The international conference Boao Forum of China is taking place from today. According to sources, more than 20 thousand international and national delegates are participating but this year China is unlikely to show its full participation and effort.   And this is leading to assumptions that in upcoming days China might prioritize conference related to BRI more in comparison to Boao.

Few days back, various news portals wrote about Nepal not receiving an invitation from China to join the conference. And media has also related that activity of China with the diplomatic relation between these two countries.

But Dr. Rajiv Jha, a professor who is aware of this situation contradicts these opinions of Nepali media. He said that China seems to prefer BRI forum over Boao this year. And this is why we won’t see any country’s government or national leaders participating in Boao. From today the conference of Boao forum has started in China and the fact that China’s president Xi Jinping himself is absent on the conference as he is on a tour to Europe explains a lot.

BRI conference is going to be held in Beijing next month. More than 50 countries and their national leaders will be attending the conference. That conference will be important to China for various possible reasons and the conference will be fruitful for Nepal too, says Dr. Jha. And for the upcoming BRI conference China has already sent an invitation to our president Vidya Devi Bhandari and that trip will be given high value and importance. Similar to what professor said, China is not showing interest to the Boao conference held from today. BRI is the most important aim of China and this aim was pushed forward by the present president of China.

Boao is the annual event of China where as BRI is held every two years. The conference being a great platform for building economic, mutual and cooperative relation, Prime Minister KP Oli has already attended this conference thrice. It is vivid that China is trying to help the countries with whom it has good diplomatic relationship through this conference. That is why, this year’s conference is held in Beijing and all the government and country leaders of the signed countries will be present in the conference.

Professor Jha said, “Nepal not falling in the priority of China’s government is a wrong concept, Nepal is highly prioritized this year, it is looking forward for President’s visit, and will be discussing various social and economic fields.”

The forum taking place from today is attended by more than thirty thousand national and international delegates but in the absence of country’s leaders. But it has been assured that the conference going to be held after a month will be on the presence of government and national leaders of all invited countries. We can conclude that the priority of China this year is BRI instead of Boao.