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While addressing the function to mark the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party on July 1, President Xi Jinping warned that “the Chinese people will never allow foreign forces to intimidate us… Whoever harbors illusions of doing this will break his head and spill blood on the Great Wall of steel...” (Translation, The New York Times). Towards the end he stated, “resolving the Taiwan question and realizing China's complete reunification is a historic mission and an unshakable commitment.” But in the official English translation of the speech the part about ‘blood and broken head’ is missing. There are multiple interpretations of why this happened: some say the English translation is toned down, while others argue that these four-word idioms are used to express exaggerated consequences, and most are not to be taken literally. I tend to go with the second argument. Usually, a word-by-word translation of Chinese idioms doesn’t make sense.

However, sensing whom it was directed at, the US delivered an answer through Japan’s Deputy PM Taro Aso on July 6: “If a major incident happened [in Taiwan], it would not be strange at all if it touches on a situation threatening survival. If that is the case, Japan and the US must defend Taiwan together.” Now, this could make some of you who rely on the western “liberal” news sources feel that China is on a collision course with the world and militarism has taken over China. Or, it is planning a military move on Taiwan. Relax. It’s not happening. At least not for the next 20-plus years.

Despite the alarming news reports and Western think tanks’ analyses, China would want to resolve its issues with others without having to fire a single bullet. No, it has nothing to do with the ancient military strategist Sun Tzu’s maxim, often translated as “the supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” It has more to do with China's social and military realities.

According to a news report published in the Beijing Evening News on 15 August 2011, a big chunk of China’s military is made up of soldiers from one-child families. It quotes Prof Liu Mingfu of the National Defense University as saying, approximately 70 percent of the Chinese military and 80 percent of its combat troops belong to one-child families. Another news report “Soldiers of the one-child era: are they too weak to fulfill Beijing’s ambitions?” published in the South China Morning Post (SCMP) 6 Feb 2014 and translated by many news portals in China, further quotes experts on whether the one-child recruits are best suited to advance China's security interests. It too mentions Prof Liu and his data, but this time as having stated those numbers “in a public report to the central government in 2012... the high proportion of only-child soldiers is a strategic fear to China's long-term security despite the military coming up with special training for spoiled children to strengthen combat effectiveness.” The importance of this report is evident from the fact that the translated version was uploaded on the People's Daily website and is still accessible.  

Let's not get into the other points raised in the aforementioned pieces such as “the soldiers from the single child family are spoiled and weak” or the “parents don't want to send their children to battlefields”. There's no reason to doubt the patriotism of Chinese soldiers. They don't and won't hesitate to defend their country’s interests. But the Chinese government would not want to send these soldiers to battlefields unless and until it is absolutely necessary, for one simple reason: Soldiers die in wars.    

Even with the advanced weapons and the changes in the nature of warfare brought about by technology, the infantry is still a major component that decides the war’s outcome. And soldiers die fighting—a given in any warfare.

But for the Chinese government it could lead to anti-government forces encouraging the parents of fallen soldiers to protest. Not doubting the patriotism of the Chinese people, but even if a handful of the fallen soldiers’ parents and grandparents start protesting against the government for the death of their only hope for the continuation of the family line, it could lead to untoward situations. And the Chinese society is no stranger to plotters and secret societies always cooking something against the government. Also, the government would have to look after the dead soldiers’ aging parents. And for the CCP it could backfire in an entirely different way.

If the Chinese government makes a military move against Taiwan, it would only embolden the ultra-nationalist voices and there would be calls to use the military to resolve issues with India, Japan and the US. Either the government has to start a bloody war with everyone, or it could be ousted by popular ultranationalist protests for not starting wars.

As the CCP is pragmatic it is not going to risk its own survival, China’s growth and global peace by emboldening ultranationalist voices. And the world doesn’t want it either because the nationalist CCP with its occasional belligerent rhetoric is much easier to deal with than any irrationally hot headed ultranationalist force that replaces it. This explains why the US is still firm on its one China policy and doesn’t want to change the status quo on Taiwan.

Therefore, we need to understand that President Xi was not saying anything new. He was only reiterating what all the Chinese leaders since 1949 have been saying. It helps pacify the hawkish factions in the government and the military that believe in “power unexercised is like unused money, it has no value” and at the same time remind the people that their aspirations of having Taiwan reunited with the mainland is high on the government’s agenda.

But, China would not want to reclaim Taiwan militarily for at least 20 years. The year 2041 would mark a significant departure in China's foreign policy. It would be the year when China can confidently flex its military muscle, if things come to that. And just like it is now, neither China nor the world is looking forward to it.

It was only in 2016 that it allowed couples to have two children, and this year, it allowed them to have three. And as is the trend in all countries experiencing economic growth, not many couples are interested in having more than one child and it affects the military as well (“Chinese military faces challenges from falling fertility rate,” 30 May 2021, SCMP).

The age of entry to the military is 18, and that means the first batch of two-children recruits would join in 2035/36. Add two years of training and that's 2038. And if there aren’t enough recruits from two-child families, the Chinese military would have to wait until 2039/40 to get its first batch of the three-children recruits. By the time they complete their training, it will be 2041. Going by this calculation, the Chinese government would not feel comfortable embarking on a major military adventure until 2041—exactly 20 years from now.

If China is forced to use the military to protect its interests in the interim, that would have more to do with forces beyond its borders—and control. Or if it starts a fight on its own, it would be minor border skirmishes with what it views as weak countries to calm the nationalist faction in its government, military and society. But it's not going to fight a full-fledged war with the “weak" either. China would be fighting short “half wars” until 2041.

Among other things, some liberals and pseudo-liberals are hell bent on portraying PM KP Oli as trying to re-establish Nepal as a Hindu country—and I personally hope PM Oli is indeed working toward that objective.

But again, Oli has been blamed for many things, some justifiable, some ludicrous. For some blaming him is a passion, for some a fashion and for some wannabe copycat liberals, blaming or suspecting Oli for the things he is yet to do is the only way to establish their liberal credentials. And when you attack both Oli and Hinduism and the majority’s aspirations of a Hindu state, it becomes doubly easier for you to gain the membership of the “elite liberal club of the most bigoted liberals” and be seen as the most enlightened thinker. 

Let’s be clear: Just because they have issues with the Hindu state does not mean the whole of Nepal has problems with it. You illiberal liberals of the leftist kind could have problems with Oli providing a couple of millions to one of the holiest Hindu temples in the world, Pashupatinath, or his insistence on Lord Ram being born in Nepal, I don’t, and nor do many of us. We see it as Oli finally accepting the fact that the majority of Nepal is Hindu and it makes no sense to alienate us with the irreligious leftist ideology that has only caused misery wherever it was/is practiced.

But why are you self-professed liberals concerned though, beats me. On the one hand you argue that Nepali people are aware and revolutionary and secularism is an achievement and no Nepali wants to do away with it. But on the other hand, you feel threatened by PM Oli’s moves. Isn't that contradictory? If the majority doesn’t want to revert to Hindu state like you all argue, then, why do you feel threatened by Oli supporting a major Hindu temple and or insisting Ram was born in Nepal? Maybe it’s because liberal left’s favorite pastime is to create contradictions and indulge in senseless ramblings.

The problem with the mainstream Nepali media is that it is dominated by a group of ultra-leftist thinkers in liberal garb. Their views are repeated to the point that people who feel differently have to think 10 times before arguing against them—that is if they get the chance/space in the media to present their views. Freedom of expression is understood and practiced as freedom to promote leftist ideology and that has led to silencing of the rational other-than-leftist liberal voices. That is why we are bombarded with pieces highlighting the dangers of doing away with “hard won” achievements including the secular state. And it gets funnier: we are made to believe that if we revert to non-secular state, Nepal will witness the Indian Rastriya Swayamsevak Sangh(RSS)-brand of militant Hinduism, and the minorities’ rights would be curtailed and all sorts of liberal nonsense.

But what they don’t tell you is that the leaders did away with Hindu state despite the majority population opposing it. If we go by the number of letters sent to the second Constituent Assembly, most letter-writers wanted to retain Nepal’s Hindu country status. But in this land of bizarre democracy their suggestion was ignored, thereby going against the very idea of a constituent assembly. The hastily written constitution was imposed by a group of leaders and their (i) liberal narrative setters and no wonder it is failing.

And no, Nepal will not be importing or influenced by the RSS-brand of “militant” Hinduism if we become a Hindu country. There is absolutely no evidence to support it. Even when it was a Hindu kingdom, we seldom experienced religious clashes and not at all the gruesome kind a la India. Even the rare occurrences of religious clashes in old Nepal are increasingly rarer in today's “new” Nepal because Nepalis of all faiths are going to the Islamic countries to work and are sharing rooms with each other and getting to understand each other more. And let’s not forget the most gruesome and excruciating violence we witnessed in Nepal had nothing to do with religion but with the radical leftist ideology.

We have far more violent radical left youth organizations and not a single RSS-like organization in the country. So, the whole argument is absurd and inserted just to show the writers know what is happening in the neighborhood, and we should take them seriously for their worldly views—or it could be that they need to meet the word-requirement for an article and in the absence of real rational arguments, they just write all things irrational to bring the word count up to 1,000. That's another reason for you, the readers, not to take these pieces seriously.

Further, none of the pieces by democratic and liberal writers advocating secularism in the country calls for letting people decide whether they want a secular or a Hindu state. If you are so democratic and believe in the people, why not use your privileged status of a narrative setter and opinion maker and use the media space generously provided by the equally “liberal” and “enlightened” editors to call for a referendum on the issue and settle it once and for all? No constitution is un-amendable and if you are so threatened by the Hindu state and yet believe that the majority of rational Nepalis will vote against doing away with the hard-won secularism, why not argue for a referendum so that you and the group you represent feels validated? If you win, more power to you.

And as for the argument, suspicion rather, that PM Oli is working in cahoots with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi to do away with secularism and we should oppose it, what happened to your patriotism and pride when your revered leaders were working with the Indian establishment to do away with monarchy and Hindu state? So working with foreigners to promote your agenda is fine and even democratic and patriotic, but when it's against your and your agenda, it's a betrayal and regression?

This is more of your frustration at India for not opposing PM Oli's moves than anything to do with secularism and Hinduism. Had India opposed PM Oli, you would be the ones singing PM Modi’s praises. You illiberal liberals are the ones inviting foreign intervention and that India chose not to intervene on your and your leaders’ behalf has made you lose your sanity, so to speak. And you see a conspiracy.

Come on, give us a break! Go ahead, call me a rightist or hurl whatever colorful adjective you can think of. Make my day, illiberal liberals. I expect nothing less.

In my previous column “Decoding Chinese signals in Nepal” (June 3-9), I had argued that China is sending us a signal and we need to decode it to understand its intent in Nepal. Probably sensing that we are a bit slow in understanding it’s real intent, China has sent us yet another signal that even a five-year-old has no difficulty understanding. By providing the ruling CPN-UML with health equipment and 100,000 N-95 masks—nothing significant in terms of real help, but a highly symbolic gesture nonetheless—it is clearly telling us that it wants to start anew with KP Oli.

There are two reasons for China's change of heart. First, the less important one. China clearly understood that it is not yet ready to challenge and or upset India’s traditional role in Nepal. It has rightly calculated that Oli is here to stay for some time and it is futile to back those opposing him. And despite Oli trying to distance himself from China by not uttering the Belt and Road Initiative even once while talking about the India-led BBIN and BIMSTEC and the American MCC in his speech to the nation on May 28, China sending the symbolic “relief” to the UML a week later is a clear expression of an end of its political (mis-) adventure in Nepal.

And now the more important reason for repeated signals, and that has nothing to do with Nepal.

While some of our analysts never tire of repeating that Nepal is quite important for China to thwart any US or Indian designs on China by using Nepal (and only God knows what they mean by that), I too have been repeating that it’s not the case. Nepal was and is just a bargaining chip for China and it would use us to either amend its relations or to resolve its outstanding issues with India, which again has nothing to do with Nepal. To achieve that objective, it brilliantly hoodwinked us into believing that it had replaced India as a major player in Nepal. To be frank, China viewed us a pawn to be sacrificed in the grand chessboard of international politics all along, but “we” interpreted the Chinese “involvement” as it acknowledging us as an important neighbor for its security. As expected, there were a zillion misplaced and mistakenly argued pieces on Nepal’s geopolitical importance and what not by our “scholars”.

While they are still arguing Nepal is important for China, President Xi Jinping on May 31 clearly signalled a change in China's foreign policy. According to China’s national news agency, Xinhua—and as quoted by all major global media outlets—President Xi remarked “it is necessary to make friends, unite and win over the majority, and constantly expand the circle of friends [when it comes to] international public opinion.”

Many scholars have interpreted this as China acknowledging the spectacular failure of its assertive “wolf-warrior diplomacy” and as a proactive measure to minimize the damage to its international reputation following the US President Joe Biden’s orders to his intelligence community to find out the origin of the coronavirus within three months. China is certain that the US intelligence report will blame it for the pandemic and it needs friends to speak on its behalf. Assertiveness is not going to win it friends and influence the global public opinion, hence the volte-face.

While those interpreting it this way are mostly focused on Western powers, as a South Asian, I see it as China trying to mend its relations with India as well. India is a neighbor and a regional power and India’s silence on or dismissal of the US intelligence report would mean a lot to China. After all, India is the world's largest democracy and India’s opinions do matter in today’s world. And what credibility would the US report have if China’s neighbor and the West’s favorite India does not endorse it?

Therefore, China’s willingness to work with Oli is a clear signal to India, more than a signal to Nepal. And it is not the first time China has used Nepal to send a signal to India. It happened during Deng Xiaoping’s 1978 Nepal visit as well. According to Professor Ezra Vogel, Deng “not only avoided criticizing India, but also composed his message in Nepal in a way that might well appeal to India: China would assist all nations in the region trying to pursue an independent policy. Deng was paving the way for improved relations with India, which he hoped might help pull it away from the Soviet Union” (Deng Xiaoping and the transformation of China by Ezra Vogel).

Therefore, China’s support (absence of opposition equals support) to Oli is a brilliant way to let India know that it can have its way in Nepal, and China has no plans whatsoever to challenge its influence and authority here. Or to put it in a slightly politically incorrect way, China is using or sacrificing or trading Nepal to buy India's silence or opposition to what it views as a US-led effort to chastise it for the spread of coronavirus. In our scholars’ parlance, China is playing the “Nepal card” in its relations with India. There goes our “importance for China”.

A defining feature of Chinese diplomacy is that it sends signals to the intended country that signify a major change in its attitude to that country.  The most famous one being inviting Edgar Snow, the Mao-loving American journalist, to attend the annual military parade to mark the anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic in 1970. The Chinese released a photo of Snow standing alongside chairman Mao. They saw Snow as an important figure in America and hoped that the picture would signal to the Americans that China was not only willing to establish diplomatic relations with the US, but also to welcome a high-level US delegation.

But Snow was not an important figure in the US and as Henry Kissinger later wrote, at first nobody in the US understood what the Chinese were trying to signal with the photo and they (the Americans) understood its message fairly late. And there are numerous other instances of China’s signal diplomacy. (If you are particularly interested in China's signal diplomacy vis-à-vis Nepal, you can read about them here.)

China is signaling something to us and we got to understand it. After all, it’s an important neighbor and as things now stand, our only hope of getting corona vaccines quickly.

(A disclaimer first: Look, like many in Nepal, I too am clueless about what really happens in the halls of Baluwatar and Shital Niwas, and like many who write, I also write based on what I think really transpired, and like them, I too could be very wrong.)

It’s hard to believe that the telephone conversation between our President Bidhya Bhandari and President Xi Jinping was not preplanned. Many days and weeks were probably spent by our diplomats in Beijing and by Chinese diplomats in Kathmandu (or given the way we conduct our foreign policy these days, I wouldn't be surprised if it were the Chinese diplomats who did all the work.) This suspicion has some grounds. Think of it, otherwise, why would President Bhandari send a letter to her Indian counterpart requesting speedy delivery of vaccines just a day before the phone conversation with her Chinese counterpart? Maybe it was to signal to India that Nepali government was not going to switch sides. Or, by making her appear really concerned about the people, it was an attempt to improve her public image in Nepal where her popularity is at an all-time low.

Now the million-dollar question: why would the most powerful man in the world be willing to talk to our president when almost all reports point to PM Oli snubbing China's requests to do his most, even resign as either party president or prime minister, to save the unity of the party China invested heavily on?

Without a doubt, China is signaling something.

The most likely one being that despite what happened in Nepal, China is willing to work with the Oli government. Maybe China realized it is futile to get involved in Nepal's internal politics and no Nepali government, even one supported by India, would dare work against its legitimate interests in Nepal. Further, given India’s support for Oli, as suggested by India’s suspicious silence on Nepal’s recent political developments, the Chinese must have rightly calculated that he is going to call the shots for some time. And it is in their interest to engage with him. Could it be that China is signaling that from now on, it will follow its earlier hands-off approach in Nepal?

The second most likely scenario is that China wants to help Nepal deal with the covid pandemic by supplying us with the much-needed vaccines. But as a major global power, it wants Nepal to make an official request and let the world know about it. That would serve three purposes: Prove there are many countries that trust Chinese vaccines, and let others know that if you request from us, we would give you vaccines. Third, and most important, using Nepal as a successful model of Chinese vaccines would make India realize it’s limits in dealing with the pandemic and force it to rethink its opposition to Chinese vaccines. That would boost China’s international standing and soft power by many folds and force India to accept that its regional ambitions are unrealistic and misplaced as of now.

And my twisted skeptic brain has yet another theory. It is most likely but like I said, we can only make intelligent guesses and this too should not be overlooked.

China is giving us a million vaccines this time. Earlier it gave 800,000. That’s a total of 1.8 million doses. While it’s better than nothing and like all Nepalis, I am grateful to China for this kind gesture, the volumes are awfully low given our 30 million-plus people. Maybe the Chinese are signaling that more vaccines will follow only after the ouster of PM Oli, and it is their way of punishing him—or, the way Chinese like to put it, teaching him a lesson—for snubbing Chinese requests to step down. Maybe it signals a more hands-on approach on Nepal.

We don't need to wait long to decipher the Chinese signal. What the Chinese do and don't do would make us understand what they want in Nepal and their Nepal policy for at least 10 years to come.

Analysts are looking at the events of the past two weeks from all sorts of geopolitical and other angles. But they are missing a crucial point, i.e., what led to the political crisis and to the truce between prime minister KP Oli and his arch-nemesis in the party, Madhav Kumar Nepal. No, it has nothing to do with democracy, India or making the government more responsible in dealing with the rising number of covid cases.

The difference between Nepal and Oli didn't arise from the latter’s dictatorial tendencies and total disregard for party directives or mishandling of the corona pandemic. Nepal would have been no different if he were the PM. If one is to look closely, the present event is nothing but a repetition of what transpired in the past between KP Bhattarai and GP Koirala, and later between Koirala and Sher Bahadur Deuba. The real reason for their split (and all other splits of the past 30 years) has to do with our leaders’ Afno manche syndrome—the sense of power one derives from having their people, no matter how tarnished or corrupt or unqualified, appointed at almost all important government positions. This ‘my man syndrome’ is the reason Nepal is one of the most corrupt countries in the world and as a result, one of the most underdeveloped as well.

We are a nation of wrong hero worshippers. The politically biased mainstream media creates heroes for us and we idiots believe in the invented heroes’ sacrifices and greatness. The person who heavily politicized the bureaucracy immediately after the restoration of the multiparty democratic circus in the country 32 years ago, KP Bhattarai, is hailed as a Santa (Saint) leader. Conveniently ignored are Bhattarai’s filling of the bureaucracy and academia with Nepali Congress loyalists, and those buying their loyalty (to him) by bribing his secretaries.

His successor Koirala went a step further. Now one had to pledge his loyalty to him to get a good position. They got lucrative positions by rallying behind other leaders. The clique-ization of Nepali bureaucracy was complete. Even the academia and the security sector couldn't remain unaffected by the new “political” criteria on promotions. One’s loyalty to the prime minister, whether via family ties or proved through bribes and sycophancy, was what it took to make it big in Nepali bureaucracy, academia, media, security and even private businesses.

The ones who succeeded them, whether from the Congress or the UML, were no different. But by then clique-ization of the parties was complete too. Prime ministers lost their prerogative to choose the ministers themselves. They had to accommodate the demands of the cliques. This portfolio to this clique, that portfolio to that clique became the norm, and the most powerful position in the country became the weakest.

PM Oli didn't accommodate all the demands of the Prachanda clique and the Madhav Nepal clique, and appointed his people to important positions. That made other leaders fearful of losing their grip on the state and the party, thereby losing the source of their income—money, not morality, is what ensures success in politics everywhere but it's dirty money in Nepal that makes or breaks a leader.

In a way, PM Oli was exercising his right by appointing the people loyal to him to the positions he deemed fit, but leaders of other cliques saw that as a threat to their control of the state and the party. They were losing control and something had to be done. More than democracy or morality, they were driven by their own petty calculations to oust him so that they could fill the government apparatuses with their own people, and derive a sense of power from it. (Bikash Sangraula has done a better job than me in explaining the leaders’ perverse sense of power and the media’s misreading of the whole episode in his Republica columns.)

That led to the most bizarre act of the democracy circus: The Nepal clique and Jhalanath clique first flouted the party whip in failing to vote in favor of PM Oli in the parliament, and then threatened to resign en masse to support the other parties’ bid to form government. If you happen to be a foreigner reading this and are not clear what happened: it's like Bernie Sanders demanding Joe Biden that his loyalists and friends be given government portfolios, appointed the joint chief of staff and ambassadors and the head of various institutions, including the NIH and even Supreme Court judges. And Sanders threatening Biden he would bring the government down if he refused to meet his demands. That's exactly what happened in Nepal. And being a dysfunctional democracy, our prime minister had no option but to agree to meet various cliques’ demands to have their people appointed in all positions—from ministers to professors to inspectors in the Nepal Police. (In America, Biden would have sent Sanders to a psychiatrist.)

Panchayat was better than the present circus. At least you didn’t have to pay your way to a job. Apolitical ones too were appointed to positions that matched their qualifications—as long as they refrained from criticizing the state. But it's a different world now. A qualified professor with a degree from an Ivy League school and with an extensive teaching and research experience abroad was disqualified in favor of someone with no such experience and who just happened to be close to one of the cliques of one of the parties, not that long ago. (The same is true of the ambassadors. You have to be someone's daughter, mother-in-law, nephew, have a lot of money, or be loyal to your leader to represent the country abroad. )

If the cliques fight to have their man appointed to a teaching job, imagine what they do to have their people in key positions. Unless our leaders cure themselves of the 30-year-old Afno manche disease, the country will continue to be a mess and petty infighting like the one we just witnessed will continue to dominate headlines for a long time to come.

I don't know what others conclude from all this. For me personally, I get a good I-told-you-so moment. It just proves that Nepal was not and still is not ready for the western style multi-party democracy and Mahendra wasn't wrong to do away with it.

Meanwhile, if any of you wants a government/bureaucratic job in the next two years, profess your loyalty to the UML, then join a clique, then prove your loyalty to your leader by either doing their dirty jobs, flattery or the easiest route, by making a donation. There’s probably a rate card for all positions, so pay the amount to your clique and get a job.

Welcome to the bizarre democratic tyranny of the few—Republic of Nepal.

Delusion: A false belief that is based on an incorrect interpretation of reality.  (Harvard Health Publishing, Harvard Medical School)

Majority of our mainstream political analysts are delusional. Therefore, we are constantly bombarded with pieces that assume we are already a prosperous, strong country with functional democracy. Such ideas that do not correspond to ground reality are promoted and believed. And that's behind our poverty and weak international standing.

The buzzword these days is balance. Almost all pieces on Nepal’s foreign policy either begins or ends with the sentence, “Nepal needs to balance its relations with all three powers: India, China and the US”, as if we are capable of it. But hardly any piece carries a clear—and doable—prescription on how to achieve that much-sought balance. The very belief that we or anybody else for that matter can balance its relations with countries with competing interests and ideologies is, quite frankly, ridiculous. Either they know a thing or two no body else does, or they know nothing and they say it because that's in vogue and saying anything to the contrary makes them anti-China, anti-India or anti-America. In our shameless effort to avoid being anti this and that, we have ceased being pro-Nepal.

Being pro-Nepal means accepting that we do not possess any special diplomatic skills and we do not matter much to the global or regional powers that we are obsessed with. The great delusion is that we are already Switzerland and we have the luxury to remain neutral and non-aligned. Being pro-Nepal is to accept that we are poor and weak and light years behind Switzerland. It also means we explore ways to make ourselves strong so that others take us seriously. And there's only one way to go about achieving this dream—we got to be really selfish because all countries are (well, most anyways), and the countries that are holding on to the unrealistic aspirations are messed up like us.

The one and only way to get out of the present mess is to align ourselves with one of the three powers. There is absolutely no reason to feel guilty about doing so.

Let's look around: our neighbors developed because they aligned with the US. It led to market access, investment and defense modernization. Had they chosen to balance their relations like us, China would still be a chaotic communist country experimenting with senseless policies and India would still be following, what the critics used to call, the Hindu rate of growth. And the Malaysians would still be congratulating themselves for making the right decision of kicking Singapore out of the Malay federation.

Aligning ourselves with a powerful country is also in our security interest. World politics is all about interest-based alliances, and our security interests are best served if we make ourselves useful to one of the three powers. Neutrality and non- alignment never served anyone. The neutral countries were one of the first to be invaded by Germany during the Second World War.

The threat of Great War is still there; otherwise no country would be spending on military and advanced weapons. We do not have the resources to defend ourselves and we need a powerful friend who would take us under its wings and help us modernize our military. Let's think beyond tents, field hospitals, non-lethal equipment and a building or two. Believing that the neighbors or other powers would not attack us, and even if they do, delaying action battle/tactic or the international outcry would deter the foreign advancing army, will only give us a false sense of security.

For us, the options are limited. It is for the leaders to decide who we want to align with by taking various factors into consideration. And we got to sign a defense pact with one of the three: we commit 15,000-25,000 troops to fight your war if you agree to defend us and help us modernize our military and invest in our economic growth and infrastructure development. The Rana rulers understood that the only way Nepal could remain independent or be seen as such was by militarily aligning itself with the allied powers. The situation hasn't changed a bit. The army is still a major tool to achieve the foreign policy objectives of almost all functioning countries and, for us, it is our only ticket to prosperity.

We need to align with a power that would consider an attack on us as an attack on itself, and go all out to defend us. And that is only likely, if we too commit to fighting its war. That’s what we can offer because we have nothing else of value to offer.

Our biggest security threats, just as it is to any other country, are our neighbors. If we align with one, the threat is reduced to only one. And even then, we would not be forced to defend it ourselves if it attacks or invades us. Even if there's no war or other threats, aligning with a major power reduces our military budget in the short run, as the power we align with will spend on its modernization because it would need our military to fight its war too and it would be in its best interests to equip us with the same weapons that it equips its military with.

We can then ask our ally for market access and infrastructure development and it would lead to industrialization and we will be rich enough to afford the latest weapons ourselves. And to achieve that, allowing the ally to maintain a base or two here or have our military fight alongside it, is no big deal. Most developed and currently developing countries have followed this route. You scratch my back and I will scratch yours—that's how the world works.

And let's not forget: almost all countries that our youth go to work these days have followed this path to development and security. While talking about their impressive growth in the past 20-30 years and still arguing that we balance our relations and remain neutral is hypocrisy on the part of our elite opinion makers. The UK, Germany, Japan, Qatar, South Korea, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia etc—some of you probably think of the US bases when you think about these countries and ridicule them for compromising their sovereignty, but for us, the majority, we think of their prosperity. Quite frankly, half of Nepal would be willing to leave our historically glorious country to live in these presently prosperous countries.

Whether their sovereignty is compromised or not is of no concern to us or for the vast majority of the world. All we care is they are way better than Nepal in many respects. Prakash Nanda, an Indian political analyst/journalist and someone with enough reporting and analyzing experience under his belt, argues for hosting US bases in Andaman and Nicobar islands in an opinion piece for the Indian Defense Review’s website.

Therefore, the balance that most of you are seeking is unachievable and while it may win you whatever useless tag or short-term gain you are after, it does absolutely no good to our economy and security.

We got to swallow our “historical greatness” pride and as bob Dylan sang, “gotta serve somebody.”

KP Oli could be many things to many people, but one thing is certain. When it comes to managing our foreign relations, he is a master strategist. He has changed the course and direction of Nepal's decade-long foreign policy—and for the better.

Our leaders spent the past 30 years in achieving something impossible—“balancing” our relations with the two neighbors. (This was something even the Panchayat and its founder King Mahendra didn't think was possible. While the Panchayat paid lip service to “balance” and non-alignment, it understood Nepal’s limits and China's too, and brilliantly aligned itself with India or accommodated India’s interests when times called for it.) In the post-Panchayat regime, the balance meant have China back their government in case India decides to withdraw its support. But China, realizing that Nepal could not be freed from Indian influence, and that it really had no real interest in Nepal, decided to pursue its long-held hands-off approach to Nepal while India used the influence it had here to create political instability.

But things changed in the past decade or so. China considered itself a regional power and as a reaction to India’s US tilt, it tried to become an influential player in South Asia. Chinese strategists calculated that if China were to wrestle South Asia away from India, India would realize its weakness vis-à-vis China and it would be discouraged from siding with the US and South East Asian nations that have territorial disputes with China. The message was clear: If you can't influence your small neighbors, forget becoming a major regional power and be ready to compete with China for regional influence.

China won, but not for long because it thought India would not react or that the religious, cultural and linguistic similarities, along with years of Indian penetration of the south Asian societies, would not matter in the world obsessed with Chinese money. China's mistake was it considered itself a major power in South Asia and believed it had the power to upset Indian influence in the region.

While India was dumbfounded with China’s “successes” in Nepal, Sri Lanka and the Maldives, it didn't sit by idly and the leaders in these countries too realized the limit of their pro-Chinese positions. It soon became obvious that making China influential in their domestic politics at the cost of India was replacing one hegemon with another. The Chinese foreign policy these days vis-à-vis neighbors is becoming impractical as it wants them to pledge their allegiance to China at the cost of their relations with others. For example, the Chinese extended “support” to the CPN (Maoist Center) so that the latter could oppose the US MCC grant in Nepal, making the Maoists think of it as their only ticket to power. Only God knows what security threat a yearly $100 million grant over five years to build transmission lines poses to an almost $15 trillion Chinese economy.

In contrast to the Chinese, the Indian policy now is to accommodate its neighbors’ valid concerns and accept that their dealings with China are normal—as long as those dealings don’t threaten its real interests. Perhaps this is borne out of Indian confidence that its neighbors (minus Pakistan) won’t and can’t act against its vital interests because of their shared cultural heritage and history, and that Chinese influence in the region is just a passing phenomenon. This has made India offer leeway to its neighbors in their dealings with China. And it has resulted in the South Asian leaders in power becoming more receptive of India. The new and confident Indian dealings with its neighbors are clearly working, unlike what many alarmists and the “liberal” anti-Modi scholars would have us believe.

In Nepal, China had and still has some leaders and intellectuals on its side, but that was not enough (as recent events also prove) to cement its control on Nepal. True, it enjoys tremendous goodwill among the common people for what they see as China's non-interference policy in Nepal, or as a balancer to India's bullying. The reality is, the common people who believe this aren't the ones deciding foreign policy.

China's new position or policy on Nepal had its own flaws. The most important being the belief that Nepali leaders would remain true to the promises made behind closed doors and be grateful and loyal toward China for its recent political and other help. It failed to see how our leaders were using it to advance their political aspirations, instead of China using them to advance its “interests”. Second, it thought the Indian blockade of 2015 had resulted in an anti-Indian nationalistic leadership that was ready to embrace it as savior. Our leaders made it appear so and China started to invest heavily in our politics, with the belief that it had now secured Nepal and could use it to bargain with India at an opportune time. It totally misread our leaders and their virulent anti-India rhetoric and the limit to our collective "shallow" anti-Indianism.

Yet another Chinese mistake was to view Pushpa Kamal Dahal aka Prachanda as more powerful and more important to China's “interests” than PM Oli. It interpreted the power struggle between the two leaders as a struggle between pro-Indian and pro-Chinese factions, or was made to do so by its trusted “analysts”. Up until the Chinese envoy’s interference, the conflict between the two leaders was purely personal in nature. It had nothing to do with India or China, as my good friend and editor of this paper Biswas Baral wrote: PM Oli was flabbergasted when the Chinese envoy asked him to step down to protect party unity. PM Oli then did what anybody in his position would do—dissolve the parliament. The Indians were quick to understand the implications of Oli's actions. They only “took note” and more than that he was interviewed by two Indian television channels to bolster his nationalist credentials. It was in India's interest to make Oli appear nationalist and not make his move appear as one directed by India—and in all fairness PM Oli acted independently to prevent Prachanda from becoming PM with China's help.

India was happily surprised because it got what it wanted—not because of its excellent diplomacy or covert operations, but because of the Chinese side’s mistake of asking PM Oli to resign. Had Prachanda maintained distance with China and not have himself portrayed as Beijing’s trusted man in Kathmandu, then, probably, India would have worked out a new coalition and made him our next PM already.

For the first time in many years, Nepal has decided its own political course under PM Oli. And this course is quite advantageous to India. He may not be someone the Indians can control, but he is not someone the Chinese can control either. This means less Chinese and Indian interference in Nepal's domestic politics. Therefore, the wise thing for India to do is what it is doing now—not supporting any coalition against PM Oli, because that would only lead to political horse-trading and instability, letting the door wide open for others.

China shouldn’t see Oli as an enemy either. If he refused to follow its diktats, he is not someone who is likely to follow India’s either. And that means no threat to its real interests in Nepal. Its recent spectacular failure should also make China understand the flaws in its Nepal policy and not look for favorites in Nepal. It should follow its earlier hands-off approach and hope Nepal keeps getting a somewhat "nationalist" like Oli who can counter not only it but also India. Just as an old Chinese saying goes: Sai weng shi ma, yan zhi fei fu (“what appears bad could be a blessing in disguise”).

“Democracies do not always make societies more civil—but they do always mercilessly expose the health of the societies in which they operate.” — Robert Kaplan

The self-proclaimed democrats in the country never tire of defending our dysfunctional democracy with the oft-repeated lame argument that it’s not the system but the present set of leaders who are to blame for the mess we are in. The reality, however, is that democracy as a system has failed miserably in Nepal. One has to be high on something to be optimistic about Nepal’s future if the current system is to continue.

First, let turn to the argument that calls for patience, i.e., when we have a good set of leaders our democracy will deliver. If it's the leaders that are to be blamed for our present misery, then, maybe our society is not ready for or compatible with the kind of democracy we have today. When are we supposed to get the leaders who will make our system work? And where will these leaders come from? Because as things now stand, the next in succession, the so-called youth leaders who are already in their 50s, are no different to the old leaders we have today.

Those who are benefitting from the present mess further console us by saying democracy takes time to take root and your grandchildren will reap the democratic dividend. So be patient. They can afford to say that because they are either paid to be democratic, democracy is their career/profession, or they just want to fit in by appearing liberal. The mainstream press and a handful of those who write for it or those claiming to be public intellectuals and members of civil society and those who have successfully monopolized the debate and discourse and as a result the national narrative, have made other gullible wannabe liberals and democrats parrot the same view. Therefore, questioning the effectiveness of the system is tantamount to blasphemy. We have become a democratic theocracy in which only the select few ordained by foreign gods can preach and others have to obediently listen and not ask any question—no matter how ridiculous their preaching is.

And obediently we listen to all the crackpot theories and concepts that have been promoted in the past 30 years by our media and illiberal intellectuals to show the past rulers/system as illiberal and undemocratic. Questioning those, we are made to believe, would make us appear deranged and illiberal and feudal. Further, having an independent mind is not tolerated in democratic Nepal. That's why no one dares ask these intellectuals the validity of the crackpot theories and concepts they use all the time to dismiss their critics just to appear scholarly and to hide flaws in their arguments. Two such nonsensical concepts, the absolute darlings of our mainstream intellectuals (?) and media, are Bahunbaad and Mahendrian nationalism—the two concepts that have divided our society and weakened our nationalism, but no one dares say anything against those.

You question their assertion and provide counter arguments to the popular narrative that pits Bahuns against others and that wrongly blames them for Nepal’s underdevelopment and the plight of others while forgetting that the majority Bahuns and Khas-Aryas too are miserable like the rest. If you question this “sacrosanct” theory/concept, you are automatically labeled feudal and undemocratic. You question granting citizenships to foreigners married to Nepali nationals without any waiting period, or you argue for vigilance against foreign designs on Nepal and for adoption of a strong, independent foreign policy to resist undue foreign interference, be it political or cultural, and you are automatically labeled a Mahendrian nationalist.

Let's also ask what exactly have we achieved with the (il) liberal democracy in the past 30 years. Mob mentality has taken over, thanks to the state’s inability to control anything due to corruption. People have lost faith in the government and state institutions, so much so that they have resorted to punishing those accused of committing even prettiest of crimes themselves. The mob is the judge, the jury and the hangman in today's Nepal. Democracy was supposed to make us more tolerant and our institutions stronger, but the exact opposite is happening. And yet, we cannot question the system.

In terms of foreign relations, too, we are now reduced to being an extension of our neighbors. And our leaders openly ask and invite foreign interference in domestic politics. Yet the media pundits have us believe that there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. Those who dare criticize the system and ask about its ills are shunned by mainstream media. That's the way freedom of speech and expression is practiced in our democracy by the mainstream press that calls itself the bastion of democracy.

And some of you would be quick to dismiss my arguments too. My last name would work against me. A Bahun, hence, automatically feudal and illiberal. And some illiberal liberals may quote Churchill to prove me wrong: democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried. But as BBC correspondent Humphrey Hawksley writes in his book Democracy Kills, quoting Churchill no longer does the business. We all need to ask, what's so good about having the vote in societies with weak institutions? The answer is, nothing.

As Robert Kaplan argued in his 1999 essay, “Was democracy just a moment?”: “Democracy often weakens states by necessitating ineffectual compromises and fragile coalition governments in societies where bureaucratic institutions never functioned well to begin with. Because democracy neither forms states nor strengthens them initially, multi-party systems are best suited to nations that already have efficient bureaucracies and a middle class that pays income tax, and where primary issues such as borders and power-sharing have already been resolved, leaving politicians free to bicker about the budget and secondary matters.”

But we are yet to see a strong middle class and we have our own share of problems that make democracy ineffective in Nepal. We don't want to talk about them because the immoral leaders, with help from equally immoral, shortsighted and illiberal intellectuals, have “retreated to moral arguments only to justify democracy” and as such they have been successful in hoodwinking many of us into believing that democracy, the form we have today, is the only solution to Nepal’s problems. Of course, those who do not buy this humbug can't speak out against it because in today's democratic Nepal it would make them appear immoral and idiots instead.

With the critics silenced with the silly moral arguments, the immoral bunch is having a field day, and the country is suffering. As things stand now, the country will suffer for a long time. Democracy is indeed killing us and no good has come out of our right to vote.

Go ahead, give your moral arguments in support of democracy, but before you do, ask yourself: are you really happy and proud to be living in the current mess that is Nepal?