What started as a benign China-supported informal civil society group in 2000 to promote cultural interaction is growing in membership and has become an effective tool to promote the Chinese perspective on key issues concerning Nepal. Information as late as last December suggest that the countrywide membership has crossed 1,000 with the Kathmandu central office alone accounting for 78 members.

Recent inputs on the activities of the centres state that the chairman of the CSC working committee Madan Regmi is in close contact with the Pakistan Embassy which is asking him to highlight the issue of alternate routes of supply to Nepal without involving India. In this connection, Regmi is said to have been briefed on a possible option from Pakistan to Nepal via China using the Karakoram Highway.

Regmi is known in Nepal for his anti-India position and, through the CSC, has been advocating the need to develop stronger ties with China so as to reduce dependence on India. According to the centre, Nepal depends on India for 65 per cent of all its requirements.

While recent figures of its finances are not available, the last input from 2005 states that a budget of Nepalese Rs. 7.63 crore was proposed at the CSC annual meeting then, which was apparently attended by Chinese diplomats too. The meeting had endorsed the target of establishing branches in all 75 district headquarters of the country.

The centre has an elaborate working committee headed by a chairman and a dozen other executive members. The broad objectives, according to Indian assessment, of these centres are:

• Conduct development work in (Indo-Nepal) border areas with Chinese assistance.

• To propagate development work in Tibet Autonomous Region and educate Nepal on China’s position when it comes to Tibet and Taiwan.

• Convince people that China is playing a prominent role in preventing “Sikkimisation” of Nepal.

• China’s strong presence in Nepal will prevent India from interfering in Nepal’s internal affairs.

• To consolidate ties with the China Association for International Friendly Contract (CAIFC), Beijing.

The CSC, in fact, has signed a MoU with CAIFC which underlines the strong Chinese role in the functioning of this group. Only recently, the centre embarked on translating into Nepalese, the Chinese book ‘Questionnaire in connection with the unification of Taiwan’.

The growing importance of these centres can be gauged from the fact that Wang Jiarui, a high-ranking leader of the Communist Party of China, held the first policy dialogue with CSC functionaries last November. It was around that time Wang had visited India and met Congress president Sonia Gandhi to take forward party-to-party ties.

An eight-member team of the Tibet Tourism Bureau visited Nepal last year at CSC’s invitation to discuss ways to boost tourism in Tibet. While China continues to be very careful in not issuing visas for Tibet from Nepal, sources said, the objective is to use these centres as the first screening point.