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 Q. In three adjectives, how would you describe yourself?

A: Passionate, sensitive and humorous.

Q. A common misconception about you?

A: People fear me thinking I’m a very serious–natured character, which I’m not.

Q. Question that you wish people would stop asking?

A: Why we named the band 1974 AD.

Q. Words that keep you motivated?

A: “Legends”; when our fans honor us with this word, it moti­vates us the most.

Q. What would your ideal weekend look like?

A: Sleep till late, indulge in wife’s cooking, movie evenings. Hike or trek, if outdoors.

Q. Best possession?

A: My greatest possession is my “music”.

Q. If you could wish for three things, what would they be?

A. 1. A leader who could lead Nepal and Nepalis.

    2. That peace be prevail in the whole world.

        3. And that we were not on an earthquake zone. Lol.....

 Why does BIMSTEC exist at all? What is its focus?

The Bay of Bengal is one of the world’s least integrated regions, with abysmal levels of trade, connectivity, and cooperation. The deep divide between India and other countries around the bay hinders their efforts to increase their economic and strategic interdependence.

BIMSTEC offers a well-positioned platform to help address these chal­lenges. But BIMSTEC’s mission to deepen regionalism will stand a better chance of succeeding if its members make the organization a priority, endow it with adequate resources, and enact reforms to strength its capabilities. 

Why such emphasis on the Bay of Bengal?

As the largest bay in the world, the Bay of Bengal is of pivotal impor­tance to the countries bordering it. More broadly, demographic, eco­nomic, and security developments in the region have crucial implica­tions for Asia and the global order. While exact definitions vary, the bay’s scope is generally defined as a “triangular basin” stretching west to east between Sri Lanka, Bangla­desh, and Malaysia. One-fourth of the world’s populations live in the seven countries around it, and half a billion people live directly on its coastal rim.

The highly populated Bay of Bengal carries a lot of economic promise. With a combined gross domestic product (GDP) close to $2.7 trillion and despite an adverse global financial environment, all seven countries were able to sustain average annual rates of economic growth between 3.4 and 7.5 percent from 2012 to 2016. The bay is also rich in untapped nat­ural resources, with some of the world’s largest reserves of gas and other seabed minerals, as well as, it is increasingly believed, oil. The nutrient input from the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers ensures that the bay’s waters contain extraordinarily large fishing stocks.

Is BIMSTEC a platform to undercut SAARC?

BIMSTEC is complementary to SAARC and other regional initia­tives. But unlike SAARC, BIMSTEC has greater potential because it is not hostage to cyclical India-Paki­stan tensions. Its focus is also more towards the Southeast, focusing on inter-regional connectivity with Southeast Asia and the Indo-Pacific.

What brings the seven countries of BIMSTEC together?

In a more interdependent world, states around the Bay of Bengal are realizing that their national eco­nomic and security interests are increasingly tied to the ability to cooperate across borders through regional institutions. Responding to the inroads China has made in the region, India is placing an unprec­edented emphasis on strengthen­ing regional connectivity and links with Southeast Asia. Small BIMSTEC countries see regional multilater­alism as a potential check on the rising capabilities of China, India, and major external powers.

What is India’s role in BIMSTEC?

Under Prime Minster Modi, India has taken a proactive stance to revive BIMSTEC under its Act East policy. India’s leadership is important, but regional organiza­tions only succeed if all members move in the same direction. India’s strategic priority now is to connect with its neighboring countries in order to respond to China’s growing presence across South Asia and the Indian Ocean.

There is going to be a joint mil­itary exercise among BIMSTEC member states. Why involve militaries in this forum meant for technical and economic cooperation?

It does not make sense to separate economics and security. Whether it is the threat of terrorism, insur­gencies, or natural calamities, the military services need to be pre­pared to coordinate and cooperate in the Bay of Bengal region. The BIMSTEC states will not be able to achieve their developmental and connectivity plans without being able to secure their territories and populations. But BIMSTEC’s focus remains on economic cooperation and connectivity.

Nepal is not even on the Bay of Bengal. Why is it a BIMSTEC member then?

Nepal was historically well con­nected to the Bay of Bengal, via Kol­kata, Orissa and Bangladesh. This connection was interrupted because India closed its economy, and hence the repeated transit and trade crises between India and Nepal after the 1980s. Nepal then started to open its economy more than India and got interested in greater con­nectivity, trade and transit. Now with India also finally opening up, there is a chance for Nepal to revive its old Bay of Bengal connections, including via Bangladesh.

What does Nepal gain from such connections?

Under PM Oli, Nepal has achieved an unprecedented democratic sta­bility at home, and has indicated willingness to assume greater activ­ism and leadership in its foreign pol­icy. With Nepal’s greater power, stra­tegically situated between Asia’s two most important states, also comes greater responsibility.

Nepal has been diversifying its foreign policy, with closer rela­tions with Bhutan, Myanmar and Southeast Asian countries. BIMS­TEC offers an important platform for Nepal to develop its own Act East policy.

But BIMSTEC is by and large an Indian initiative, isn’t it?

It’s tempting for Nepal to just observe and criticize from the side­lines, and wrongly assume that BIM­STEC is an Indian initiative.

Instead, Nepal should see BIMSTEC as a historic opportunity to revive its historic links to North­east India, Bangladesh and the Bay of Bengal region. This will allow Nepal to again play its historic role as a bridging power, connecting the Tibetan plateau and the Hima­layas with the subcontinent and the Indian Ocean region. Multilat­eral institutions like BIMSTEC are particularly beneficial for small­er countries like Nepal, increasing their bargaining power over larger countries like India.

Bilateralism is often tempt­ing, especially with China, but multilateralism and regional coop­eration are more beneficial in the long term.

Shouldn’t Nepal instead be bat­ting for SAARC?

SAARC will remain important, but it will only be reactivated once India and Pakistan attempt a new normalization. Nepal will have to be realistic and play on multiple geostrategic chessboards, including BIMSTEC, which offers an excellent platform to escape its landlocked position and connect to Northeast India, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Thailand. Nepal will benefit from greater integration, connectivity and cooperation across the Bay of Bengal region.

What can Nepal realistically expect from the upcoming summit?

It will be a symbolic moment for Nepal, after hosting the SAARC summit in 2014. BIMSTEC goes beyond South Asia, and focuses on the Bay of Bengal and links with Southeast Asia, including Myanmar and Thailand, and is therefore an opportunity for Nepal to assume greater global visibility.

Dai Yonghong, the head of the geopolitical studies unit of Sich­uan University, is an old Nepal watcher. He is currently a visiting professor at the Masters in International Relations and Diploma­cy (MIRD) program of Tribhuvan University. Laxman Shrestha and Purushottam Poudel of APEX caught up with him to discuss China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and its impact on Nepal.

 How do you assess Nepal’s participation in BRI?

Nepal and China have made dozens of agreements under the BRI. We should first be assured that this will be of benefit to both the countries. We should not deviate from the projects that have already been agreed upon. Political stability is vital for the completion of the agreed projects and I believe the merger between the two main communist forces in Nepal is a harbinger of this stability.

There is now a debate in Nepal about whether the country should look to the south or the north. I believe Nepal should rise above this debate and develop a global outlook. China always looks to partner with countries that it can help economically. There can be no development by partnering with countries that want instability more than they want development.

How do we evaluate the trade and investment components of the BRI?

I believe the issue of trade and investment should be placed under a broader economic framework. China does not want any political gain from its neighbors. We just want strong and long-lasting relations based on mutual trust. A strategy that has political objectives might work in the short run but it can­not help us achieve our long-term goals.

If that is the case, what does China want from its neighbors?

We want to see our neighbors develop. We want other countries in the region to benefit from China’s economic rise. At one time China used to be one of the largest importers of foreign direct investment in the world. Now, we are the biggest FDI investor in the world. Other countries can utilize this eco­nomic clout of China to their benefit.

China also has great technical expertise. China has made rapid progress in technology used in infrastructure development as well as in technol­ogy related to communication and agriculture. Other countries can use this expertise. More than that, you can also utilize our management expertise. If you have all the resources but you don’t have management expertise, then all those resources have no meaning.

How do you see Nepal-China cooperation shape up under the BRI?

China can utilize its capital, technological and management expertise to build railways in Nepal as the state of Nepal’s roads is unsatisfactory. Not the least because Nepal will need railways to connect with the ocean. Nepal is often called a yam between India and China but if it can emu­late the economic prosperity of India and China, it can be a diamond between these two Asian powers. Nepal is in a situation whereby it can develop by taking a ‘free ride’ on the pros­perity of its two neighbors. The important question is: Does Nepal now have the kind of economy agenda and the leadership to push this agenda for the kind of economic transfor­mation it envisions?

How will the Chinese investment in Nepal be different from its investments in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Laos or Myanmar, the investments that have not always been seen in favorable light?

The kind of investment will depend on the dialogue between the two countries. It will be wrong to see investments under BRI as China somehow wanting to build a monopoly in a country. China will move ahead strictly based on consultations with host countries.

Kan Kimura is a doyen in the fields of political science and area studies in Japan. A professor with the Graduate School of International Cooperation Studies in Kobe University, Kimura is author of over a dozen scholarly books on Japanese and Korean history and Japan-Korea relations. The foremost authority on North Korea-South Korea relations, Kimura has written extensively on Asian geopolitics as well. Biswas Baral and Shambhu Kattel of APEX caught up with Kimura during his brief personal trip to Nepal to discuss the wider ramifications of the ongoing US-North Korea dialogue, BRI and Nepal, and Japan’s place in Asia.

What are the broader security implications to Asia of the recent rapprochement between the US and North Korea and prospect of peace in the Korean peninsula?

First of all, it will not be at all easy to make North Korea renounce all its nuclear weapons. Even if the North announces that it has given up all its nukes that will be technically dif­ficult to verify, much more difficult than it was in the case of say Iraq or Libya. Moreover, you have to under­stand that the reason North Korea has nuclear weapons is because of the United States.

Now the Korean peninsula is firm­ly under Chinese influence. I think recent US diplomacy in Korea is a part of its plan to withdraw from the peninsula, as President Donald Trump keeps hinting. Even while he was campaigning for presidency, Trump made it clear that he would withdraw US troops from East Asia and he seems intent on keeping his promise. But whatever Trump says I don’t think there will be a big change in North Korean nuclear arsenal in the near future.

The prospect of the US with­drawal from East Asia is the biggest nightmare for the Japanese people. Of course the Chinese don’t think that way.

But isn’t the presence of Amer­ican troops in the Korean pen­insula also in Chinese inter­est? Because if they withdraw without the North giving up its nuclear weapons then Japan would also be forced to acquire nukes and to enhance its military capabilities. Japanese invasion of China in early 20th century has not been forgotten.

What you are saying would have made perfect sense back in the 2000s. But right now the Chinese GDP has grown twice as big as Japan’s. In the next 10-15 years, the Chinese economy could be four to five times bigger than Japan’s. Now the Chinese policymakers believe that they have absolutely nothing to fear from Japan if Japan is estranged from the United States. For histor­ical reasons, Japan does not have very good relations with countries like South Korea, the Philippines and China. So without the support of the US, it will be isolated. China seems to be succeeding in its strate­gy of ‘divide and rule’ as they have successfully driven a wedge between the US and Japan, and Japan and South Korea. South Korea is now completely dependent on China, as is the rest of South East Asia.

To change track a bit, what does Japan make of China’s Belt and Road Initiative?

What I have been telling the Jap­anese government is that Japan is still the biggest military and economy power in Asia bar Chi­na. So it can still forge meaningful partnerships with other coun­tries in the region. Take the case of the Trans Pacific Partnership, from which the US recently with­drew. Everybody thought that US withdrawal would be the death of the TPP but that is not the case. Other countries in the partnership wanted to keep it alive and you see that the US is again showing some interest in rejoining. Japan should fully support this process. If Japan does not take leadership on this no other Asian power can do so. India cannot do so because it does not have much influence beyond South Asia, not even in Myanmar, its next-door neighbor. India is getting militarily and economically strong and yet it is still by and large an iso­lated power.

There is a fear in Nepal that the Chinese are flexing their eco­nomic muscles to get their way and the BRI is part of the same coercive strategy.

Nepal’s situation is a bit like Mongolia’s, trapped between two big powers. But one of the good things for Nepal is that most of the geopolitical competition between big powers in Asia seems to be happening at the sea, the South China Sea for instance, and away from landlocked coun­tries like Nepal and Mongolia. The other good news for Nepal is that India and China seem to have for now settled their border problems and a big flare-up between them looks unlikely.

So I say you make the best of the good relations between India and China. More than that, Nepal is now maturing as a democracy, which is a big plus, because we cannot say the same about other countries in the region like Bhutan or Bangla­desh or Pakistan. This is a bulwark against the tendency of other big powers to intervene. It also allows other democratic entities like the EU and Japan to contribute to Nepal’s development. They can also then intervene when they believe Nepal’s sovereignty is at risk.

But how does Japan view the BRI? In your understanding, is it a benign concept that will benefit everyone or does it have a sinis­ter ring to it?

Frankly, the Japanese government is not too happy to see such a coa­lition but we know that we can’t also stop it. The best option then is to give each country in the BRI or TPP the freedom to join the other organization as well. So long as the BRI is not a closed entity, we should be open to the idea. This is why although those in government in Japan were initially hostile to the BRI idea, they have come to increasingly accept it as a fact of life.

What do you make of the idea of ‘debt trap’? Some in Nepal say that soon the country will owe so much to China it will have no option but to accept greater Chi­nese intervention.

Relying too much on bilater­al negotiations with China is bad for any country. The way to go about it would be to enhance your links with other countries as well, for which you need not neces­sarily be anti-China, so that you don’t give the Chinese too much bargaining power. This is why it is vital for Nepal to maintain good relations with other members of South Asia as well as entities like the ASEAN. Otherwise, Nepal can­not say no to China or to India. So have good relations with everyone. South Korea successfully punches above its weight diplomatically because it can leverage its unique relations with the US, Japan and China to its advance. Nepal should do the same.