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To quote Francis Fukuyama, “It has never been more divisive to be a liberal, the more moderate sibling of the more violent factions of nationalism and socialism.” It has succeeded and failed under identity politics, authoritarianism, social media, and a restrained free press, from Putin's populism to the Trump administration and autocratic regimes around the globe. Liberalism has been assailed from its origin following the post-reformation fights by both conservatives and progressives, and it is today largely viewed as an out-of-date doctrine. Both sides have pushed their ideologies to the limit: communists exclusively emphasize identification over human universality, while liberals have created a cult of economic freedom. Russia's obvious challenge to the Western-led international order has demonstrated the malleable character of world politics, despite not going as intended. In the new national security policy, US President Joe Biden admits that China and Russia each provide a distinct set of security threats. While Russia poses an urgent threat to the free and open international system... With its vicious war of aggression, China is the only US opponent with the intention and, increasingly, the economic, political, military, and technological capabilities to achieve that aim. As a result, China is referred to as the Pentagon's pacing challenge. Looking back at how the United States and China interacted is crucial. The 20th Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) was used by Chinese President Xi Jinping to bolster his position of power and advance his ideological and nationalist objectives, which has altered policy. Some US critics argue that the current state of events is proof that Presidents Bill Clinton and George W Bush were unwise to pursue an engagement strategy that includes allowing China membership in the World Trade Organization. But even though attitudes regarding China 20 years ago were clearly too optimistic, they weren't necessarily dumb. After a year marked by big shocks highlighted by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the global increase in inflation rates, and the failure of cryptocurrency enterprises, what type of year will 2023 turn out to be? Short-run concerns like this are difficult to answer since effects of actions spread so quickly and unexpectedly throughout our globalized society. Changes in global power relations can be stated that the end-of-the war fear that had been so vivid in the Cold War imagination had started to dissipate when the Cold War ended a little more than 30 years ago. Fifty years after Henry Kissinger's historic visit, the US and China are currently engaged in a trade war that has turned into a New Cold War. Four decades of working relations between the two countries gave the US hope that Beijing would adopt a new political stance and join the US-led liberal economic and political order, but China instead developed militarily. China's geo-economic containment may begin with the US' wish for China to "decouple" economically. It takes place at a time when China, along with regional powerhouses Japan and India, is expanding militarily and economically and poses a significant threat to its neighbors. In China, where nationalism is at its height as the country celebrates the 100th anniversary of the CPC, the New Cold War has just started. Also, how can Japan handle China that is fast becoming aggressive and assertive? How does it address greater concerns about the future of the Indo-Pacific region? The pandemic that followed brought America's problems, such as its unreliable government, patchy healthcare system, and terrible polarization pathology, into stark relief. In April 2020, the Irish Commentator Fin Tan O'Toole remarked, "Over more than two centuries, the United States has provoked a very wide variety of feelings in the rest of the globe; love and hatred, fear and hope, envy and disdain, awe and rage." Fareed Zakaria diagnoses this. In the fiscal year 2021, the US Patent and Trademark Office received roughly 595,700 patent applications, a slight decrease from the 597,000 applications received the year before. However, the United States ranked first in terms of military spending in 2021, spending $801 billion, or more than 38 percent of all military spending globally. America has been the country with the largest military spending since SIPRI began keeping track in 1949, accounting for more than 30 percent of global military spending over the past 20 years. With an increase of $22.3 billion from the previous year, the United States spent more on its military in 2021 than all of the other top 10 nations combined. On the other hand, China has permitted nearly 2.53 million patents in the last five years, expanding at an average annual rate of 13.4 percent; in 2021, the country will have authorized about 695,400 patents. The number of invention patents per 10,000 persons in China has increased by over twofold since the end of 2017. According to its 15-year plan, China has set a clear objective for the value of patent-intensive and creative businesses to contribute 13% of the country's GDP by 2025. (2021-2035) Plan for developing IPR. With $293.4 billion in military spending in 2021, or around 14 percent of total military spending globally, China came in second. Though its budget is still less than half that of the United States, China has increased its military spending for 27 years in a row. Nepal has not been able to start any of the nine prioritized projects despite joining China's BRI in 2017. However, during a trip to Nepal in 2019, Chinese President Xi claimed that bilateral relations had reached a "strategic level." Similar to this, the US has referred to Nepal as a "vital" partner of the US since the Trump Administration, and Nepal was thrust into a geopolitical quagmire after the parliament authorized the $500 MCC project in 2021. The USA also seems to be eyeing Nepal as one of the potential key partners to her global security networks because of Nepal's strategic location. As China is Nepal's immediate neighbor and a possible rival of the United States, Nepal may expand her strategic engagements there. Nepal already had security commitments under the 1950 Peace and Friendship Treaty between India and Nepal, and it would have faced more difficult circumstances if it had embraced the State Partnership Program (SPP) of the United States and shown support for China's GSI and GDI-like security frameworks. Nepal should refrain from joining any security coalitions that could worsen current conditions. Nepal needs to make decisions, inspire confidence, keep the promises, and propose a course of action. Visionary leadership is the only kind of management that is capable of thinking and acting at the intersection of two axes: the first between the present and the future, and the second between the enduring values and aspirations of the people they lead. Leaders must assume the role of educators, putting an end to rumors, assuring people, and securing assistance in order for strategies, policies, and programs to inspire the society. However, there aren't many people who fit these descriptions in our community. The author is Professor at the Department of International Relations and Diplomacy, Tribhuvan University

The government and International Monetary Fund (IMF) have reached a staff-level agreement on policies and reforms needed to complete the combined first and second review of the Extended Credit Facility (ECF) arrangement. Nepal will receive USD 52m as the second tranche of the ECF once the IMF executive board approves the agreement. Nepal was expecting to receive the second installment in May 2022, but the Washington DC-based lender delayed the tranche of USD 395.9m in loan to Nepal till February 2023, stating that the country is yet to fulfill the obligations. The IMF approved the USD 395.9m ECF for Nepal in January 2022 of which the Himalayan nation has already received the first installment of USD 110m. According to the IMF, despite a challenging global and domestic environment last year, Nepal continued to make progress with the implementation of the ECF-supported programs. "Notable achievements include the external audit of the Nepal Rastra Bank with the assistance of international auditors—in line with international best practices, publication of reports on both Covid-related spending and custom exemptions to enhance transparency, drafting of amendments to bank asset classification regulations, and strengthening bank supervision by launching the donor-supported Supervision Information System," IMF said in a press statement. IMF further said Nepali authorities have taken decisive actions to maintain a stable macroeconomic environment. "The much-needed monetary policy tightening last year, together with the gradual unwinding of Covid support measures, helped moderate credit growth and contributed to the moderation of inflation stemming from the global commodity price shock caused by the Ukraine war," said the statement. The monetary policy tightening last year helped stabilize the external economy and is contributing to lower inflation, while the recent mid-year budget review is expected to address near-term fiscal risks stemming from lower-than-expected revenue growth. The IMF has highlighted that sustainable medium-term growth will require fiscal reforms in line with debt sustainability, advancing reforms on banking regulations and supervision, reducing the cost of doing business and barriers to FDI, and enhancing governance. The multilateral agency has pointed out that bank asset quality has deteriorated, reflecting a decline in the repayment capacity of borrowers due to higher lending rates and rising leverage. "Discussions recognized the need for the Nepal Rastra Bank to ensure appropriate reclassification of loans and close monitoring of the impact of a potential deterioration in the repayment capacity of borrowers," said the IMF. The IMF has projected Nepal's GDP growth in FY 2022/23 to be 4.4 percent. However, Nepal remains vulnerable to international shocks, from volatile and higher global commodity prices and from natural disasters and weather variability. Hence, the IMF has suggested a cautious monetary policy is appropriate to bring the still elevated inflation down towards the Nepal Rastra Bank’s 7 percent target and to allow the economy to grow without placing undue pressure on international reserves. "Monetary policy should focus on maintaining a cautious and data-driven stance supported by macroprudential measures. This will help avoid large boom-bust credit cycles, which can create financial sector instability and are not supportive of sustainable growth," reads the statement. During the meeting, Nepali officials and IMF staff agreed that priority should be given to achieving a fiscal deficit that ensures debt sustainability while securing additional concessional financing and enhancing debt management. There were discussions on the need for Nepal to adopt an ambitious structural reform agenda to help establish a sustainable and inclusive long-term growth path. According to the IMF, reducing the cost of doing business and barriers to FDI would support growth potential, especially in sectors such as high-value agricultural products, information technology, energy, and tourism. "Reforms to develop financial instruments tailored to migrant workers, promoting better access to finance, and improving financial literacy can enhance financial inclusion," said IMF. Nepali officials expressed commitment to the policies and reforms envisaged in the ECF-supported program, in particular, formulating a comprehensive revenue mobilization strategy, aimed at enhancing tax collection and making room for priority spending, strengthening the management of fiscal risks, especially those arising from public enterprises, by developing systems for their prompt identification and monitoring, improving efficiency and transparency of public investment spending; continuing to advance reforms on banking regulations and supervision and ensuring bank asset quality and further strengthening NRB’s governance by amending the NRB Act in line with best international practices. Nepali officials also expressed the government's readiness to implement recommendations from the ongoing AML/CFT Mutual Evaluation conducted by the Asia/Pacific Group. The IMF staff mission led by Jarkko Turunen arrived in Nepal on February 15 and stayed in Kathmandu for almost two weeks for a comprehensive review.  

December 25, 2022, was a black day for many Nepali Congress leaders and cadres. It was the day Pushpa Kamal Dahal, the leader of CPN (Maoist Center), walked out of the electoral alliance with the Congress and joined the CPN-UML to form a coalition government. Despite winning the largest number of parliamentary seats in the general election held in November, the NC suddenly found itself in the opposition. It was an unprecedented event. The pre-election coalition government of Congress and Maoists was poised to continue their partnership, or so it seemed until the morning of December 25. The two parties were hashing out a disagreement regarding which party gets to lead the government first. Before the election, Deuba had agreed to cede the prime minister’s office to Dahal. But the NC leader was reluctant to honor the agreement after the election results were out. After several rounds of negotiation ended in a stalemate, Dahal did the unexpected and went on to form a coalition with his archrival KP Sharma Oli of UML. The incident sent shock waves through the NC’s rank and file. There was widespread criticism against Deuba for breaking the coalition. Some party leaders even demanded his resignation as the party chief. Fearful of potential backlash, Deuba postponed the party’s Central Working Committee meeting and started damage control with his close aides. He deputed a team of leaders to dismantle Maoist-UML coalition and turn the political tide in the favor of NC. NC Vice-president Purna Bahadur Khadka, a close aide of Deuba, says their singular mission over the past two months was to engineer a rift between Dahal and Oli. It started with the party’s decision to give Prime Minister Dahal the vote of confidence in January. The move by the Congress leadership created a major dispute in the party. Leaders like Gagan Kumar Thapa and Bishwa Prakash Sharma even registered notes of dissent against Deuba’s move terming it undemocratic, as it would render the parliament without an official opposition. But giving Dahal the trust vote was a masterstroke on Deuba’s part. The move not only drove a wedge between UML and Maoists, it also helped Deuba get an upper hand over the rival leaders within his own party. Khadka says now the Congress will now join the Dahal government as a key coalition partner and handle some key portfolios. Ramesh Rijal, central working committee member of NC, agrees that Deuba outdid his political rivals both inside and outside the party. He has effectively swatted aside his rivals in the party and gained more space to consolidate his power as an undisputed party head. Deuba’s supporters say the rival camps in the Congress have nothing against the party president now. They say even his strongest critics are now praising him.   The NC leader has also registered a personal victory by nominating his long-time rival Ram Chandra Poudel as a presidential candidate. Some party leaders say with Poudel out of the way, his supporters are bound to join the Deuba faction rather than the rival camp led by Shekhar Koirala. If anything, they say Deuba is likely to become more powerful. He has emerged out of the December 25 fiasco with more strength. Deuba even managed to convince his rivals including Koirala and Thapa to work together to break up the UML-Maoist government partnership and revive the pre-election coalition. Thapa had acted as an intermediary between Deuba and Dahal. It was the job of the Congress general secretary to convince the Maoist prime minister of a long-term partnership. Previously, Thapa was among the NC leaders who were against the idea of even forging an electoral alliance with the Maoist party. He now seems upbeat with the revival of the Maoist-NC coalition. He said Tuesday that Congress has realized its mistake and that the party was committed to work together with the Maoists. The path ahead, he added, was rocky and that the two parties must remain steadfast to continue the alliance for the next five years. One NC leader says it is a sign that Deuba’s decisions will prevail in the party from now on. Political analysts also agree that Deuba has emerged a major victor by steering the party back to power and silencing his rivals. Analyst Bishnu Dahal says Poudel’s nomination as a presidential candidate will prompt more party leaders to take a softer approach toward Deuba. As Deuba’s rival Poudel did not get anything, adds Dahal, but after he supported Deuba by standing down from the leadership race during NC’s 14th general convention in 2021, he got to become the presidential candidate. Dahal says to further enhance his position in Congress, Deuba could pick ministerial candidates from the rival camps in the party. Now that the NC has regained a semblance of unity, some party leaders say the party leadership should think about reforming its departments and sister organizations. In 2021, the party had pledged to hold a separate convention to decide the party’s ideological path but there has not been any progress. NC leader Nain Singh Mahar says this is a perfect opportunity to revitalize the party. The return to power should not put all party related activities on the back burner, he adds.

The Tarebhir Uphill Challenge Mountain biking race held on January 8, 2022, the first among the 7-Series-Race, was my maiden bid. I'd decided it would be my last, given my age (69). Guess what! I pressed on with the subsequent races against my better judgment, unaware that successive races would turn lengthier and more taxing. When I learned the second challenge was Kalu Pandey, I thought I was nuts to dare. Gosh! I could not believe my eyes when I took the third podium position—it worked like a shot in the arm. The organizers had granted a break of two-three weeks after each race. It worked wonders as my burnt-out legs got enough time to recover. A half-marathon is what the third race, Matatirtha-Deurali Bhanjyhyang (7.5 km), appeared to me. I felt frustrated when every racer seemed to pull ahead of me—no podium position this time. Toward the fourth race, Pharping-Hattiban, I learned, to my surprise, that the rest of my fellow contenders in the Senior Category (60+) had just stepped into their 60s. So, at 69, I was senior to them by eight years—and the greyest among the rest, 100-plus racers. It was anything but comforting to learn that Lakuri Bhanjhyang was the next. I knew how grueling the uphill was as I'd ridden there five years back. Come rain or shine—I did it. And it paid off—I walked away with the third standing. Surprisingly, my commitment seemed set in stone as the races progressed with the hardships stomached. In all sincerity, I enjoyed each moment at the race—no words to relate those adrenalin-pumping seconds when I finished amidst boisterous cheering and clapping. I adored the warm and like-minded comradery among the bikers—giving off a palpable vibe. I'd never imagined I'd make so many friends in the bargain. Incredible! The sixth challenge—the Godavari to Chapakharka (2,300m), east of the Phulchoki ridge, cut across dense forest, so quiet I could hear my heart thump. The overcast weather with no sun appeared cut out for the grueling ride. Unawares midway, the sky rumbled, and I felt the first droplets on my face, then drizzle, followed by an uglier weather mood swing. A sudden gust turned into a windstorm, driving the pedaling near impossible and threatening to hurl me off my bike. To my misery, the rains resumed and lashed me, sopping wet. I could not figure out how I made it to the finish, struggling hard against the gale and the rain. Once atop, I broke into a terrible shudder from the intense cold despite changing into dry clothes; I feared I might collapse from hypothermia. I survived. To every racer's discontent, the seventh and the last race got announced within a week following the Chapakharka tormenting ordeal with no extended rest period. It was no less than the formidable Phulchoki (2,700m), the lengthiest at 14km, with the inclines a sure killer. The big day arrived—all appeared apprehensive, me the most. It meant moving the mountains for me. Worse yet, I'd developed a nagging pain in the neck from the last race. The turnout of contestants, too, had dropped. The weather looked gloomy under dark clouds, with the race flagged off. At midway, a loud thunderclap sounded, soon followed by a nasty cloudburst. I feared the torrent of red-clay rainwater that had turned the dirt road into a gushing brook might wash me down the slope. It looked like I was the only soul straggling behind on that godforsaken forested incline, let alone the thrashing rain. Upon seeing the 4 km milestone, I wavered. A jumble of thoughts raced through my mind. "What on earth? Man, it's just an ordinary race, not an international contest, you moron! Just give up." Still in a quandary, the other half of my mind goaded me on. "Do you want to give up when you're less than four kilometers away?" In a stupor as I debated with myself while my legs kept working the pedals. At the crest, the sight of a whooping crowd felt exhilarating, if not euphoric. I'd done it. But at a cost—I have had to nurse my sore neck for over a month. [email protected]