BY SHAMBHU RAM JOSHI
Considering Nepal’s geo-political situation, the country had adopted non-aligned foreign policy, although, the present leaders seem to have neglected it. In the past, due to our outstanding diplomacy, Nepal’s significance in the international arena was projected successfully. The country was able to maintain cordial relations with either the communist or capitalist blocks even during the cold war era. Both the capitalist and communist countries had provided various types of foreign aid for economic development of the country. Due to their performance on non-aligned foreign policy, the Shah kings — Mahendra, Birendra and even Gyanendra – were regarded as the dynamic leaders in the international arena. During the kings’ days Nepal’s international image had gained a considerable height as compared to the international present status of the country. Unfortunately, the present day political leaders and academicians are hesitated to accept this historical and recorded fact.
Diplomatic relations with Pakistan were established in 1960 when Mahendra was the King and B. P. Koirala was the Prime Minister. Specially, such move of Koirala angered Indian Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru. Nepal and China enjoy thousands of years long relations, although, diplomatic relations were established in 1955. Nepal always performed balanced relations based on Panchaseel with the neighbouring countries. India and Pakistan have enmity since their independence. Along with India, both Pakistan and China are cooperating Nepal for economic development. By discarding other countries’ contribution to Nepal, our leaders have developed the mentality that India is everything for them.
Pakistan, a nation, which has fought several wars with India, has established very cordial relations with China. China-Pakistan relations can be defined as strategic friendship based on safeguarding national sovereignty, independence and security.
Comparatively, China is far ahead than India in all sectors. China has emerged as global power, but India should wait for years to gain the Chinese height. According to a report from Military Balance 2016 (London: International Institute of Strategic Studies, 2016), China’s spending on defense was 145832 million US dollars whereas the Indian spending was 47956 million US dollars.
We know that the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) is solely an Indian interest. This regional grouping remained passive for a long time, however, to isolate Pakistan and to give an alternate to the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), Indians have tried to activate this grouping.
Immediately after the Kathmandu BIMSTEC summit, India hosted joint military exercise, MILEX-18, Pune, India from 10 to 16 September. The exercise is said to be for counter terrorism.
But many have suspected that the India motive was to show its military strength to China and Pakistan and also to give the message that the member countries participating the joint military exercise are sided with India. If the BIMSTEC member countries really want to counter terrorism, first of all, they should respect the voices of the minorities and stop white terrorism in their own country, for instance, in India and Myanmar.
It is hard to maintain cordial relations but comparatively very easy to spoil it. Leaders should take care even minor things in diplomacy. Even before being involved in joint military exercise, we had to analyse its far reaching consequences.
The present government seems naïve in maintaining diplomacy. Without reviewing Nepal’s outstanding military policy and also without studying consequences of such exercise, Nepal gave green signal for Nepal’s participation. When the government faced strong criticism at home and even by the ruling party’s senior leaders, it changed its previous stance and took a middle path of participating at the observer’s status, which cannot be taken as a matured diplomacy.
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