CPD Distinguished Fellow Debapriya Bhattacharya on Monday said India and China have to look at each other ‘face to face and eye to eye’ if the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) initiative has to succeed.
“And Nepal is placed very strategically in between India and China to carry on that dialogue. I hope that will happen in the future,” he said.
Debapriya, a prominent economist and former Permanent Representative of Bangladesh to the United Nations, made these remarks while responding to a question during a high-level panel discussion at a hotel in the capital city of Nepal.
The discussion was titled ‘Impacts of Climate Change, Disaster Risks and the Role of Parliamentarians’ on the sidelines of the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) Parliamentarians’ Meet-2025.
“You see, we are talking about a policy issue which cannot be successful without being a cross-border one. It’s a regional issue in that way,” he said.
Debapriya said the eight countries – Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal and Pakistan – they are talking about have different types of relationships amongst them at this very moment.
Each of these countries stands at a different level in their democratic and developmental transition, he observed.
“But the fact of the matter is that within these eight countries, the elephant in the room is India and China, and nobody is talking about that,” Debapriya said, adding, “Now they are beating around the bush.”
According to the economist, if they have any political capital to invest, then they should be investing over there and engage with them and make them understand as well that the individual approaches for their respective countries will not succeed if the regional approach or collective approach, the new polycentricism is not taken up over there.
“I will hope and pray that, in the future, when public representatives engage, they will engage with those public representative bodies in China and India much more forcefully,” he said.
A Bangladesh delegation led by Chattogram Hill Tracts (CHT) Affairs Adviser Supradip Chakma is attending the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) Parliamentarians’ Meet-2025.
BNP Standing Committee Member and former Minister Amir Khosru Mahmud Chowdhury spoke at a separate high-level panel discussion titled ‘Parliamentarians’ Role in Balancing Biodiversity Conversation and Human Wellbeing in the HKH Region’.
Senior Joint Member Secretary of National Citizen Party Dr Tasnim Jara and its Joint Member Secretary Mir Arshadul Hoque are among the members of the Bangladesh delegation.
Nepal’s President Ramchandra Paudel attended the meet as the chief guest, while Speaker Devraj Ghimire attended it as a special guest.