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China’s centrality in Nepali foreign policy is hard to deny. As Nepal’s one of only two humongous immediate neighbors, China is that vital counterbalance to an often overbearing India. Beyond that, the second largest economy in the world is a potentially boundless export market for our products. The landlocked country also has a lot to learn from China in terms of (timely) infrastructure-development. Many think Nepal should be wary of China as it is an authoritarian country. But I have always held that in foreign policy conduct, democratic and non-democratic countries often act alike, as both follow narrow-minded national interests. Therefore, the ultimate objectives of the policies pursued by the likes of India and the US in Nepal are no dif­ferent to those pursued by China. But, then, can Nepal afford to increase its dependence on China indefinitely?

As political scientist Krishna Khanal warns in this week’s APEX interview, “With China, we made a leap forward. But do we have the capacity and preparations to sustain this new level of engagement? If we do not, it could be counter­productive.” The fear is that as the communist government increases Nepal’s dependence on China, the Chinese may want greater assurance for the safety of their investments of all kinds. And what better way to do so than by harmonizing Nepal’s governance with China’s? The Chinese have thus been more and more vocal about the developments in Nepal that even remotely threaten their interests.

The latest example of this is the statement by the Chinese Embassy condemning an article on coronavirus and an accompanying photograph published by The Kathmandu Post. The statement did not stop at that. It also issued a veiled threat to its editor-in-chief Anup Kaphle (who, incidentally, was to leave The Post a day after the article’s publication). Without the statement from the Chinese Embassy, few in Nepal would have read the article that was originally pub­lished in an international outlet. By publicly condemning the article and the editor, the Chinese Embassy ensured that both would get an inordinate amount of attention.

We can understand that coronavirus is a sensitive topic in China, as it struggles to contain the contagion. The language of the article is also rather harsh (by Chinese standards), as is the depiction of the Great Helmsman in a facemask. But so what? Nepal is a sovereign, democratic country with a vibrant press. It’s hard for our own government, even one with a two-thirds majority, to tame the raucous Nepali press. An outside power like China has no chance. It is not new for employees of embassies, ambassadors included, to call up editors and publishers to register their complaints. Yet for a country to issue a public statement against an opinion-piece is a blatant breach of diplomatic norms and a shocking show of lack of knowledge of Nepali society.

The Nepali media have traditionally been appreciative of China’s role in Nepal, especially after the Indian blockade. It would be dangerous for China to see this as a blind support for it. A word of advice in the end: Why doesn’t the Chinese Embassy employee Nepali political and press advisors, as do the missions of other big countries in Kathmandu? Perhaps they could offer some timely advice that would forestall a repeat of such hara-kiri acts.

Making sense of China is never easy. The obsequious domestic media in China churns out little news of value. At best, you have partial, often-biased informa­tion trickling out through the western media. So what is it? Has the Chinese state been able to mount an unprecedented campaign against coronavirus that any other country would struggle to match? Or has the top-down communist model badly botched the initial coronavirus response, trying to keep it hush-hush until it got out of hand? It’s hard to find a definite answer either way.Likewise, did the Chinese put pressure on Nepal govern­ment not to evacuate its students in Wuhan, or were our government officials more concerned about Chinese goodwill than the health of its citizens? The governments of Pakistan and Cambodia, in a show of unstinting trust in the Chinese government, refused to repatriate their students from Wuhan. In Nepal’s case, whatever the government was plan­ning, public pressure forced its hand, and it is now bringing back Nepali students.

While individuals are the ends in themselves in democ­racies, in autocracies individual liberties are often tram­pled with to serve the greater national cause. The liber­al-minded folks in Nepal are worried about China and its influence in a democratic Nepal. A respected aca­demic with some experience in dealing with Chinese offi­cials recently asked this author whether deadly viruses like SARS and coronavirus were originating in China because the Chinese scientists were experimenting with biological weapons.

Given China’s characteristic opacity, a question naturally arises: How much do we know China? Will we have to pay dearly if we embrace the Chinese without understanding their true nature? Yet this also assumes that we know democracies like the US and India better. But do we? Does the micromanagement India has overseen in Nepal over the past two decades inspire any more confidence in the ‘largest democracy in the world’? Or the way the Americans have relentlessly pursued their geopolitical interests in Nepal since the 1950s make us trust ‘the strongest democracy in the world’ any more?

China is neither good nor bad on the international stage. It is only pursuing its interests, just like any other country. As Constantino Xavier of Bookings India likes to say, “Thank you, China!” He thanks China for waking India up from its “colonial slumber” and making it realize that it just cannot boss around small countries in the neighborhood—while idly sitting on its bilateral projects—when these countries now have the Chinese option.

We cannot change our neighbors. Nepal will continue to have to deal with the one-party state for the foreseeable future and there is no option to increasing our engagement with China to decrease the over-dependence on India. Again, the choice will not always be easy. But as the Bangla­deshi ambassador Mashfee Binte Shams hinted to us in an interview this week, what Nepal should do is develop more self-confidence in dealing with varied external actors, not pick and choose between external powers. Who knows when we will need whom!

It’s wonderful that Nepal is bringing back its students from Wuhan. That is its right, and also the right thing to do. We are not, and don’t want to be, China’s Pakistan or Cambodia.

February 13th marked the 25th anniver­sary of the start of the Maoist ‘people’s war’ that kicked off in 1996 and formally ended with the signing of the Compre­hensive Peace Accord in 2006. As ex-Mao­ist leaders like Paudel put it, the decade-long war—in which around 17,000 peo­ple were killed and nearly 1,300 made to ‘disappear’—brought about revolutionary changes in Nepali society. According to its backers, the war was instrumental in the removal of monarchy, heralding of the new federal republic, empowerment of women and other marginalized groups in various ways, and in creating greater political awareness.

“Think about it. None of it would have been possible under the old 1990 constitu­tion,” says Paudel.

Yet there is also no shortage of harsh critics of the civil war who reckon the pro­gressive changes that the Maoists take credit for could have come even without the blood­shed. If the Maoists could bring about these changes through the barrels of their guns, they wouldn’t have had to lay down their arms and agree to a peaceful movement with other political parties, goes the count­er-argument. And it was this peaceful move­ment that overthrew the monarchy and brought about progressive changes. More­over, even without the Maoist war, these changes were inevitable in a fast-moderniz­ing world. What the war did instead, add the critics, was push Nepal’s development back by at least a decade and institutionalize a culture of violence.

The debate continues, even as the mother Maoist outfit under Pushpa Kamal Dahal that waged the civil war is no longer in exis­tence. With the armed phase of the Maoist movement apparently over, the party has merged with a mainstream communist party and the combined outfit now leads the government. When the mother Maoist outfit joined peaceful politics, dissent in the party had reached a new height, as the hardliners refused to accept the ‘surrender’ before parliamentary forces. As a result, multiple Maoist outfits splintered away. A few of them are still out to complete the ‘great revolution’ with guns.

“The most important question we have to ask while evaluating the Maoist insurgency is if it achieved its stated goal,” says Bhojraj Pokharel, a political analyst. “It didn’t. They talked about establishing a completely new system, and they failed.” Pokharel says the former revolutionaries have instead been thoroughly co-opted into the corrupt system they wanted to do away with. “This makes me wonder if all the violence was worth it,” Pokharel muses

Little knowledge is dangerous. Perhaps this adage is no truer than in the case of the MCC compact. Everyone is talking about it. Asks a taxi-driver in Kathmandu: “Is it true that America will launch missiles against China from Nepal after its passage of the MCC?” A coffee-shop owner in Teenkune questions as curiously: “Will Nepal lose its inde­pendence if it signs the MCC?” A Nepali TV channel conducts an MCC debate with rockets and missiles shown flying in the background. How did we come to this?The unsettled debate over whether the MCC compact is a part of the ‘military’ Indo-Pacific Strategy—an imperial American construct targeted against China, in the eyes of many ruling party leaders—is one contributing factor. Thanks to the paranoia this debate has fanned, speculations about American boots marching on Nepali soil naturally follow. But whether or not the compact is related to the IPS, the way the issue has been handled by the ruling party is immature. Yet perhaps it was also inevitable that such an ‘imperial agenda’ would be used to fight proxy wars inside a communist party.

The much ado about the compact could have been avoided had our government been honest. With the American offi­cials themselves admitting the MCC is part of the IPS, why does the NCP government have to lie to its own people? Why not rather have the guts to argue that it really does not matter whether the MCC is a part of the IPS because it is in our national interest? After all, even if we are to go by the government’s own diversification policy, greater American engagement in Nepal will help balance India and China—always dangerous for a small landlocked country to exclu­sively rely on its giant neighbors.

The Americans have themselves contributed to the sus­picions by so strongly lobbying in the compact’s favor and giving muddled answers over its IPS link. Having made their case, why not let the sovereign government apparatus of Nepal settle it? And what is the harm in unequivocally saying that, yes, the compact is a part of the IPS, which, in fact, is the overarching American foreign policy formulation for the Indo-Pacific region?

Even some NCP leaders who were initially skeptical of the compact have come around to seeing its benefits, and it is likely to be eventually passed. But the unfolding MCC fiasco also offers an important lesson. It is dangerous to politicize a foreign policy issue—and one related to the world’s sole superpower at that—for partisan gains, and mislead the public.

After listening to those in the know, it seems the MCC agreement was signed in keeping with Nepali laws. There maybe grander ‘American designs’ behind it. But then the same speculation could be made of China’s BRI or India’s ‘Neighborhood First’. Again, I am not asking for blind accep­tance of the compact, as I am also only a learner on the subject. If you too are interested in it, don’t be satisfied by superficial answers—dig a little deep.

As the framers of PM Oli’s foreign policy keep empha­sizing, one of the government’s central foreign policy planks is diversification. This is defined as any maneu­ver that increases Nepal’s ‘strategic autonomy’ by diversify­ing its ties away from India. Away from India, yet close not just to China and the neighborhood but seemingly to every part of the world. The greater the number of its foreign friends, the lesser the chance of Nepal being subjected to the kind of life-sapping blockades it has been subjected to by India—thrice already. But this diversification strategy is also fraught with risks.

This week, the letter of a ranking member of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee asking PM Oli to stop the ratifi­cation of the finalized extradition treaty with China became public. The letter published by Kantipur, and signed by Sen­ator Robert Menendez, warns that any removal of Tibetan refugees to China from Nepal would have a “serious negative impact on bilateral relations between the two countries.” It also “urges” PM Oli to issue documents to the Tibetans in Nepal wanting to travel to India. The Americans know such a decision would rile the Chinese.

President Xi was visibly upset during his Kathmandu visit when the extradition treaty, which he considered done and dusted, was withdrawn at the last minute. He espied a clear US hand. At the time, he had thundered in Kathmandu: “Any­one attempting to split China in any part of the country will end in crushed bodies and shattered bones.” Many thought he was referring to the ‘American meddling’ in Hong Kong. But according to those in the know he was as angry about the American maneuvering to scuttle the extradition treaty, including American ambassador Randy Berry’s last-minute lobbying against the treaty. Yet the mutual legal assistance treaty that came in place of the extradition treaty could still be enough to extradite Tibetans to China. It was not lost on anyone that Xi’s Nepal visit was largely aimed at minimizing the US presence. And he succeeded, at least in part.

Coming to the present, India has appointed a new foreign secretary, Harsh Vardhan Shringla, a Sikkim native and a fluent Nepali speaker. Earlier, he had served as the director of the division of the external affairs ministry dealing with Nepal and Bhutan. Shringla, the ex-Indian envoy to the US, is well-versed in the geopolitics of South Asia. Coupled with the appointment of a more sober Nepal envoy—certainly compared to the ever-jovial Manjeev Singh Puri—Indian inter­vention in Nepal could again significantly increase.

New Delhi considers this an imperative at a time the Chinese influence in Nepal is at an all-time high and the Americans are getting uncomfortably nosy in its traditional backyard. Diversifying Nepal’s relations with China, the US, Venezuela, North Korea and every other conceivable power is all and good. But our top leaders, NCP co-chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal most notoriously, have repeatedly betrayed a dangerous lack of diplomatic nous, often landing the country in a spot of bother.

We already see a clear division in the NCP over the MCC compact, and the letter from the US Senator will only further inflame its critics. This could be a harbinger of graver foreign policy challenges ahead.

Sudheer Sharma’s ‘The Nepal Nexus’ re-emphasizes the level of the all-around Indian meddling in Nepali domestic politics. He suspects India’s goal has traditionally been to keep Nepal in a perpetual state of ‘controlled instability’ so it continues to act as the kingmaker. Written based on his extensive experience covering Nepali politics and diplomacy, the book is a tour de force. Some have nonetheless blamed Sharma of being ‘soft’ on China compared to India in the book. Perhaps.

But what journalists like Sharma have come to realize over the years, and after three blockades, is that the only way Nepal can minimize the Indian ‘micromanagement’ is by inching closer to China as a balancing power. Traditionally, India hasn’t looked kindly at those who tried to reach out to China. Past Nepali governments have been pulled down on the barest hint that they were getting close to the Middle Kingdom.

China is often portrayed as an authoritarian state with a single-party dictatorship. India, on the other hand, touts itself as the largest democracy in the world. Yet in foreign policy, especially with its small neighbors like Nepal and Bhutan, India often resorts to the most undemocratic means like blockades and embargoes. Maybe a part of this was expected of a country naturally suspicious of outside powers thanks to its colonial history—and its current level of development.
Another thing is that nation-states can be the most democratic inside and yet pursue the most undemocratic policies outside the country. Whether it’s the case of the US unlawfully killing a senior Iranian general, or India imposing a blockade on a small landlocked neighbor, they act no different to the Chinese arm-twisting we see in countries like Cambodia and Vietnam. Modern-day national interests that countries pursue are seldom egalitarian.

That doesn’t mean India’s relations with Nepal are a fait accompli. After all, as Sharma points out, India has had such magnanimous leaders like Chandra Shekhar and IK Gujral who wanted to abandon the hegemonic, self-serving diplomacy India practiced in the neighborhood. As the bigger power, they thought, the onus was on India to accommodate smaller powers in the region. Yet such Indian initiatives have been short-lived.

That said, there is also no need to harbor any inferiority complex vis-à-vis India. Even though Nepal’s boundaries are bound entirely by two countries, it is increasingly venturing farther afield. It has opened up new levels of engagements with most of the outside world. Australia is now just another Nepali home. As is the US. Or the Nepali labor migrants-rich Gulf. These days more Nepalis venture abroad as tourists than the number of foreign tourists who come to Nepal.
I agree with Sharma that one is naturally led to be suspicious of India based on history. But in the book’s context, as it is focused on Indian meddling in Nepal—and not Chinese, for instance—the degree of Indian involvement is perhaps a little exaggerated. The past need not only frighten us. It also offers many lessons for better bilateral ties.

One conspiracy theory refuses to die. Krishna Bahadur Mahara was supposedly removed from the speaker’s post after he refused to start the process of the mandatory parliamentary ratification of the American MCC accord. The Maoist half of the ruling Nepal Communist Party strongly believes that the MCC is an integral component of the Indo-Pacific Strategy aimed solely at containing the dear northern neighbor’s rise. For his refusal to bow down before the ‘imperialists,’ Mahara had to lose not just his job but also his freedom.
Or so the theory goes. Frankly, I didn’t put much store on it. I still don’t. Sounds farfetched. But then knowledgeable sources keep alluding to it. And to the related issue of the deputy speaker Shiva Maya Tumbahamphe refusing to resign to clear the way for the election of new speaker and deputy speaker. They say this too is closely tied to the parliament’s need to ratify the MCC accord. PM Oli does not want another Maoist speaker as he or she could block the MCC again.
There seem to be two clear camps developing inside the ruling party. One old UML faction under the current prime minister, while still keen on closer ties with China, wants to preserve Nepal’s age-old relations with the US. But the old Maoist faction under Pushpa Kamal Dahal continues to be highly suspicious of the MCC.
Foreign powers have always had a disproportionate influence on Nepali politics. The current crop of top Nepali leaders think they have learned how to play off big powers to their political advantage. Oli used to be India’s point-man in Nepal before he espied an opportunity to ride an anti-India wave to power. Now he is much closer to China. Dahal orchestrated the decade-long insurgency from Indian soil, only to later denounce the ‘expansionists’. After he lost his PM’s post due to ‘Indian meddling’, he once again embarked on a (as yet unfinished) crusade to please the Indians. During the insurgency, the West-friendly Congress leader Sher Bahadur Deuba hoped to save his premiership by convincing the Americans to ditch their knee-jerk anti-Maoism. He didn’t succeed, but remains a trusted American friend. Thanks to Pradeep Giri, his ties with New Delhi aren’t bad either.
As the internal rift within the NCP deepens, foreign power centers will look to play through their Nepal proxies. Dahal wants to portray himself as the only true friend of China in the NCP. Oli wants to show that he is more than capable of maintaining the delicate balance between the great powers, even as he maintains his warm ties with Beijing. He recently deported 122 Chinese nationals after asking Nepal Police to drop charges against them. This won’t go unnoticed in Beijing. Again, Oli as government head faces different kinds of pressures to Dahal as co-chairman of the NCP. But one long-term trajectory is clear enough: whatever their current inclinations, each sees his future firmly tied to their ability to keep Beijing in good humor. For the Nepali communists, the pro-China nationalist card comes with an indefinite
validity period.

Nepal’s international stakes are increasing. A Nepali national is shot dead on the Indo-Pakistan border, fight­ing for India. Another day, an Iraqi military base where at least a dozen Nepalis work is bombed. In the fear that the US-Iran conflict could escalate, oil prices increase and folks in Kathmandu can be seen lining up outside petrol pumps. The same day, Nepal deports 122 Chinese nationals, on con­troversial grounds. These days, as a part of the government’s ‘diversification’ policy, our prime minister visits not just India and China but even seemingly inconsequential countries for Nepal like Costa Rica and Cambodia. Nepal depends on income from the Gulf. A record number of Nepali students study in the US and Australia.

This sort of forced globalization presents Nepal with all kinds of foreign policy challenges. If Nepalis are killed in an Iranian bombing in Iraq inside a base controlled by the US, who do we hold to account? If those sent to China are tortured, how will Nepal be answerable? Can India hang someone nabbed from Nepal on suspicion of terrorism? If, tomorrow, there is a direct conflict between our BRI and IPS commitments, how do we settle it?

Last week, Indian strategic thinker C. Raja Mohan, in an interview with Kantipur daily, advised Nepali leaders to ditch their ideological lenses and take a ‘horses for courses’ approach to diplomacy. If an outside power is ready to invest in sectors Nepal deems important, why be queasy about accepting the help? It’s not that easy. First, it is unclear what is strategic and what is not. The MCC grant may help Nepal build roads and electricity infrastructure it needs. But what if it also entails unforeseen obligations down the line?

Similarly, were the Chinese nationals sent north ‘deported’ or ‘extradited’? What were their crimes, if any? Was Nepal pressured into forgoing due process by the Chinese? If Nepal accepts BRI help, won’t it be even more beholden to China? Or to the Americans for accepting the MCC compact: What if the Americans ask for greater freedoms for Tibetans in Nepal, and the Chinese are dead opposed to it?

Besides our recent outreach to India, China and the US, Nepal is now also looking to engage Russia, and has even invited its president to visit. But doesn’t Nepal risk overex­tending itself in the process, earning the trust of none but the ire of even its limited number of friends abroad?

The outgoing Indian envoy Manjeev Singh Puri liked to talk about the impact of globalization on Nepalis. In this global­izing world, India would supposedly be okay with Nepal’s greater engagement with other powers. Nepal, he advised, should also decouple its relations with India and China, and do what it thinks is in its best interest. But if the course prescribed by the business-like Puri in Nepal was right, why has the outlook of the Indian establishment steadily hard­ened on Nepal over the past year? Forget settling Kalapani, why hasn’t India even accepted the EPG report formed with mutual consent?

Whether with the Indians, the Chinese, or the Americans, it’s easy to preach to a small power. Given the checkered history of big-power rivalry in Nepal, it is also natural for Nepalis to be skeptic.