What instigated this latest expression of geopolitical acuity? Or, to put it less charitably, was this the time to ingratiate himself to the Chinese so obsequiously?
In terms of burnishing his credentials as the next prime minister, Nepal Communist Party (NCP) co-chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ might have seen the meeting with visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi as too good an opportunity to miss.
While briefing the dignitary on his new role as the executive head of the NCP in all but name, Dahal could easily have been carried away by recent developments in the country and outside. The shakiness of the existing Nepali political order, the dampening of the spirit of Wuhan between the Asian giants and the sole superpower’s penchant for perpetuating perplexity did provide a somber backdrop. Amid all this, might Dahal have attempted to explain all the wonderful ways in which he would steer relations with China as premier?
If so, it would not have been out of place for the US-led Indo-Pacific Strategy to enter the discussions. Dahal has been quoted as assuring Wang that “Nepal firmly adheres to the policy of non-alignment, disagrees with the so-called Indo-Pacific Strategy, and opposes any attempt to contain or thwart China’s development.”
Dahal’s allies insist that he merely reiterated his party’s line on the US-led strategy and its implications for Nepal’s neighborhood. Still, the NCP co-chair could have been more sensitive to the fact that his party also leads a government that has had a hard time confirming or denying Nepal’s precise place in the Indo-Pacific Strategy.
Is that lapse sufficient reason to pursue Dahal? After all, the brouhaha is based on a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs news release on the Wang-Dahal meeting. One key point of contention is that the release used the antecedent so-called – without quotes – to describe Dahal’s characterization of the Indo-Pacific Strategy. The clear implication thus would be that one of the two leaders of Nepal’s ruling party rejected the notion that the American policy on and approach to a vast geography even amounted to a strategy. But, then, all we have is the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ word.
If Nepal is indeed a part of a US-led initiative to maintain a free and open Indo-Pacific as part of sustaining peace and prosperity, that doesn’t mean it has opened itself as another front for the containment of China. So Dahal shouldn’t be made to answer for Beijing’s misapprehensions. Nepal’s inability to reassure China on this count is not tantamount to its complicity in the original charge.
But, then, words regularly tend to conceal more than they clarify. And who knows this better than Dahal? He has perfected the amalgamation of bloviation, equivocation, obfuscation and prevarication into a profitable political tool.
Indeed, the Americans and Chinese want him to clarify matters for their own reasons. In the process, the Americans have provided clarification of their own. The Indo-Pacific Strategy should be understood as only policy and not a club which would welcome Nepal as a new member, the chief of the Political Section of the American Embassy in Kathmandu said, almost validating the qualifier attributed to Dahal by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs news release.
Maybe Dahal can pull this off to his advantage. Heck, he may already have done so: by keeping alive the notion that the Indo-Pacific Strategy is not aimed at containing China and letting all parties grandstand on its underlying nature and significance.
