What About The Other MCC, Comrade?

The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) uproar won’t undo the ruling coalition, Maoist chief Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ proclaimed the other day. But isn’t it the other MCC he should be worried about? Or at least the thought of that Bihar-based outfit that subsequently went on to form half of the Communist Party of India (Maoist)?
That Dahal & Co. have been able to engage in parliamentary whatchamacallits while still flaunting their purported revolutionary credentials is an old story. Why his erstwhile allies abroad feign indifference at this dilution of revolutionary fervor is an equally antiquated one.
The enigma endures, nonetheless. Have our Maoists’ one-time foreign allies emulated the Islamic radicals’ notion of taqqiya as a core tenet of their ‘people’s war’? Or they are still revolutionaries simply because they haven’t had the opportunity to wield state power and lick their fingers?
The American compact won’t get legislative endorsement in its current state, Dahal also informs us, a refrain from the ruling alliance's more leftish hue. Yet the ruse has been exposed. Maybe the whole issue of legislative endorsement was contrived to conceal the implementation the MCC would undergo as a regular agreement.
As one mask comes off, Dahal feels compelled to wear another. ‘Storm the citadel, and we will back you’, he exhorted his youth cadre. So what’s with the vacillation here? Or is the seeming equivocation concealing something stiffer here?
Clearly, the Prachanda myth has rested on its ability to give everyone the kind of meaning they sought. While indigenizing Maoism, Dahal perfected the practice of ‘permanent convolution’. That way, he caters to the Indo-West, Chinese and global radical left at the same time.
The subterfuge is wearing thin but still seems to work for now. Yet here the mask fails: the creases on Dahal’s face contradict his spoken expressions.

Mounting Northern Discomfort

“There are no communists in Nepal, all are employees of CIA and RAW”. Such sentiments have lost their ability to shock us. But maybe they do gain some traction when attributed to people like Li Zhanshu, chairman of China’s National People’s Congress, or parliament.
Granted, the news was carried by a secondary segment of Nepal’s media. The copyeditor wrote the headline based on something that wasn’t even in the text. Moreover, the lack of sourcing and mere allusion to a special conference of the Chinese Communist Party raised more questions.
Still, the background, temperament and record of the personage purported to have made the comment lent some credence.
Expressing concern over the political situation in Nepal, Li said Western powers were dominating the country’s politics. Despite having a two-thirds majority in parliament, he continued, Nepali communists have been accused of working for foreign powers and not for the country and the people.
Specifically, Li was quoted as saying, the United States and the West were working hard against the communist ideology and were investing billions of dollars in Nepal to tear the communist party to pieces.
The current government was trying to appease foreign powers in order to maintain its power, Li said, and accused India and the United States of manufacturing a border dispute with China with ulterior motives. Nepal, he recalled, could not even call the Indian blockade of 2015 a blockade or resolve its long-running border dispute with India.
Li said the United States had brought the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) project in Nepal to encircle China, in keeping with Washington’s tradition of never providing selfless assistance to anyone. Furthermore, he said, the MCC project is eyeing Nepal's precious minerals and would ultimately make Nepalis bear all the losses.
Considered a rising star, Li was elected to the politburo of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in November 2012, something uncharacteristic for a chief of the party’s General Office. He owes his political clout to proximity to President and CCP general secretary Xi Jinping.
As the director of the General Office of the Communist Party, Li handled Xi's daily activities, a job that  included management of classified documents, correspondence, security and the president’s health care. He also helped the president advance key policies.
On foreign policy, Li played a major role in facilitating the strong relationship between China and Russia. He was believed to be the first General Office chief in post-Mao China to have played such an active role in foreign affairs. For example, in 2015 Li was sent as a ‘special representative’ of Xi to meet with Vladimir Putin in Moscow. He has accompanied Xi on the leader’s key foreign visits.
Since assuming the leadership of the National People’s Congress in March 2018, Li has been active in promoting China’s relations with its neighbors, including those in South Asia.
Much remains unclear as why Li would make such outspoken comments on Nepal’s relations with third countries. Equally obscure remains the agenda of the ‘special conference’ of the CCP that would have prompted such forthrightness from such a senior Chinese official.
Given China’s rhetorically assertive foreign policy pronouncements in recent years and the opportunities apparatchiks in Beijing have been so gleefully detecting around the world, Li’s brashness becomes understandable. What we can or will do about it is, of course, a different matter altogether.