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Over the past few years, China has achieved political, economic and diplomatic feats. No apparent observation, perhaps, can emasculate China’s global march—it is rising so gracefully, smoothly and enormously. China is most likely to grow from being a superpower to a mega-power. But in the evolving international system, it is anticipated to play rational, responsible and equable roles.

The most sensible foreign policy course of action for Nepal at this point of unparalleled rise of its immediate neighbor would be to strategically align with it by building mutual trust, while maintaining a delicate balance with another neighbor. Nonetheless, Nepal ought to maintain a pragmatic economic and security framework through increased mutual trust, strategic partnerships and technological cooperation with both the neighbors. Nepal’s economic, developmental and security architecture, despite many geopolitical challenges, should be guided by a sensible geopolitical assessment and wider techno-economic cooperation with immediate neighbors and other powers.

International order is feeling the collective heat of the intensifying Russia-Ukraine war, the Israel-Hamas conflict and a massive weaponization of technology. Unlike the politico-polarity of the past, techno-polarity is now shaping the international order, while the US and China are navigating the tech and AI world order.

Given a sensitive geo-location, highly susceptible digital space and impact of AI on the world order, Nepal should recognize the gravity of the geopolitical competition between high-tech superpowers—the US and China, or China and India—and implement a logical strategy to maintain balanced relations with all of them.

Nepal must be ready to deal with the fallout of a possible occupation of Taiwan, which might put the country in the middle of a ‘crossfire’ between China and the US and directly affect its security and sovereignty. If unable to tenaciously maintain the geopolitical balance between the rival superpowers, Nepal will suffer on multiple fronts.

While the year 2024 is going to be a grand electoral year in the history of modern liberal democracy, the risks that democracy could witness grave tremors are getting higher.

The tech and AI mastery of the high tech superpowers—China and the US—is not only contributing to tech bipolarity, economic rivalry, and geopolitical tensions, but also in democratic antagonism. They are exploiting technology and digital capabilities to contain or dictate each other and are involved in ‘techno-geopolitics’, while the big tech and social media are engaged in ‘disinformation’ and ‘data colonialism’. 

Democracy is in danger not only because of authoritarian rulers, or ethnic (muscular) nationalism, or the risk of disinformation, or influence of AI, but also due to general voters. The voters’ rational behavior/decision could play a significant role in preserving the essence and affluence of liberal democracy as every elector is responsible in making democracy sparkling and functional.

Amid rising geopolitical tensions and escalating international conflicts, North Korea has successfully launched its first ever ‘Spy Satellite” into space to monitor the military activities of its adversaries—the US and its allies—in the Korean peninsula in real-time. More importantly, it would help in making its nuclear plan more precise. Earlier, Pyongyang closed dozens of its embassies, including in Nepal. North Korea has recently pledged to support Hamas in its war against Israel, while the US has blamed it for supporting Russia in the Ukraine war. North Korea is perhaps preparing for a nuke war with the US by claiming that the US could enter the Korean Peninsula with a ‘war-mongering’ attitude following the inducement of chaos in Eastern Europe and the Mideast. The US has deployed a ‘guided-missile submarine’ (nuclear submarine that can contain Ballistic Missile and Cruise Missile) in the Mideast with a message to Iran to not get involved in the Israel-Palestine war. If the flames of the Mideast war, unfortunately, spread to the Arab World, the Korean Peninsula, and to Taiwan, finally, the turmoil will exponentially outstrip beyond imagination or control of any of the superpowers.

While President Xi Xinping and President Joe Biden met face-to-face in San Francisco this week, as two largest economies and great powers of the world, China and the US should not only focus on their bilateral relations, but also think about global issues, including international peace, stability and the world order.

Previously, when the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Vostochny Cosmodrome near Vladivostok, the Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro met Chinese President Xi Xing Ping in Beijing, while both Xi and Putin avoided the recent G20 meeting hosted by India. North Korea has been close to China and Russia and is constantly threatening the west, particularly the US, by repeatedly testing modern ballistic missiles. The G20 nations were contentious to logically end the Ukraine crisis, while the summit officially remained reluctant to condemn Russia that could have boosted Putin’s morale to further strategize the war. Putin is perhaps optimistic regarding the outcome of US election-2024 hoping that the incoming administration in the White House would revise the US strategy on Ukraine—that could favor him winning the war in Ukraine. China, on the other hand, is widely garnering support for its global political march, while the US is desperately making alliances to counter China. The nuke and superpower’s irrational competition on illicit supremacy is inducing global disorder.

Equally, various terrorist organizations are contributing to making the international system more anarchic and fueling social disorder. Samuel P Huntington remarked in The Clash of Civilizations 

that “Nation states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault-lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future”, which remains relevant even today.

The diplomatic sneering between Saudi Arabia and the US in the past following the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi perhaps played a key role in altering the diplomatic courses in the Gulf. Subsequently, the Arab World got united after China brokered a diplomatic deal, thereby solidifying its presence in the Mideast. The flaring tension in bilateral relations between India and Canada following the killing of Canadian Sikh Hardeep Singh Nijjar could now change the “politico-diplomatic strategies” in the Indo-Pacific, while the said intelligence sharing by the US ambassador to Canada regarding the killing of Sikh separatist leader Nijjar could not only deteriorate India-US relations, but could also dilute the US presence in the region by jeopardizing the future of the Indo-Pacific Strategy (IPS). This could subsequently help reinforce China’s clout in the region and beyond.

Bilateral matters are internal affairs of nations, but the “hate crimes”—embedded in religious beliefs—can have spillover effects and cause ethnic war, instigating huge losses to human civilization, if not handled with utmost sense of rationality.  The religious radicalism—that is emotionally rooted to socio-cultural belief—could not only divide communities, but also largely rift humanity. It could also create space for the emergence of additional terrorists and criminal groups. The historical records or incidents of various civilizational clashes show that religious conflicts have always resulted in lose-lose outcomes. 

Conversely, both the states and their regimes want to cash in on ethnic nationalism for immediate political gains. However, both the state and their democratic strength suffer in the long run. 

South Asia is highly sensitive to religious or ethnic violence because the region is believed to be a Hindu-dominated civilization along with mixed minority religious groups, including Muslims and others that have been often witnessing domination from the former since ancient times, blame the critics. The minority groups sometimes outburst with grievances, ego or prejudice and encounters with the majority ones, which subsequently could escalate to civilizational clash leading to ethnic cleansing.

India, Pakistan and Bangladesh have been constantly witnessing ethnic violence or terrorist attacks that are deep-rooted to religious radicalism. Nepal has also been witnessing instances of social and ethnic differences, particularly hatred sentiments or pursuits against Hindu beliefs or Hinduism, in recent times. Some internal and external actors are trying to sow the seeds of social disharmony in the Nepali society in the name of globalization of culture, perhaps, with shrewd hidden interests. On the other hand, social order is being constantly challenged due to social irresponsibility of some so called communally recognized individuals including people’s representatives, social frontrunners and Opinion makers. Various studies show that the major source of knowledge or information to the new generation has become ‘short clips’ or ‘posts’ from social media— that rarely have depth of information, facts or evidence, data or statistics, and data analysis regarding the content. Likewise, some Opinion makers in mainstream media dig deeper only into the problems just by criticizing, blaming and inducing negative emotions to the general public for the sake of immediate popularity, instead of identifying possible solutions, ideas, innovations and sense of socio-emotional cohesiveness by incorporating facts, data, discussions, critical analysis and integrity. Accordingly, the inheritance of superficial knowledge or disinformation could induce misperception leading to adverse incitements in the mind of young readers, which could result in substantial ‘knowledge deficit’ when knowledge is transferred from one generation to another. Consequently, this could weaken ‘national knowledge power’ causing huge loss to the nation in the long run.

Nevertheless, the innovative technology, advanced society or antique democracy alone cannot bring significant transformation in human life, civilization or political affairs, a “conscious and responsible behavior” is essential in every human being including tech users, technocrats, policy makers, social and political actors. The tech, diplomatic and political policies and strategies should reflect democratic values that advance liberty and humanity, and respect human rights as well as people’s personal sovereign dignity. The AI, big tech and social media first need to be democratized so that they can contribute to a democratic order. Most importantly, a trustful multilateral (diplomatic) channel should be established so as to enable countries to develop responsible and ethical technology, while honest and ethical use (or practice) of AI technology, social media, or cultural beliefs will indeed advance people’s life, society, democracy and state-to-state relations. Technology however has brought about great transformations in human life, economy and the state of affairs; social media undeniably is one of the momentous entities of liberal world order when it complies with ‘ethical norms’, ‘comity’ and ‘civism’.

Primarily, domestic issues are entirely sovereign internal affairs of nations, while no foreign nationals or government can perhaps raise objections against their domestic laws and constitutional provisions. Yet, the concerns—tech, social and democratic—are highly sensitive due to the impact they may have on the region and beyond. Thus, it’s high time to restore trust and harmony among nation-states and nationals of distinct communities by initiating “rational civic dialogue”. The stronger and cohesive the social accord in a country, the higher the prospect of political stability, economic prosperity and democratic enlivening. 

Essentially, nation-states require truthful, collaborative and cooperative action among governments, civic community, multilateral organizations, universities, NGOs, think tanks and creative individuals to inject a specific ‘gene’ consisting of ‘harmony, humanity and civility’ into political leaders in the generations to come. 

The leadership endowed with this gem of a gene, let’s hope, will be able to course through a complex techno-socio-democratic order.  

This is the last piece of a three-part series

The author is a geopolitical analyst

The geo-digital situation of Nepal is highly vulnerable as much as the geo-political situation is. Apart from a long diplomatic influence, Nepal is directly or indirectly under geo-tech influence at present. While the government banned TikTok a few weeks back, China has expressed displeasure over it suspecting that Nepal could be influenced due to geopolitical factors. The possibility of Nepal imposing curbs on other social media platforms cannot be ruled out.
Now, the crucial concern is—how can the country adopt ‘Tech Neutrality’ amid a long tech war or potential cyber battle between the two tech superpowers—China and the United States?

Considering geo-location, geo-political proximity, sensitive geo-digital situation and tech dependency on others, both foreign political predators and cyber terrorists are constantly threatening cybersecurity architecture in the country. Nepal must fortify digital security preparedness with a sense of tech cooperation to rationally focus on intelligence mechanisms—both threat intelligence and cyber intelligence.

The world is witnessing AI or high-tech warfare rather than traditional warfare, be it in Russia-Ukraine or Israel–Palestine conflict. A war that does not defend humanity and human civilization is a cold-hearted crime.

If the Israel-Palestine war is escalated for destabilizing the Middle East or shattering China-initiated Gulf unity, the outcome would be costlier than in Iraq, Afghanistan, or Libya.

Massive US funding on war in Ukraine and Israel could trigger divisions within alliances like the EU, apart from affecting the outcome of US election 2024 and impacting the Ukraine war. It would leave a stronger precedent on the Taiwan issue at a time when China is taking advantage of a waning US image for its global ambition. As the world is likely to be divided into two poles, every international conflict would ultimately end in Beijing-Washington negotiations, else slip into WW-III.  So, let’s invest in peace, not in war.

As China assumes the presidency of the UN Security Council and the Presidents of China and the US meet in San Francisco on the sidelines of APEC summit this month, the two superpowers are expected to take serious steps to bring the conflicting parties— Israel-Palestine and Russia-Ukraine— into negotiating table for tangible outcomes.

As compliant partners and rational competitors, the two giants should work for the greater good of society, humankind and the universe, keeping in mind that they will be able to retain their prime positions only through decent leadership, equable and nimble rationality, amity and cooperation. 

Globalization and a corresponding drive toward neoliberalism had a role in shaping the global political order in the past. At present, the intricacy of ‘techno-geopolitics’ and ‘techno-nationalism’ is making a sway in digital, economic, social and democratic order thereby impelling a new global order.

‘Democracy’ is said to be in decline in many parts of the world, while its global state is ‘complex’, ‘fluid’ and ‘unequal’ in 2023 (Global State of Democracy Initiative). Considered to be a process rather than a “system” or any form of institution, democracy can come to a halt when it encounters critical threats from any actor— be it human or machine.

 “The human being ranks higher than machines and technology”, reads Article 12, Section 1 of the 1947 Constitution of Bremen, an entity of the German federal state, perhaps foreseeing the prospective supremacy of machines (AI) over humans. 

An Open Letter titled “Pause Giant AI Experiments” originally signed by a 1000-plus tech, social and AI leaders around the world on March 22, 2023 has garnered more than 33700 signatures, including that of this author. 

It reads, “Contemporary AI systems are now becoming human-competitive at general tasks, and we must ask ourselves: Should we let machines flood our information channels with propaganda and untruth? Should we automate away all the jobs, including the fulfilling ones? Should we develop nonhuman minds that might eventually outnumber, outsmart, obsolete and replace us? Should we risk the loss of control over our civilization? Such decisions must not be delegated to unelected tech leaders. Powerful AI systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks manageable…” 

Unlawful development and deployment of generative AI has heightened risks of weaponization of AI technology to the detriment of humanity and human civilizations. The extensive misuse of AI has been posing a serious threat to democracy and humanity through ‘deep-fakes’ or ‘scams’.

After a Covid-19 pandemic that continues to haunt humanity, the world is witnessing two major threats—the “tech threat” that is challenging the sovereignty of nations, posing crucial threats to democracy and impinging on personal sovereign dignity of individuals; and the “religious radicalism” that could foment civilizational clashes and lead to disastrous consequences like ethnic cleansing. These two threats can sweep human civilization by wreaking havoc around the world.

Civilization clashes—be it Hindu-Muslim conflicts or the Manipur violence in India, Islam-Christian tensions around the world after 9/11, Black-White racial clashes in the US, the Rohingya sweeping in Myanmar, ethnic conflicts in Africa or Middle-East or ethnic clashes between Azerbaijan and Armenians in the Nagorno-Karabakh, the  diplomatic fiasco between India and Canada that is deep-rooted to religious radicalism or the recent Hamas attack in Israel and the Israeli counter-attack that are fuelling Muslim-Jews clashes—all reflect domination of religion over religion, culture over culture, human over human, nation over nation, and civilization over civilization. These developments could permeate beyond national boundaries and end up challenging the existing global social, civilizational or democratic order. 

Transnational issues such as terrorism, war, crimes, financial issues, climate change, economic stability, energy and food security, intellectual property rights, cybersecurity, nuclear and AI threats, maritime security, poverty and pandemics are also causing chaos worldwide.  

The author is a geopolitical analyst. This article is part 2 of a three-part series

The world is witnessing an AI or a high-tech war rather than just a traditional warfare—be it Russia-Ukraine war or Israel–Palestine conflict, while the conflicting parties have been massively ‘weaponizing technology’ and also undermining basic humanitarian laws. 

If the Israel-Palestine war, unfortunately, escalated over Iran or the Arab World with a shrewd intention of destabilizing the Mideast or disintegrating China initiated Gulf unity, the outcome would be more disappointing or costlier than that in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, or Libya in the past.

The massive US funding on the war in Ukraine and Israel, and possibly in Taiwan, instead of rationally investing on peace prospects, could not only induce divisions within the EU, NATO and other alliances, but could also affect the outcome of US election 2024 and impact the Russia-Ukraine war as well. 

Subsequently, it would leave a stronger precedent on the Taiwan issue. China, meanwhile, is widely garnering sustenance by taking advantage of a gradually waning US image, for its global political march. Against this backdrop, the world is most likely to be divided into two poles such that sooner or later every international conflict would ultimately end on Beijing-Washington negotiations, else slip into WWIII. Inviting a war is nothing but just an irrational competition on who would be stupider. Investing in war cannot be a wise ‘strategy’; instead, it is an ‘absurdity’. States, as responsible actors, should take steps for peace and harmony, and win hearts, minds and spirits of their nationals for maintaining a socio-democratic order.

The world is also observing a new version of Cold War centered on ‘democracy’ vs ‘autocracy’ in the form of tech and AI, data colonialism, data harvesting, cyber warfare, tech propaganda, intelligence sharing and spy-tech diplomacy, space race, maritime aggression, diplomatic maneuvering, interference in the internal affairs of states and unfair (and unilateral) tariffs or sanctions inconsistent with international laws. Consequently, global disorder is more disordered today. 

The induced “distrust and polarization of democracies” and disinformation from big tech and social media have been constantly challenging techno-democratic order, while the Russia-Ukraine conflict—that is largely marshaled by tech weaponries—is constantly fuelling for global disorder, and the Israel-Palestine conflict is likely to disunite the Arab World. The US, India and the UK as well as other influencing democracies such as Egypt, Indonesia, Mexico, South Africa and South Korea are going to polls in 2024, while the challenges to ‘electoral democracy’ following the risk of disinformation or the influence of AI and ethnic nationalism cannot be undermined.

In the past, the West undermined Russian tech, cyber and nuclear capabilities, while the consequence was that the US frequently witnessed vulnerability in its cyber security and is now facing grave challenges to democracy from within and outside. The West is not accepting China’s AI strength and diplomatic clout, including its four initiatives—BRI, GDI, GSI, GCI—while the consequence is that the world is being gradually divided into two poles seeking alternative global orders. The West is also not accepting India’s promising tech and Space strength. This disregard could end up making India an alternative power in the global stage in the foreseeable future.

Nevertheless, all the three influencing powers—China, India and Russia—have had remarkable history cum civilization, grand legacy, abundance of resources, strong national power capability, great population, greater size, rapidly emerging economy, innovative technology and remarkable defense capability, which none of the reigning powers can undermine now. While China has been the strongest of the three due to its AI supremacy, strong defense capability, gamut of intelligence and wider clout on the global stage. India is logically stronger because of its national power capabilities, including “fertile population” or “demographic advantage”, followed by strategic ties with Russia, bulky economic undertakings with China and geostrategic alliance with the US. Russia has become much stronger due to its tactical nuclear capability followed by stronger bilateral and geostrategic ties with China, India and North Korea.

The author is a geopolitical analyst

This article is part 1 of a two-part series