By Prof. Dr. Sadmukh Thapa (late)
(Retd. from Central Dept. of
Political Science, T.U).
Geo-strategic Nepal:
Way back in mid - twentieth
century Rupert Emerson had well suggested that “the countries of Asia are not yet nations in being but only in hope”. That
was a ringing call to the Asian and more precisely to the Southeast Asian
countries to become soon viable nations. As Dick Wilson has in his book Asia
Awakes, presumed, the European countries had consumed four centuries to become
real nations by degrees, achieving first strong states, then securities and law
and order, then the sense of nationalism and lastly democracy. By that
standard, our countries have been in hurry to consummate all these conditions and
not yet being successful. Explaining the reason behind, Dick Wilson has
strongly asserted that our countries here in this region are still “ a
quarrelsome collection of small nations politically, economically and
militarily vulnerable not only to the powers outside Asia but increasingly also
to the Asian competitors in power game- China,
India and Japan.”
This imagery fits a poor, weak
and backward country like Nepal.
Nepal
is not weak by fate but by her own misdoings in history. As the saying goes,
“History punishes those who come late to it.” Nepal’s
geopolitics between Asia’s two giant nations, India
and China,
has per se enhanced her geo-strategic position in this part of the world.
Strategic writers like Perceval Landon, J.P. Cross, Rosenthal and others have
aggrandized Nepal’s
geo-startegicity to command the whole of South Asia.
That was why she was until some years ago sandwiched between five
boulders-China Pakistan,
Russia India and U.S.A.,
which would be echoed in Rosenthal’s writings.
We are now just to wonder when
and how Nepal
with her geo-strategic resources would command this region amid the giants
hereabout, except being commanded by them, as has been the go of the day.
Juggernaut Driven by Triumvirate:
Nepal s geopolitics has outreached
to invite a trio of powers to impact her course of history. Through the
vagaries of time, since the late nineties to the first decade of the 21st
century, now, Nepal’s
conventional wisdom has been turned upside down. She has ceased to remain
squeezed strategically between China
and India
alone. Her state of volatility has forced the third and greater power, U.S.A. which has shaken the world
today with her “unprecedented hegemony”, to maneuver her. But, the yam between
the three powers bears a queer equation of power- politics.
The geo-strategic power vacuum in
Southeast Asia is such that the candidate
great powers of this region and the outside superpower are lured to brace for
grabs here, thus heralding an Asian Century dooming the Pacific or American
Century of the last era.
Geopolitics is found being played
by different players at different times due in this part of the world. Way back
in the last century, Tiber Mende had explored the probability of a concert of
powers here including India,
China and Indonesia. A
few years ago, it was Russia’s
Pemakov who had suggested an alliance of
India, Russia and China. Harvard Prof. J.S. Nye
foresees the probability of a cooperation- body including India, China
and U.S.A. Likewise, David M. Lamptom-director of China Studies at John Hopkins
suggests an alliance of U.S.A. China and Japan. It is also noteworthy that
recently in mid August, 2007; the visiting Japanese ex-Prime Minister Sinzo Abe
had put forth a novel proposal before his Indian counterpart M.M. Sing that India, Japan,
Australia
and US make an “alliance for democracy”. This kind of enterprise may have
double purpose , to promote collective economic might and to contain China to some
extent, from expanding her sphere (of influence) in this region. The dynamics
of power games in South Asia at present has generated unprecedented magnetism
which has enmeshed India, China and U.S.A. The trio of power has made a
combination which rings of the presumption of Prof. Joseph Nye, the author of
Power Game, that the geostrategic attraction of South Asia
has made it inevitable. Eventually, Nepal has been the chessboard where
these triumvirs are staged to play their power games.
Nepal
facing Triangular forces:
Nepal
has been an epicenter of magnetism towards which the three powers are competing
to gravitate- China, India and the U.S.A. For one thing these nations
are doing push and pull separately. For another, they are working sometimes in
combination. As such, Nepal
is pressured (by) among three forces, on one hand and between two blocks of
power, on the other. In this case, Nepal
poses between China on one
hand and India and U.S.A.
combined, on the other.
China’s
interests in Nepal
are a stable, peaceful and prosperous neighbor whose every pinch she has to go
through. She wants no disturbances via Nepal
to Tibet’s
peace and stability. Equally, she does not want separatism to enter the
Xinjiang Autonomous Region through this passage. The Free Tibet and Eat Turkmenistan movements have been the formidable
factors against China.
Nepal’s
geostrategic position, here is comparable to Kyrgyzstan,
a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which lies between China and Uzbekistan. It is a buffer, between
the East and the West and a hotbed of terrorism, separatism, and fundamental
extremism. This country is so vital to China’s
interest that she hopes to link the Silk Road through it, with Paris via the Middle-east. Nepal is of no
less importance to her, strategically.
China today meets both India
and U.S.A. in Nepal. She is
wary and aware of India
and the U.S.A.
separate as well as combined.
India’s
Nepal
interest is a continuation of the British legacy. India’s
strategic umbrella expands from the Himalayas to the Indian
Ocean. There is also the Indian version of the Monroe Doctrine
working over Nepal
and the region.
Nepal is to be quarantined from any
communist and terrorist influence.
US
strategic interest in Nepal
has been the containment of China’s
sphere of influence in this country, along with Bush policy of following Truman
Doctrine here. Strategically the US
also meets China in Nepal. Coming
down to this moment of 21st century, the strategic scenario in Asia and the
world, has changed so much so that the US
needs China more than China needs
her. Despite this, US strategic
policy behooves a trouble-ridden China. There is every danger of Nepal falling a
scapegoat to the superpower unilateralism.
Nepal
is a crossroad where India
and USA both Jointly
endeavourer to work together against China. There is a overlapping of interests
of both. Since the new millennium, US has found India as a “potential partner of
choice” as the Pentagon’s global strategy document entitled ‘Joint Vision,
2020’ has professed. Since 2004, India has been US’s “best friend
and strategic partner,” as the latter’s nuclear policy engaged through 2005 to
2007, demonstrates. These two nations together have created a double
gravity to pull Nepal away
from China’s
orbit, thereby reducing the Sino- effect over this country. Nepal has been
manipulated as a passage for containment of the Chinese ambition in this
region. By being engaged with India,
the then Bush government also wanted to contain India, covertly. ( Article written
in 2009:Ed).
Since China
is now the world’s one of the biggest stakeholders of peace and stability, the US has joined
her in a “candid, constructive and cooperative” alliance. The question now, is
not whether or not China
would be a world power, but how she would impact the world in multiple
dimensions. India and China too, from the late eighties, through the
joint “Declaration on Principles for Relations and Comprehensive Cooperation”
2003, to the exclusive compact of 11 agreements in 2005, justify Indian PM M.M.
Singh’s assertion with visiting Chinese PM Wen Jiabao that “India and China can together reshape the
world order”. These two Asian tigers can prove by fusing their hard and soft
powers respectively. They are to prove themselves the ‘kingpins of the global
powers’. In a way of futurism, one Indian strategist put it that by 2030, there
would be only three powers in the world-the U.S.A.,
China and India. There
would be no singular domination whatsoever. But if a choice would come, as the
strategist has maintained, India
would co-opt with China
better for the future peace and prosperity. Suggesting the need of time, Nobel
laureate Prof. Amartya Sen of Harvard, has ascertained that China and India must not compete but
cooperate and, teach and learn from each other.
Text courtesy: Journal of
International Affairs. Vol.1, No.1, April/September, 2009.
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