Since 2016, China and the state of Nepal have been discussing the construction of a railway from Tibet to Kathmandu, and in 2018 an agreement was signed. Nothing materialized because the idea was too difficult to implement and too expensive. But it still has a chance to become a reality, especially since the railways are expanding in the Tibet region.

China’s foreign minister recently announced that experts will be sent to examine the possibility of building a railway between the Chinese region of Tibet and Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu.

In 2016, during the first negotiations, the most optimistic said that this railway could be ready by 2025. If work starts in 2-3 years, it will probably be ready by 2032. The delays also occurred because Nepal’s economy was hit hard by the pandemic, and the country was also going through a political crisis.

The Chinese have said several times in recent years that they want to contribute, both with funding and technology, to the construction of a rail line from Kathmandu to Tibet, a line that some estimate will cost $5 billion and others say more than 8 billions of dollars.

Serious estimates indicate a nine-year construction period for such a railway line, which would be one of the most difficult in the world, as it would require digging long tunnels through mountains in areas of high seismic risk and performing complex works in beautiful areas. nature, where the ecological balance is under threat.

The proposed line runs from Kerung to Kathmandu, its length will be 170 km, and more than 50 km will pass through tunnels that will have to be dug in the Himalayas. For this project, a memorandum of understanding was signed between China and Nepal in 2018, and the Chinese have conducted a preliminary feasibility study, which has shown with reason that it will be an extremely complex project.

One problem is that from Tibet to the valleys of Nepal the line would drop too steeply into geologically unstable areas.

Nepal cannot build even an expensive and simple railway on its own because it has no tradition in this field, no railway engineers and no railway construction companies. Either China or India can build the railway in Nepal. but the first option seems much more likely.

The idea of ​​a railway line between Nepal and Tibet was discussed in 1973 by Mao Zedong who met with King Birendra of Nepal, but then nothing materialized.

Its big neighbor to the north, China, has dominated Nepal’s political life for decades, where Maoist rebels waged a war against the constitutional monarchy from 1995 to 2006, killing thousands in the fighting.

In recent years, however, Nepalese authorities have looked more favorably on Beijing than on New Delhi, and China has integrated Nepal into the massive One Belt One Road infrastructure program.

China has a clear strategy in the region, wanting to expand its influence in the territories that fall within the sphere of India. The Chinese have invested heavily in Nepal’s infrastructure and have extremely good relations with India’s biggest enemy, Pakistan, with whom they have signed trade deals worth tens of billions of dollars. The most recent Sino-Nepal trade agreements were signed in October 2019 when Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Nepal, becoming the first Chinese leader to visit Nepal since 1997.

Many Nepalis see China’s proximity as a welcome distance from India, which is said to have greatly influenced Nepal’s development. But rational minds realize that alienation from India is impossible, especially since India is the main trading partner of the country.

Sources: South China Morning Post, International Railway Journal,

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