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KathmanduPushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ has often sought to discredit the government led by his Nepal Communist Party co-chairman KP Oli. Never a patient man, he is in a hurry to be prime minister again. If not, party chairmanship would do. As Oli won’t give up either post easily, Dahal wants to build international pressure for his ouster. He jets off to the US, close Oli aides suspect, for a secret rendezvous with senior American officials, on the handy pretext of getting a treatment for his wife. Dahal wants the Americans to know he will always be more accommodating of the US interests in Nepal (read: Asia-Pacific Strategy) than the ‘pro-China’ Oli can ever be.

Dahal then ensures that the Indian Embassy letter asking the Nepali government not to stop its contingents of fruits and vegetables is leaked online before it comes to the notice of the prime minister. How content must he have felt to make PM Oli helplessly admit of being kept in the dark by his own officials! Dahal’s proxies in the NCP then invite the son of the Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro to Nepal, even as the Venezuelan government is under American sanctions for its anti-democratic activities. With Dahal expertly hiding his tracks, the ‘clueless’ government of Oli is again blamed.

The former Maoist supremo has already alerted the Indian establishment that Oli is merely warming the PM’s seat and it is only a matter of time before he gets his turn. Of course, he had to reiterate this right on the eve of PM Oli’s New Delhi visit to take part in Narendra Modi’s second swearing-in as prime minister. His message to the Chinese is as self-serving: on becoming the prime minister in 2009, he was someone who dared visit China before India. Which other Nepali leader could take such a monumental risk to show his fealty?

Oli knows Dahal is a wily old fox. But so is the blockade-busting prime minister. With Dahal determined to play hardball, Oli is also dilly dallying on a quick settlement of war-time human rights cases. Oli is aware that so long as the peace process is incomplete, Dahal will always have to look over his soldiers whenever he ventures out of the country. Former child soldier Lenin Bista has been quite successful in convincing the Europeans in particular that ex-Maoist commanders like Dahal and Baburam Bhattarai are ‘war criminals’.

Expect a lot of political churn when Chinese President Xi comes to town later this year. The Indians have already gotten a whiff of his prospective visit and they are not pleased. The government, meanwhile, wants to complete homework on at least a few big-ticket projects for President Xi to sign. Till date the Oli government has made no bones about its proximity to China and its wholesale acceptance of the BRI framework. India—ever skeptical of any western presence in its traditional sphere of influence but also increasingly of Chinese inroads here—is still trying to work its modus vivendi on the roles of the two powers in this region. Xi’s visit could just tip the balance in the favor of the Americans.

With the Chinese president’s visit likely to open new fault-lines in Nepali geopolitics, Dahal may soon get to play another of his dirty tricks to boot Oli out of power.

“Hokum!” George Orwell would scoff at the idea of sports as a tool of diplomacy. “At the international level sport frankly mimic warfare,” he wrote in his celebrated 1945 essay ‘The sporting spirit’. At the international level, “even a leisurely game like cricket, demanding grace rather than strength, can cause much ill-will.” He was at the time referring to the infamous 1932-33 Bodyline series between England and Australia, when the English team tried to bounce out Don Bradman and company by bowling into their bodies, delivery after short-pitched delivery. But Orwell could as well have been speaking about modern-day India-Pakistan cricket rivalry.

Traditionally, Indian and Pakistani teams have been at loggerheads, each trying to demolish the other in every match they occasionally play against each other. Who can forget the Aamir Sohail-Venkatesh Prasad run-in at the 1996 World Cup? Or the simmering atmosphere of the first post-Kargil India-Pak match in Manchester in 1999? Or Sachin Tendulkar cutting Shoaib Akhtar for a six at the 2003 World Cup? Yet the most recent World Cup clash between the two was a bit of an exception.

Even as Indo-Pak ties remain strained, the two teams were rather civil to each other when they met in the round-robin stage of the 2019 World Cup. The ever-irascible Indian captain Virat Kohli seemed determined to control his emotions. On the tournament’s eve, Babar Azam, the best Pakistani batsman, had expressed his desire to emulate the international success of Kohli, his cricketing idol. In the match itself, when Kohli thought he had nicked a ball (he hadn’t), he walked off, a rarity in modern-day cricket. It was far from a ‘war’ that the Twitterati were expecting.

The US and China famously began their rapprochement in 1971 by playing Ping-Pong. The two Koreas march together in the Olympics as a mark of amity. In cricket, India hosts all of Afghanistan’s home games, which has done more to buttress India-Afghan ties than decades of the more traditional diplomacy. Likewise, when Sandeep Lamichhane appears in the IPL, our knee-jerk anti-Indianism takes a backseat, as we cannot help but ponder the many similarities between Nepalis and Indians.

The ace leg-spinner has done a lot to break the stereotype of Nepalis as ‘chowkidars’ in India. There could as such be few better goodwill ambassadors of Nepal to India. It’s easy to latch onto prejudices from afar. Friendship requires more interactions to flourish. Anecdotally, one of the first American sportspersons to visit China in 1971 was shocked at how much the Chinese resembled the Americans: “The people are just like us. They are real, they’re genuine, they got feeling!”

Of course, sports can both unite and divide. Some sports fans are so rabidly xenophobic that they have to demean players from other cultures. African footballers playing in the Nepali football league are subjected to awful racial chants. The treatment of any Indian football or cricket team visiting Nepal is no different. Yet when we see a Nepali player like Lamichhane easily mingle and bond with Indian players, our perception of the Indians changes, and vice-versa. As in cricket, so in life.

Back in 2017, the Pushpa Kamal Dahal government was under incredible pressure from the ‘democratic world’ to keep Nepal from joining the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The Westerners, keen to minimize communist China’s growing footprint in South Asia, argued how Nepal would be foolhardy to willingly walk into this ‘dark, bottomless pit’. The Indians feared Nepal joining the BRI would spell an end to its monopoly over the landlocked country. Only after Kathmandu repeatedly assured New Delhi of its ‘limited’ BRI membership—one dealing solely with ‘connectivity’ projects—did India reluctantly give its nod.

Many Nepali intellectuals were (and still are) skeptical about the BRI. Yet they still credit China for at least trying to explain the concept to them. Over the past five or six years, no month has perhaps passed without at least one China-sponsored conference in Kathmandu on the BRI. Visiting Chinese scholars have been grilled on the initiative. They have not always come up with satisfactory answers. Yet just the fact that Nepali intellectuals and journalists have been able to question them on the BRI, often with no restraint, has helped blunt its hard edges.

In sharp contrast, when the US State Department announced at the end of 2018 that Nepal would play a ‘pivotal’ role in the American Indo-Pacific Strategy (IPS), the intellectual community in Nepal felt cheated: How could such a monumental shift in Nepal’s international outlook—whereby Nepal was being pulled into a supposedly military alliance aimed against its close neighbor—have been handled so nonchalantly? Why were there no prior
consultations in Nepal?

Again, at the time Nepal joined the BRI, there were already extensive discussions here on its costs and benefits. The Chinese wanted to convince Nepalis of all the ways Nepal would benefit from the initiative, and hammer in the point that it was not aimed at saddling Nepal with debt it cannot repay. In some ways the underlying motive behind the BRI was less important than the Chinese messaging.

The IPS has been a more hush-hush affair. The American Embassy in Kathmandu has sponsored no seminar or conference where the architects of this strategy were invited to explain it to willing listeners. Its closed-door briefings on the IPS to handpicked journalists adds more to the suspicion than they help clarify things.

If you want the IPS to work in Nepal, at least give it a good shot at success. Or is the IPS so obviously a military alliance that the Americans in Nepal are hard-pressed to shed light on its non-military aspects? Concurrently, could it be that the much-withered Department of State that handles the US diplomatic engagements is helpless when the constantly bloating Department of Defense is calling the shots?

But even with limited resources the American Embassy could do a better job at highlighting the good aspects of the IPS, if any. Otherwise the perception that it is the American military that is driving the IPS, and that it is a purely strategic alliance to contain China’s rise, will stick. It is hard to see how such a perception will help long-term US interests in Nepal. Task number one for the American mission in Nepal: Convene an IPS conference in Kathmandu—pronto.

The Indians are in a fix. They are reluctant to let any western power increase its footprint in Nepal, their traditional ‘backyard’. Yet India also increasingly thinks it alone may not be able to check China’s growing inroads into its immediate neighborhood. This is the reason it has agreed to cooperate with the US under the Indo-Pacific Strategy, meant specifically to contain China’s rise in Asia. But then, what do we make of the much-touted personal chemistry between Narendra Modi and Xi Jinping post-2017 Wuhan Summit, which has helped reduce the friction between the two Asian giants?

Whatever the state of Sino-India ties, it is hard to see them cooperate while dealing with other countries in the region, particularly those in South Asia. Indian bureaucrats and strategic thinkers are still obsessed with the idea of China ‘gobbling up’ South Asia; Modi will thus find it difficult to be seen as accommodating China in South Asia. Moreover, New Delhi seems to think the US, a faraway and not-always-reliable power, will be much easier to manage in South Asia than will be China, the next-door geopolitical adversary. Thus, even though India won’t completely cede ground to the US in South Asia, we can expect the anti-China cooperation between them to intensify.

This will be the case particularly after President Xi comes to Nepal, perhaps in as little as three months. The Chinese are unhappy with what they see as the turtle’s pace of Nepali politicians and bureaucrats who are hindering progress in China-funded projects in Nepal. Nor have they taken kindly to the criticism of the Ring Road expansion in Kathmandu—such a beautiful road they built! Why are Nepalis so thankless?
But then the time has also come for China to stamp its authority, to show the Americans and the Indians that their best of plans in Nepal can unravel if China is ready to loosen its purse-strings again. It is not a coincidence that our foreign minister these days repeatedly tweets about the ‘hoax of a Chinese debt trap’. As if to needle the Americans, the Oli government also frequently brushes aside concerns about illegal North Korean businesses in Nepal. The Americans would like no less than the shut-down of the North Korean Embassy in Kathmandu.

Will the Chinese railway come trundling into Kathmandu soon after Xi’s visit? Unlikely. With Indian markets as its final target, China sees no utility in extending the railway into Nepal without first getting India’s nod to take it all the way to UP and Bihar. A purely grants-based railway for Nepal is thus a no-no. Yet many big-ticket bilateral projects may yet be announced during Xi’s Kathmandu trip, projects that yield both economic and geostrategic benefits to China.

A visit of the Chinese president and all the projects he brings along will undoubtedly alarm the Indians and the Americans. There are bound to be retaliatory gestures. Nepal is likely to discover the perils of dual membership of the seemingly mutually exclusive BRI and Indo-Pacific clubs. Hope Nepali government officials and political leaders know what they are getting into.

 Only after Nepal promised India it would limit its BRI involvement did India agree to Nepal’s participation in it. Thus how President Xi Jinping’s signature foreign policy initiative will play out in Nepal is anyone’s guess. In an interview with APEX, Deep Kumar Upadhyay, the Nepali envoy in India in 2017 as Nepal’s BRI membership was being negotiated, says it was difficult to convince New Delhi that Nepal joining the initiative would not hurt its interests. Apparently, the deal was that Nepal would limit itself to ‘connectivity’ projects under the BRI. But I could not agree with Upadhyay’s other assertion in the same interview that India is not at all worried about the ‘Nepal-tilting-towards-China’ narrative. He seemed to imply that India understands that most such narratives emerge from people with little knowledge of how diplomacy works. In this thinking, the appointment of S Jaishankar, who has served as India’s ambassador to both the US and China, as the new Minister of External Affairs, is a sign of growing amity between India and China. Jaishankar knows Beijing so well he will allow no India-China tiff to balloon into a crisis.

A corollary to this argument is that with political-level engagements between India and China as good as ever, they will increasingly see eye to eye on their immediate neighbor­hood. Plus, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is now so strong he can clear all bureaucratic obstacles and pursue a harmo­nious neighborhood policy. It was interesting to hear former ambassador Upadhyay say that during his twin tenures in New Delhi, he felt PM Modi personally oversaw India’s Nepal policy. If so, was the blockade Modi’s doing entirely? Or do we conclude that however powerful the prime minister, the bureaucrats lower down the hierarchy invariably prevail when it comes to India’s relations with smaller countries?

A Nepali team is currently in China for the finalization of the Detailed Project Report of the proposed Rasuwagadhi-Kath­mandu rail link. Nepal argues the DPR as well as the con­struction of the $2.5 billion project should be funded with Chinese grants. China insists on a loan agreement. It is also clear that India rather than Nepal is China’s target market. So unless New Delhi gives its go-ahead to the rail line, it makes no economic sense for China just to bring it to Nepal and extend it no farther.

Separately, whatever Xi and Modi decide between them, the Indian establishment will continue to have to rely on the same old MEA bureaucrats to craft India’s Nepal policy. Even if Modi wants to oversee Nepal policy himself, he does not have the time, with his hands full with a Trumpian US, an increasingly assertive China, and the old nemesis Pakistan. Or could it be that the Indians, their hands badly singed by the blockade, will from now on be happy to work behind the scenes while the US is given the lead role in Nepal, as one seasoned diplomat hinted to me? I for one don’t believe India will ever willingly give up, or even appear to do so, its near-absolute sway over Nepal.  

 China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kirgizstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan founded the Shanghai Cooperation Orga­nization (SCO) in 2001. There were two more curious additions as full SCO members in 2017: India and Pakistan. Nepal for its part secured the status of a ‘dialogue partner’ during the 2015 summit in Ufa, Russia. At the time, there was much hoopla in Kathmandu’s strategic circles, as they struggled to understand Nepal’s role in this Eurasian eco­nomic and security body. When queried, officials of the then Sushil Koirala government were vague. Perhaps they too were clueless.

While I was digging into the source of Nepal’s interest in the SCO back in 2017, I had met Upendra Gautam of the China Study Center. He informed me that it was Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala who first showed an interest in the SCO soon after its formation in 2001. To quote Gautam from my article in Republica, “… the price of oil in Nepal had been steadily increasing. Koirala thought it would be wise for Nepal’s energy security to explore Central Asian oil markets”.

Which was mighty interesting. But even after Nepal secured the status of a dialogue partner in 2015, it could not make any headway in the regional grouping, maybe because it jumped on the SCO bandwagon without any homework. At the 2017 and 2018 SCO summits, Nepal was not even invited. Nor was there any effort from Nepal for a greater SCO role, or for participation in this year’s summit (June 12 and 13) in Bishkek, Kazakhstan.

Russia and China, the two main backers of the organiza­tion, are both uncomfortable with what they see as America’s unnecessary encroachment into their neighborhood. No doubt the two Eurasian behemoths have their differences. But as their relations with the US have soured, they have vastly increased their economic and military cooperation. With their long involvement in Nepal, it should not be a surprise if Russia and China start coordinating their Nepal policy—particularly if the Americans and the Indians, as part of the new Indo-Pacific Strategy join hands to limit their strategic space in Nepal.

Theoretically, the SCO gives India and Pakistan a rare platform to talk. This is important, including for a better prospect of the SAARC which Nepal currently chairs. Prac­tically, trying to bring India and Pakistan closer via the SCO is as good as flogging a dead horse. Separately, the KP Oli government might see the organization as a part of its ‘diver­sification’ policy. But Nepal first needs to be clear on where India, its most important foreign partner, stands on the SCO. Ever wary of China, India has been hesitant to push the SCO idea too far. Nor does it want to jeopardize its relation with the US. This dynamic will play out here in Nepal too.

Nepal has some tough strategic choices to make. Having declared its opposition to joining the Indo-Pacific Strategy, is it in Nepal’s interest to angle for a greater role in a competing security organization? On the other hand, if we are serious about connecting with Central Asia via China—as GPK envi­sioned, and as the country signing up to the BRI signaled—the Beijing-based organization could be a useful vehicle. Making this difficult choice requires greater clarity on Nepal’s diver­sification policy.

 Pushpa Kamal Dahal’s ‘untimely’ reminder of his written agreement with KP Oli, that each of them will get to lead the government for two-and-a-half years, was primarily directed at one person: Narendra Modi. Dahal made his case on May 29, accompanied by a ‘leak’ of the agreement, on the eve of PM Oli’s departure to New Delhi to take part in Modi’s second swearing-in as prime minister. But it was only a reminder. Last year, when Dahal was in New Delhi, he had already briefed the Indian government that there had been such an agreement and that he was the PM-in-waiting. Dahal has a checkered history of engaging in all kinds of dubious dealings abroad. On the pretext of medical check-ups for himself or one of his family members, he jets off to New Delhi or Singapore or Washington DC for hush-hush meetings with foreign spooks and bureaucrats. He does so with one intent: to find an external route back to power in his homeland.

The former Maoist supremo has been trying to impress on the Indians (and the Americans) that he is the only politician in Nepal who is acceptable to people from all political, ethnic and regional backgrounds (read: Madhesis) as the country looks to institutionalize the nascent federal republic. Oli, of late a suspect in New Delhi and Washington for his supposed pro-China proclivities, finds himself at a distinct disadvantage in this equation. Foreign powers know they cannot com­pletely trust Dahal. Yet they also increasingly believe Nepal’s pro-China tilt can be checked only if Oli is ousted as PM.

Dahal has now thrown down the gauntlet to Oli: either quit as the prime minister after a year or hand him party leader­ship. Even if Oli agrees—a big if—things won’t be straightfor­ward. Communist parties believe in centralized leadership for a reason. If Oli leads the government and Dahal the party for any length of time, the NCP will likely split sooner or later. Some reckon that is exactly what big powers active in Nepal want: A situation of ‘controlled instability’ in which they get to do as they please.

Interestingly, China is itself frustrated at what it sees as lackluster performance of the much-vaunted, two-third Oli government. Not only has PM Oli dragged his feet in clearing the obstacles for the BRI projects in Nepal. Nepal under Oli also wants all the goodies, including the trans-border railway line, pro bono, which is a no-no for Beijing as the Chinese economy begins to cool off. Perhaps the Chinese too are looking for someone more amenable than Oli? Considering the recent Modi-Xi bonhomie, it may also not be a surprise if China has agreed not to step on Indian sensitivities in Nepal, its traditional ‘backyard’. If Oli expects the northern neighbor to unconditionally prop him up, he may be in for a surprise. Faced with a protectionist US, China has far bigger fishes to fry in India.

 The globe-trotting Narendra Damodardas Modi was only half-jokingly referred to as the ‘foreign policy’ prime minister during his first term. In the five years, he visited 59 countries, from Argentina in South America to Turkmen­istan in Central Asia, from Rwanda in East Africa to Canada and the US in North America. During this time he came to Nepal four times. There were only two countries he visited more often: China and the US.

Modi has firmly entrenched India in the US-led Indo-Pa­cific Strategy even while he has tried to maintain a kind of modus vivendi with China after a tense standoff over the Doklam plateau in 2017. The BJP election manifesto spoke of enhancing India’s role in the Indo-Pacific; it was silent on the BRI. India has been noncommittal about the signature foreign policy initiative of Xi Jinping largely because CPEC, a key BRI project between China and Pakistan, passes through a disputed Kashmir territory.

But after the 2017 ‘informal’ Modi-Xi summit in Wuhan, China, the two countries have been able to collaborate, even as they “agreed to disagree” on several issues. Both realize that with the sole economic superpower turning inward, they need each other to ensure there are no bumps on their road to prosperity. India may be reluctant to sign on to the BRI, but it is keen to preserve the peaceful status quo with China. Therefore, India has proposed a second Wuhan-like informal Modi-Xi summit, this time in Varanasi, Modi’s elec­toral constituency.

Comfortable in his role as India’s torchbearer abroad, Modi no doubt feels even more confident of his ability to maintain the delicate US-China balance following his thumping victory in the recent Indian elections. It will be tough though. The Americans want India to play the pivotal role in the Indo-Pa­cific to check Chinese inroads into South and South East Asia. India also sees the centrality of the US role in its strategic competition against China. Yet it will be reluctant to further distance itself from China, irrespective of what the Americans want. China did Modi a huge favor by giving the UN Security Council the go-ahead to designate the Pakistan-based Masood Azar, someone implicated in various terror attacks in India, a terrorist. This was publicized as a huge diplomatic victory for the Pak-hardliner Modi, who as a result reaped huge electoral benefits. Modi will be obliged to return the favor to the Chinese.

But with the US determined to tighten the screws on China, will the Indians be able to resist the American pressure to ‘isolate’ the Middle Kingdom? And how will such pressure play out in South Asia, including in Nepal? Will the Indians, in true ‘Wuhan spirit’, give the Chinese, their biggest geopo­litical competitor, more or less a free hand in Kathmandu? Or will Modi agree to greater US involvement in Nepal, its traditional ‘backyard’ where India has always frowned on any western activism, to China’s visible discomfort? Or do China and the US now have such influence in Nepal individually that Indian concerns become secondary?

It will be difficult for Nepal if each of these three powers starts pursuing exclusive geopolitical interests here in Nepal. Or if two gang up against one.