Nepal’s foreign policy
Nepal’s foreign policy is in a complete mess. Following last year’s border blockade, relations with India reached perhaps an all-time low. Despite the ouster of the ‘anti-India’ Oli government, Nepal’s most important foreign relation is still strained, as was evident in the controversial joint communiqué issued at the end of Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal’s recent India visit. The state of relations with China is no better. Back in March, then-Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli had signed a slew of agreements with the northern neighbor, including the ones on import of transport fuel and transit facilities for Nepal’s third-country trade through Chinese territories. China wanted the continuity of Oli government so that the recent agreements with Nepal could be implemented. For what China prizes the most in the countries it likes to do business with is political and policy stability. But with governments in Nepal changing every nine months, such stability has been elusive, frustrating the Chinese leaders who want to pursue mutually beneficial relations with Nepal. If a spate of recent articles in the semi-official Chinese press is any guide, China is unhappy with the tendency of Nepali leaders to play the ‘China card’ when Nepal’s relations with India sour; but no sooner does Indo-Nepal ties show some improvement, Nepali leaders summarily ditch China, in this Chinese reading.
This is no way to conduct foreign policy. Nepal’s foreign policy priorities, as much as our international friends can discern them, seem dictated by individual leaders who come to power. So Oli, after his overtures towards Beijing, was quickly labeled ‘pro-China’ while Dahal now has the distinction of falling into ‘pro-India’ camp. National interest dictates that we maintain good relations with both our neighbors. The landlocked Nepal, lying in one of the most strategically important regions of the world, cannot afford to play one neighbor against the other. The reason this newspaper wants to see greater engagement with China is because last year’s blockade perfectly illustrated the risk of so completely relying on one country. This is why securing transit right through China was important.
But the new leadership in Nepal, afraid of India’s ire, seems to be in no mood to implement recent agreements with China. This is strange because even India has repeatedly said that it is not against closer cooperation between Nepal and China per se. Its only concern is that China is not thought of as India’s ‘strategic competitor’ in Nepal.
But forget what India wants in Nepal for a bit. We Nepalis first need to decide which course of action best suits our national interest. If, as our major parties repeatedly assert, we want more balance in our relations with India and China, we must pursue it as a matter of policy. Such vital relations should not be left to whims and fancies of individual leaders, which is precisely the reason neither of our neighbors trust Nepali interlocutors any more. The widely decried Indian meddling in Nepal owes in part to the old habit of our political leaders to seek personal favors from their Indian counterparts. This is why a country’s foreign policy is best pursued through established institutional channels. But for this to happen at least the major political parties need to first work out their common foreign policy goals, which should then be pursued irrespective of which party leads the government. Unless we can in this way institutionalize our foreign policy Nepal will continue to be buffeted by ill winds from abroad.
Revised interest rate corridor system introduced
