"Nepal and China have a lot of cooperation in terms of not only people-to-people exchanges, but also trade and investment and the education sector," said Raunab Singh Khatri from Nepal, a PhD student in strategic management at Peking University. In his view, China and Nepal's relations now encompass a much wider dimension.

In terms of the Belt and Road Initiative, Raunab thinks that the biggest advantage of the initiative has been China's ability to speed up the construction of infrastructure projects, and Nepal should make use of this to develop itself.