foundation.
Categories