Nepal, landlocked between the two giant neighbors—China, the world’s second largest economy, to the north across the Himalayas and India, the fourth largest economy, wrapping around its eastern, western and southern borders—is still struggling with inadequate physical infrastructure, limited connectivity and remains starved of sustained economic prosperity, despite the glorious history and epochs of rich and vibrant civilization of its own.
Since gaining independence from the 104-year autocratic Rana regime in 1951, Nepal has attained almost all the major political achievements it needs to accomplish up to the present day. Although the implementation of these achievements has often remained weak, Nepali citizens have, through constitution, already secured a broad range of rights, freedoms and access to the state. Today, no Nepali citizen, regardless of any race, religion, language, gender or region, has to be marginalized by the state system. In this context, continuing to advocate for various political issues and keeping the nation entangled in a prolonged state of transition even at present no longer appears to be relevant. Instead, the Nepali people are increasingly demanding development and prosperity. They aspire to become prosperous citizens of a prosperous nation and seek a decisive breakthrough in physical infrastructure, internal and external connectivity and economic transformation comparable to that achieved by other developed and emerging economies of the world. They wish to see Nepal moving fast on a development and growth trajectory.
On the same note, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on the construction of the Trans-Himalayan Railway, also known as China-Nepal cross border Railway, the planned extension of the very famous 1956 kilometer Qinghai-Tibet Railway, was signed by the President of the People’s Republic of China, Xi Jinping, and then Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli in June 2018 under the overarching framework of the Trans-Himalayan Multidimensional Connectivity Network, a component of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). As per the underscored plan, the Trans-Himalayan Railway is designed to link Kathmandu, the capital city of Nepal, with China’s vast rail network via the 527.2-km Jilong/Keyrung-Xigaze/Shigatse rail corridor, which subsequently connects with the Qinghai-Tibet Railway network, operational since 2006.
The Trans-Himalayan Railway corridor isn’t just a railway, it’s a 600-km engineering marvel designed to pierce straight through the world’s tallest mountain range, connecting Nepal directly with China. Beyond its monumental scale, the railway will confront one of the most geologically volatile and environmentally hostile regions on Earth, where the Indian plate continues its inexorable collision with the Eurasian plate, making the region a hotspot of intense seismic activity. This ongoing tectonic activity causes frequent earthquakes, from minor tremors to catastrophic events capable of reshaping the landscape. Adding to this extraordinary challenge is the railway's dramatic vertical journey, descending from approximately 4,500 meters on the Tibetan Plateau, cutting through the Himalayan massif, and arriving in Kathmandu at around 1,400 meters. This represents an elevation differential of nearly 3,000 meters, an engineering feat of exceptional rarity in the history of railway construction. Reflecting the extreme terrain, the 2018 pre-feasibility study reveals that about 98.8 percent of the 72.2-km Nepal section of the railway would consist of tunnels and bridges.
Although discussion about linking China’s railway network to Nepal first came up in the year 1973 during a meeting between the President of the People's Republic of China, Mao Zedong, and Nepal’s King Birendra, it failed to gain meaningful momentum for decades until Nepal faced the unofficial Indian Blockade in 2015, which compelled Kathmandu to seek alternative corridors to the outside world. In this context, China’s railway emerged as an economic lifeline, offering Nepal a pathway to reduce its long-standing dependence on India as the sole gateway for trade and transit.
Since ancient times, Kathmandu has been a commercial bridge and logistical base, playing a key role in regional commerce between South Asia and China under the historic Silk Road connectivity, long before the advancement of modern way of road and water transportation. The city’s prosperity during this era was, to some extent, underpinned by its position as an intermediary between South Asian markets and Lhasa. By effectively utilizing the revitalized historic route through the Trans-Himalayan Railway, Nepal once again could position itself as a vital bridge between China, with 1.4bn people, and South Asia including India, the largest population on Earth, emerging as a regional trade hub and accelerating its economic advancement.
Whether in energy or innovation, space science or biology, human cognition or artificial intelligence, China’s trajectory of advancement is nothing short of astonishing. On a global scale, regardless of the benchmark cost at which any product is manufactured, if there is any country capable of producing the same goods at lower cost, with greater speed, on a far larger scale, or across a wide range of varieties, that country today is China alone—and achieving direct connectivity with such a nation, by significantly reducing transport time and trade costs, the Trans-Himalayan Railway would unlock a new horizon of possibilities for Nepal, transforming it from a landlocked into a land-linked one. Enhanced connectivity with China would open access to one of the world’s largest consumer markets, enabling Nepal to expand exports of high value goods such as medicinal herbs, agro products, handicrafts and niche manufactured items.
Beyond trade, the railway could attract substantial foreign direct investment across key sectors like logistics, manufacturing, agriculture, tourism, hydroelectricity and infrastructure, while improved rail connectivity would simultaneously boost tourism by making Nepal more accessible to Chinese and international travelers, thereby strengthening hospitality, transport and service industries.
