Commentary
By P.R. Pradhan
What is Nepal’s foreign policy, the government is confused. Often, when the new foreign minister is assigned, he constitutes a committee to draft an effective foreign policy. Perhaps, there could be many drafts of such reports kept pending in the foreign ministry. Understandably, considering the geopolitical position of the country, we cannot go out of the frame of the non-aligned foreign policy. Since the founding of modern Nepal by the Great King Prithivi Narayan Shah, our foreign policy is based on non-alignment. King Prithivi Narayan, in his divine counsels, had explained clearly about the foreign policy of the country.
King Mahendra redefined the foreign policy by joining the non-aligned movement as the founding member and the nation, under his leadership, practised according to the spirit of non-alignment. Nepal maintained equi-distanced relations with all the friendly countries including the two giant neighbours India and China. King Birendra also followed the same policy. However, after the introduction of the multiparty democracy in 1980, the governments led by different political parties forgot the spirit of non-alignment and coined a new theory, “special relations” with our southern neighbour. Besides, they defined Nepal’s relations with India as the relations between the elder and younger brothers. Some of our leaders even compared Nepal as the younger brother of India based on the size of the two countries. However, they forgot the fact that Nepal is in existence for centuries but India was got birth just seven decades ago.
Total Mess:
Due to the lack of proper handling of our foreign policy, the country has fallen into a total mess situation. Today, both the neighbours, India and China, are suspicious of Nepal. During the kings’ rule, Nepal was stood as the buffer security wall between India and China. The Indians were not allowed to roam around the northern part of Nepal and the Chinese were not allowed to roam around the southern part of the country. Once, when the Chinese construction company won the global bedding for construction of the bridges in the East-West Highway in the far-western section, the king had suspended the construction contract respecting the security sensitivity of India. China is involved in various projects related to the infrastructural development of Nepal, including roads. China has constructed roads in the mid-hills and northern part of the country but not in the Tarai plains. Nepal, until the kings’ rule, didn’t allow her soil to be used by the Tibetans especially travelling to and from Dharamshala to Tibet, China. Today, Nepal has become a transit country for Tibetans illegally entering Nepal, going to Dharamshala, India, and returning to Tibet via Nepal. We saw Lhasha unrest in 2008 and demonstrations by the Tibetans in Kathmandu at the time when pro-Indian NC leader Krishna Shitaula was the home minister. Later, when UML’s Bamdev Gautam became the home minister, he confirmed that the Tibetan demonstrators had arrived from Dharamshala to launch protest programmes against China. When Gautam ordered to arrest those illegally arrived Tibetans, overnight, they ran away back to India.
In the 70s Nepal had supported China in suppressing the Khampa revolt.
Nepal had banned foreigners from visiting some Himalayan districts honouring China’s security sensitiveness. In other words, Nepal, during the kings’ rule, always gave high priority to the security sensitiveness of the two neighbours and Nepal always maintained balanced relations with both countries.
MCC controversy:
After almost three decades, the American government has come with an aid package of 500 million US dollars for the infrastructural development of Nepal.
The MoU for the US grant project was signed by the then foreign minister Krishna Bahadur Mahara and the grant agreement was signed by the then finance minister Gyanendra Bahadur Karki.
The Americans are insisting and pressuring the Nepal government for accepting the grant, whereas, the partners in the government are divided on the issue of accepting it.
When some American officials explained the MCC as part of the Indo-Pacific Strategy, a move for containing China, MCC has fallen into controversy.
Indeed, the Americans offered the grant project just to engage Nepal on the American side.
Nepal, without doing homework, accepted the grant project and already spent above five billion rupees on the project. Now, the Nepal government has fallen under the MCC trap as the local analysts closed to the West are warning on the consequences of the rejection of the American grant. They are saying that Nepal may face non-cooperation from the World Bank, IMF, ADB, and other agencies under American influence.
Meanwhile, in the process of pleasing India and the West, Nepal has intentionally discouraged the BRI project initiated by China. The government approached the World Bank, IMF and other global financial institutions for support in coping with the Covid-19 pandemic but didn’t approach the AIBB, of which, Nepal is the founding member. In the entire South Asian region, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the Maldives have utilized Chinese funds for infrastructural development, but Nepal, also a member of the BRI club, has shown reluctance in moving forward the projects under BRI.
Presently, the leaderships, who wanted to please India and the West, have obviously made China suspicious of Nepal’s performance.
After the formation of the present alliance government of the five political parties, the government has recalled those politically appointed ambassadors by the previous K.P. Sharma Oli led government. Until now, three ambassadors for India, the USA and the UK have been named yet it has not named the ambassador to China, our immediate neighbour. There is an absence of ambassadors in 20 countries.
Meanwhile, the leaderships have made the US suspicious by performing non-cooperation on the American offer. On the other hand, the Indians see the increasing presence of China in Nepal. In such a manner, Nepal is losing the confidence of both the neighbours and also of the Americans and other friendly nations.
Just recently, Hanan Goder, Israeli ambassador has expressed his disappointment with Nepal after Nepal gave negative votes against Israel in the United Nations.
The ambassador warned that such an act of Nepal would affect Nepal-Israel relations. Israel is one of the countries having diplomatic relations for more than six decades. Israel has been providing support in the development of Nepal since the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1960. Nepal could remain absent during the voting maintaining its non-aligned policy. Nepal achieved nothing except lose Israel’s confidence.
The communist leaders Madhav Nepal and Pushpakamal Dahal are performing double standards. When they met with the American officials, they have expressed commitment to rectifying the MCC from the Parliament and when they hold meetings with their party colleagues, demonstrate their fake patriotism by opposing the MCC grant. When Prime Minister and NC president Sher Bahadur Deuba, who is in hurry to finalize the MCC, Prachanda has made a request to the former for keeping pending this agenda until the national convention of the party which is scheduled to be held next week. The message is that both Nepal and Dahal are eager to accept MCC but demonstrating reluctance, which is no more than a double standard.
Such a role may help to save their image for the time being but they have displayed immature diplomacy and destroyed Nepal’s image in the international arena.
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