(TibetanReview.net, Feb24’25) – A student group in the southern plains of Nepal torched on Feb 22 a pile of bicycles distributed as assistance by China last month, protesting that they were previously used, substandard goods, reported the ANI news service Feb 23.
Members of the National Students’ Council staged a demonstrating at Laxmanawa Chowk in Parsa district in central Terai region of Madhesh Province, during which the bicycle burning protest was held amid shouting of slogans.
The protestors have raised slogans such as “China’s cunning no longer works”, “Madhesh needs respect”, and “Old bicycles, deception”, “China doesn’t fool us now!”
“China sent substandard materials as an aid to humiliate Madhesh students. Providing substandard materials to Madhesh in the name of grants is unacceptable. If this continues, it would be the humiliation of Madheshi and we will resort to it with strong protest,” Binod Yadav, President of the student council has said.
Amid publicity work, China delivered a donation of two hundred bicycles to the students of Shri Narsingh Secondary School in Pipara, Birgunj Metropolitan City, last month. They were distributed by China Foundation in the first week of the Nepali month of Magh during a programme organized by the International Love Cycle Nepal Campaign, the report said.
Those bicycles were apparently among the first batch of 1,000 Bicycles donated by China, which initially covered 504 students from five schools in Bara district and 496 students from four schools in Parsa district.
Nepal became the third country after Cambodia and Laos to receive the bikes provided by bike-sharing service provider Hello Inc., with the China Foundation for Rural Development bearing the transport costs, reported China’s official globaltimes.cn Jan 21, citing Zou Zhiqiang, director of the foundation’s Nepal Office.
“We hope that this donation becomes the first step in helping solve the problem of going to school for children living in remote areas of Nepal,” Zou was quoted as saying at the inauguration ceremony held at a school in the city of Birgunj, the provincial capital.
The report cited Wang Xin, a counsellor at the Chinese Embassy in Nepal, as saying Beijing had launched a series of poverty-reduction demonstration projects in the country, including “Vibrant Village,” “Happy Community,” “Safe Drinking Water” and “Lighting the Future.”
China has seen mountains of discarded or confiscated electric bicycles, mostly belonging to bike-sharing service companies, lying abandoned at junkyards in cities in recent years. Are these being used to run an international bike-donating campaign in a move to earn goodwill for Beijing?