During his meetings with senior American offi­cials, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Nepali Minister for Foreign Affairs Pradeep Gyawali repeatedly urged his American counterparts to stop viewing Nepal through Indian lens. The perception in Nepal that the US sees Nepal through Indian prism was strengthened during the five months of the blockade when many Nepalis felt that the Americans were not vocal enough about India’s inhumane treatment of its small neighbor. With the Americans renaming ‘Asia-Pacific’ as ‘Indo-Pacific’, in a clear preference for India over an expan­sionist China in the Indian Ocean, and given recent US-China trade frictions, it is easy for smaller South Asian countries to believe the Americans have somehow ‘exported’ their regional policy to India. Interestingly, in its defense, the Americans say they would not have as strong diplomatic and security presence in Nepal if they had outsourced their Nepal strategy to India. That is true. The American diplomatic presence in Nepal is huge (though no one knows how big). Perhaps the same is true of its security presence.

The security establishment in the US, and the CIA in particular, has always seen Nepal as an important buffer between India and China, a convenient outpost from which they can closely monitor the maneuvering of these two regional giants. (Close geographical proximity is priceless even in the age of drones.) Given Nepal’s advan­tageous geostrategic position, they would be foolish not to. That the Americans mostly prefer to remain low-key is a different matter.

But they do sometimes throw their weight around. For instance, the US Embassy put a spanner on the plan of the Poverty Alleviation Fund to develop the 14 districts abutting Tibet with Chinese money. They also promised alternative sources of funding. The relationship between the US and Nepal armies has never been stronger and the Americans in the future may not be shy about leveraging this for geopolitical gains. This in turn calls for a carefully calibrated Nepal policy.

Voters these days don’t elect leaders to protect the human rights of people halfway across the world. They vote for Trumps and Mays and Modis of the world so that their borders and their livelihoods are safe and secure. For this it is vital that countries be largely self-reliant. For one-party China, the show of sovereign strength abroad is even more important for domestic stability.

Pompeo and the Americans need no reminders. They per­haps know exactly what they are doing in Nepal.