Image: mark wilson/Getty Images

Kathmandu, Nepal – China has granted Nepal access to its land and sea ports, top officials of the two countries announced earlier this month, ending the landlocked Himalayan nation’s dependence on India for trading routes.

Nepal can use four seaports in Tianjin, Shenzhen, Lianyungang and Zhanjiang and three dry ports in Lanzhou, Lhasa and Xigatse in China, according to the protocol on transport and transit agreements finalised on September 6 in Kathmandu.

“Nepal and China have agreed on transit protocol. Now Nepal can use border points and routes as per our needs. This is a matter of exceptional happiness for us,” Nepalese Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli tweetedon September 8.

The preparation for the Chinese rail project has moved forward because of the China-India rivalry

Geja Sharma Wagle, a Kathmandu-based geostrategic analyst

Under Oli’s previous stint as prime minister, Nepal, which conducts two-thirds of its trade with India, turned to China following the months-long border blockade imposed by New Delhi in late 2015.

Capitalising on anti-India sentiment that deepened in the wake of the blockade, Oli visited Beijing in March 2016, where Kathmandu signed the historic trade and transit treaty, hailed as a “turning point” in bilateral relations between the two neighbours.

While Nepal faces challenges in upgrading its infrastructure along the Chinese border, which lies in some of the most difficult terrains in the world, analysts say the deal could be transformative, helping advance Nepal’s international trade.

‘A huge deal’

“This is a huge deal not only for Nepal, but also for China. The Chinese wanted to move ahead with the protocol not just to expand their businesses, but also out for their security concerns in the Tibetan region,” said Purna Basnet, chief editor of Nepal Khabar website.

“Nepal also wanted to send a message to India that it has an alternative. The deal has boosted the confidence of Nepal’s ruling class,” he told Al Jazeera.

This is a huge deal not only for Nepal, but also for China. Nepal also wanted to send a message to India that it has an alternative

Purna Basnet, the chief editor of Nepal Khabar website

Critics, however, raised concerns regarding the long distance Nepal-bound cargo trucks have to cover from the Chinese ports, with the nearest one located 2,600km away. In comparison, Haldia port near the eastern Indian city of Kolkata, which Nepal uses for most of its imports, is located 800km south of Kathmandu.

Bachhu Paudel, president of Nepal Trans Himalaya Border Commerce Association, a trade group, said the lack of an all-weather road connecting China is a major constraint.

“We have urged the government to re-open Tatopani border post [northeast of Kathmandu, which was severely damaged in the 2015 earthquake], but there hasn’t been any progress. The road hasn’t been repaired. After the earthquake, it had been hit by floods and landslides,” he told Al Jazeera.

“On the Chinese side, they have built impressive infrastructure, but our side suffers from neglect. Our customs office operates under a shed.”

‘Additional expenses’

Hari Bhakta Sharma, president of Confederation of Nepalese Industries, said because of the higher cost on trade with third countries, Chinese ports may be cheaper in the long run.

“The cost of cargo between Kolkata and Kathmandu is three times compared to the cost of cargo between Hamburg in Germany and Kolkata. In addition to that, traders also face trouble at the Indian ports,” he told Al Jazeera.

“Normally, custom clearance for imports from third countries should take place at the customs of destination countries, but we are forced to do that at the Indian ports,” Sharma said.

As a landlocked country, Nepal is entitled to the transit rights, but we have been denied that

Hari Bhakta Sharma, president of Confederation of Nepalese Industries

“Though it’s only transit, we are required to submit documents including invoices to the port authority. It delays the shipment. The process takes at least two weeks, which incurs us additional expenses,” he said.

Sharma said the Electric Cargo Tracking System recently introduced in Visakhapatnam port, another Indian port that Nepal uses, had somewhat eased the process. “As a landlocked country, Nepal is entitled to the transit rights, but we have been denied that,” he said.

Successive Nepalese prime ministers have faced the challenge of managing Nepal’s tricky relations with its neighbouring giants – China and India.

Striking a balance

Since taking over as prime minister in February in a landslide victory, Oli has tried to strike a balance between India and China.

Winning the elections on the platform of prosperity and self-reliance, in which attracting Chinese investments figured prominently, the Nepalese leader has a major challenge ahead to fix the country’s crippling infrastructure, boost cross-border connectivity, and diversify trade routes.

Wary of China’s growing influence in Nepal, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched a charm offensive, sending External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj to Kathmandu even before Oli was sworn in.

In the last four months, Modi has already visited Nepal twice cementing the personal rapport between Oli and Modi, both known for their oratorial skills and populist politics.

Analysts such as Basnet, however, argue that Oli was just being pragmatic since he couldn’t ignore New Delhi, which has immense clout over Nepal.

“Oli knows all too well that he needs India’s support for political stability in Nepal. Given India’s deep penetration into Nepal’s polity, it’s only natural for a politician like him to keep engaging the Indian establishment,” he said.

This month’s transit pact followed a series of exchanges between Kathmandu and Beijing, including a survey team that assessed the feasibility of high-speed railway between Kerung in northeast Nepal and Kathmandu, which passes through a region prone to landslides and earthquakes.

Nevertheless, the railway project, estimated to be $2.2bn, has been portrayed as a “game changer”.

Nepal has already signed up to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, hoping to attract much-needed investment through China’s ambitious infrastructure project spread over Asia, Africa and Europe.

China has already agreed to build rail link between Tibet and Nepal.

Li Tao, executive director of the Institute of South Asian Studies at Sichuan University in China, said the technical issues of the proposed railway, which has caused some worry in Nepal, were minor.

“I know that China’s engineering technology is very advanced, such as the Hengduan Mountains in southwestern China, where the geographical conditions are complex, and engineering no less difficult than in the Himalayas, but China has successfully built and operated high-speed rail in the region. Therefore, technical issues are not the biggest difficulty,” she told Al Jazeera.

‘Debt trap’ diplomacy

Critics also fear Nepal might be caught in China’s “debt trap” diplomacy, pointing out that Sri Lanka is its latest victim.

They say impoverished Nepal, whose economy largely depends on remittances, foreign aid and tourism, cannot bear the burden of China-funded projects, which are typically loans.

China has invested in hydropower, roads and telecommunications in Nepal. While most Chinese investments are seen as benign, the China-Nepal railway project has triggered concerns in Nepal.

Geja Sharma Wagle, a Kathmandu-based geostrategic analyst, said big infrastructure projects such as the railway should be built according to Nepal’s national interest.

“The preparation for the Chinese rail project has moved forward because of the China-India rivalry,” he said referring to the agreement between Nepal and India to build a railway from the Indian border town of Raxaul to Kathmandu. “There’s a tendency to brush aside crucial issues such as economic feasibility. What is missing here is an objective assessment of the Chinese rail project.”

But Li called the debt trap theory “a figment of Western imagination”.

“What we should see is that not only Nepal, but India, Pakistan and the United States have different degrees of imbalanced trading with China. I, however, believe that as soon as China-Nepali Railway begins its operation, large number of Chinese tourists will travel to Nepal, and contribute to the development of agriculture, hydropower and other resources in Nepal. Then, the trade imbalance problem will be greatly improved,” she said.

“The risk of bilateral projects is shared by both parties to the cooperation. China also faces certain risks. What we need to discuss is how to resolve risks, rather than doubting the intention of partners,” she said.

Nepalese commentators such as Wagle, however, said a lot of questions needed to be answered before launching the project. 

“Nepal must carry out a cost-benefit analysis before it embarks on the construction of the project. We must study whether we require such an infrastructure and whether it contributes to our national economy,” he told Al Jazeera.

Three Democratic senators on Tuesday questioned whether White House Counsel Don McGahn knew of any sexual assault allegation claims against Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh at any time during his nomination process.

The three senators — Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Ct.), Doug Jones (D-Ala.) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) — wrote in a letter to McGahn asking if “individuals in the White House and members of the Senate knew about these allegations earlier than they have admitted.”

Story Continued Below

They also ask if McGahn had any knowledge of the drafting of a Sept. 14 letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee written by 65 women who say they knew Kavanaugh in his youth and support his character. The letter supporting Kavanaugh’s character was released a day after an anonymous allegation against the nominee became public.

After Christine Blasey Ford came forward publicly with her allegation of sexual assault, some of the signatories of the original letter signed by 65 women have either declined to comment or maintained their support of Kavanaugh.

The senators also wrote that McGahn was aware that former White House Staff Secretary Rob Porter had faced accusations of domestic abuse before the allegations were made public, adding that “you allowed Mr. Porter to serve in the White House and have access to sensitive and classified information without investigating those accusations further.”

The White House did not respond to a request for comment about the letter sent to McGahn.

Image: North Carolina Highway Patrol

Ethiopia and Eritrea took one more important step towards normalising their relations on September 17, when Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki and Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed signed a peace agreement in the Saudi city of Jeddah, the details of which have not been publicised yet.

A week earlier, during the Orthodox New Year’s celebrations, the leaders of the two countries met on the border town of Zalambessa to re-open the common border.

The rapprochement that began in June has been marked by a number of symbolic gestures and events, including official state-visits by both leaders. During Isaias Afwerki’s visit to Addis Ababa on July 14, the strongman who is known for his stern image and carefully choreographed speeches, emotionally declared to the Ethiopian prime minister “you are our leader now”.

Abiy then proclaimed to the cheering crowd: “when we become one, Assab will be ours,” in reference to the symbolic Eritrean Red Sea port, which was once part of Ethiopia. This hasn’t been simply a process of rapprochement between two states; it almost seems like a social reunification.

Telephone lines have been opened and commercial flights restarted allowing people to call and see their relatives and friends for the first time in decades. The two countries have also exchanged ambassadors and reopened old trade routes.

The international community has welcomed these developments with enthusiasm. The secretary-general of the United Nations, Antonio Gutteres, hailed the reconciliation as “illustrative of a new wind of hope blowing across Africa”. Peace between these two nations was long overdue and has already had some positive effect on the Horn of Africa.

But the two countries have gone through a similar euphoric moment before – in 1993 when Eritrea got its independence from Ethiopia. That rapprochement, however, did not end well.

The secession of Eritrea was supported by the new government of Ethiopia at that time and was celebrated internationally as an ideal separation. Then, five years later, Africa’s deadliest war broke out between the former allies.

What made this conflict extraordinary – even in a global context – was that it took place under conditions of extensive economic interdependence and social integration between the two states.

Today, as the two countries start rebuilding their relations, it is absolutely crucial that they revisit this moment of history and do not repeat its mistakes.

The first rapprochement

The peaceful secession of Eritrea from Ethiopia in 1993 marked the beginning of the first rapprochement between the two nations after the end of the 30-year-long civil war.

The Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) and the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF) had both fought against the Ethiopian communist military government, the Derg, and by the early 1990s had taken power in Addis Ababa and Asmara respectively.

There was a common understanding that the Derg had been the sole source of past animosity and a convergence of interests between the two states was uncritically taken for granted.

The emergence of two young and charismatic revolutionaries – Ethiopia’s Meles Zenawi and Eritrea’s Isaias Afwerki – was hailed internationally as a landmark moment in which the “next generation” of African leaders was taking over.

Their first diplomatic act after the partition was to sign a cooperation agreement known as the Asmara Pact. The 25-protocol agreement was an ambitious plan to integrate the two nations in all sectors, including defence.

Eritrea’s economy was in practice already integrated into Ethiopia’s, as around 80 percent of its export products were destined for its neighbour. At the same time Ethiopia relied on Eritrea’s main port as a transportation hub for most of its trade with the world.

After the partition, the Eritreans were allowed to keep almost all the benefits of Ethiopian citizenship, but with a sovereign state of their own. In practice both peoples continued to live as if they were still one state. 

On the foreign policy front, they cooperated against Sudan’s attempt to export its Islamist ideology to East Africa and Ethiopia supported Eritrea in its war against Yemen in 1996.

These unusual policies were rooted in an ambiguous approach to Eritrean nationhood by both governments. There was a common understanding that the two nations were really one people, despite the secession.

In his first visit to Ethiopia after the secession in 1993, President Afwerki declared that after economic integration, the two countries could move towards political integration. His Ethiopian counterpart, Zenawi, was also convinced this was inevitable.

Due to these fraternal sentiments and optimistic expectations, important aspects of the relations between the states, including the demarcation of the common border and currency exchange rates, were resolved. They were simply not considered priorities in the first years after independence.

Ethiopians and Eritreans were therefore caught off-guard when a dispute over a relatively unimportant piece of land turned into a full-blown war in 1998.

The war was fought with the same emotional zeal with which cooperation and integration had been pursued only a few years earlier. The two governments were unyielding and fought for two years in a deadly war that claimed more than 100,000 lives.

During the war and the subsequent decades of hostility, people on both sides saw it as the product of betrayal and deceit, rather than as an outcome of conflicting interests and policies.

Regardless of who is to blame for the conflict, both governments have to take responsibility for not doing enough to resolve differences peacefully.

The second rapprochement

While it is unlikely that history will repeat itself with another major military conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea, it is nevertheless important for the two states to establish clear mechanisms for arbitration and communication. After all, in the early 1990s, a war between the two was also deemed extremely unlikely.

The international community and the governments and people of Ethiopia and Eritrea have been desperate for peace, and now that it’s seemingly here, no one seems to be interested in confronting the thorny issues. Indeed, according to local customs it would be inappropriate to revisit the past during reconciliation.

Nostalgia and notions of fraternity have come back with the new rapprochement. While the historical and cultural affinity of the Ethiopian and Eritrean peoples is undeniable, this shouldn’t be the basis for diplomatic relations. This approach has been tried in the past and has failed – with severe consequences.

The basis for the relationship ought to be based on a dispassionate recognition that Ethiopia and Eritrea are two sovereign states with individual interests that will not always overlap. Rights, responsibilities and mechanisms for managing disputes that will inevitably emerge must be clearly formulated.

Ethiopia and Eritrea find themselves in one of the world’s most conflict-prone neighbourhoods. A number of regional and domestic political actors currently feel left out or marginalised by the peace process and have an incentive to sabotage it.

Two months after the peace declaration, the demarcation of the common border, which was the crux of the two-decades-long stalemate, is yet to begin and there already seem to be disagreements on how to proceed. The Tigray People’s Liberation Front (part of the EPRDF), which governs the Ethiopian regional state bordering Eritrea, does not seem to agree with the federal government’s approach to demarcation. It keeps repeating publicly that the physical demarcation has to involve the residents of the borderlands.

Eritrea, for its part, is a state that is not governed by a constitution or parliament. The extreme centralisation of the regime around the figure of the president makes it a highly unpredictable partner. In addition, in a deliberate effort to sow resentment and suspicion, Eritrean diplomats keep insulting the TPLF on Twitter, despite the fact that the latter is a constitutive member of the ruling EPRDF.

All of these factors make the process more prone to derailment than it may appear.

In the context of these outstanding issues, the two states has already taken some steps to resume economic relations. Ethiopia has started using Eritrea’s Assab port on the Red Sea and Ethiopian investors have been looking at opportunities in Eritrea.

But the rules that will regulate the resumption of trade have not been made public yet and much like in 1993, these matters are either being deprioritised or handled in an opaque manner.

In this context, it is important to remember that neither fraternal bonds nor economic interdependence have been sufficient for preventing war in the past; on the contrary, they have served as enablers for emotive and reckless policies that culminated in war and a long and bitter rivalry.

It is imperative that the two governments dispassionately formulate their national interests and institutionalise the terms of their relationship as soon as possible, and leave as few issues as possible to fate, trust or fraternity.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that Brett Kavanaugh “is not a man that deserves” to be facing a sexual assault allegation at this point in his confirmation process, saying that he feels “so badly” for his Supreme Court nominee.

“I feel so badly for him that he’s going through this, to be honest with you,” Trump said during a press conference with Polish President Andrzej Duda. “I feel so badly for him. This is not a man that deserves this.”

Story Continued Below

Christine Blasey Ford has accused Kavanaugh of assaulting her when they were both in high school. The judge has denied the allegation.

Image: Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images

President Donald Trump reiterated his support for Brett Kavanaugh Tuesday but said his Supreme Court nominee can make his own defense, saying he “can handle himself better than anybody.”

“He’s a very outstanding man,” Trump said of the nominee during a brief White House appearance.

Story Continued Below

Trump said he has not spoken to Kavanaugh about Christine Blasey Ford’s allegation that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when the two of them were in high school.

“Speaking for all of the Republicans, we feel that we want to go through this process, we want to give everybody a chance to say what they have to say,” Trump said, referring to a hearing slated for Monday at which both Kavanaugh and Ford have been asked to testify. Ford has not said whether she will participate.

“We will delay the process until it is finished out,” Trump said.

Trump also said senators could handle the process on their own and that an outside investigation was not needed.

“I don’t think the FBI really should be involved because they don’t want to be involved,” he said. “I think politically speaking, the senators will do a very good job.”