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, Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) Debapriya Bhattacharya said on Monday.
"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 while responding to a question during a high-level panel discussion titled 'Impacts of Climate Change, Disaster Risks and the Role of Parliamentarians' on the sidelines of the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) Parliamentarians' Meet-2025, which began at a hotel in the capital city of Nepal.
"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 relationship 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."
So, the economist thinks, 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 country 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 will engage, they will engage with those public representative bodies in China and India much more forcefully than others who are already converted to it in many ways," 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.
The Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) sustains nearly one-fourth of humanity — providing water, food and livelihoods for 240 million people in the mountains and 1.65 billion downstream.
But the region, experts say, faces urgent and interconnected threats from climate change, biodiversity loss, disasters, and air pollution.
The Federal Parliament of Nepal is hosting the Hindu Kush Himalaya Parliamentarians' Meet, the largest-ever assembly of legislators from across the region.
This landmark event offers policymakers a platform to deliberate on shared challenges and advance collective, trans-boundary solutions for a more resilient future.
Supported by the United Kingdom International Development (UKID) through its Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) the HKH parliamentarians' Meet 2025 aims to provide an effective platform for members of the parliaments from the HKH countries to come together, access the latest knowledge and information about the HKH region's issues, challenges and opportunities, share experiences about the best parliamentary practices, and discuss forward-looking policy actions.
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