Is China swindling Nepal over repayment of Pokhara airport loan?

It has been claimed that China's loan to Nepal is being serviced at 5% and not 2%, as publicly claimed by China.

- 

Chinese Ambassador to Nepal, Chen Song, has courted controversy. He is being accused of crossing the diplomatic lines after he publicly threatened a senior journalist on X (formerly Twitter) after the said journalist claimed that the loan provided by China’s Export-Import Bank to Nepal to develop the Pokhara International Airport was being serviced by Nepal at the rate of 5% and not 2% as was being publicly claimed by Chinese authorities.

Gajendra Budhathoki, who is a financial journalist of Nepal with 29 years’ experience and a strong understanding of economic issues, on 27 May tweeted in Nepali that “The loan taken for the Pokhara International Airport was said to have an interest rate of 2 percent, but it was 5 percent.”

This immediately led to a surprising knee-jerk reaction from Song, who responded to Budhathoki while calling him a liar.

“Worst lie that I ever saw. It is public information, yet you dare to lie about it,” Song wrote. The journalist, in response to the ambassador, said that “I will publish an article in his magazine with proof to show the loan was actually being charged at the rate of 5 percent.”