There is a notable difference in the election manifestos of the ruling BJP and the opposition INC in India over the Indo-Pacific Strategy. While the INC manifesto is silent on this, the BJP’s states that the goal of “ensuring an open, inclusive, prosperous and secure Indo-Pacific will be pursued vigorously”. The BJP manifesto is in line with the BJP government’s rejection of China’s proposal to take part in the second high-level BRI Forum this month. India had also boycotted the inaugural event in 2017.

 

There is a deep divide in New Delhi over India’s role in the American Indo-Pacific Strategy. China hawks see it as a coun­terweight to an overbearing Middle Kingdom in the South China Sea. But many on the left believe India should rather work closely with the next-door China, a fellow developing country, rather than with the distant and ‘unreliable’ US. Yet the right-leaning BJP’s manifesto suggests a clear support for the US strategy, and if reelected, PM Modi seems keen on working with the Americans to contain China’s rise.

 

The INC is more skeptical of the US but if it comes to power, it too may feel compelled to support the strategy as the gaps between the economic and military heft of India and China widen. Then there are those who see no reason the BRI and the Indo-Pacific cannot go together. But that is easier said. More likely, because of its calculus on Pakistan, India will continue to shun the BRI and support the Indo-Pacific. Smaller countries in the region will not remain untouched by this development.

 

Recently, the ruling NCP co-chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal visited the US, ostensibly to treat his wife. The hush-hush trip and the American government’s iron-clad guarantee against his arrest for war crimes set the tongues of strategic thinkers in Kathmandu wagging. Even in the past, Dahal has flown to Singapore and Hong Kong, often on the pretext of treating a loved one, to keep his secret rendezvous with security officials abroad. How did Sita Dahal get better so soon after landing in the US? Could it be that the real purpose of the trip was that the Americans wanted to talk to her husband about his possible role in enforcing the Indo-Pacific Strategy in Nepal? That they, and the Indians, still doubt the loyalty of the Beijing-friendly KP Oli and would like to see him gone as soon as the option of tabling a no-confidence motion against the PM opens up in less than a year?

 

As the American presence in South Asia increases as part of their new strategy, Nepalis, used to seeing their country as a playground for India-China geopolitical rivalry, will have to grapple more and more with a third power. Not that this power was entirely absent earlier.