India’s China fear and Nepal

N.P.Upadhyaya

Kathmandu: Erratic Nepali politics is getting more compounded.

What adds more to the already confused politics is the enmasse exit of the movers and shakers of politics from Nepal to foreign countries. In effect, the leaders who were now in a luxury trip abroad unfortunately count much in providing a clear and the desired shape to the country's politics. Their absence from in many more ways than one will further slow down peace and constitutional processes.

Thus a section of sharp brains have copious reasons to believe that those who were not in the country have done so deliberately to further halt the unaccomplished tasks.

This may be taken as the height of irresponsible behavior.

The useless Nepal’s Constituent Assembly has less than three more weeks to die a natural death yet what is being expected that political buffoons will manage its one more extension under some "structured" pretexts. The idea is to keep the nation in the lurch for an indefinite period. Couldn’t be a Nepali brain.

While our leaders are enjoying foreign trips, some high level dignitaries from the neighborhood have intensified their trips to Nepal.

The Chinese have their own reasons to come here which perhaps is to receive determined assurances from Nepali authorities that this territory in no way be allowed to be used against their soil-more so against Tibet. Hoping against hope!

Nepal though assures China but the assurances, as per the Beijing reading, were all flimsy ones. Words and deeds differ, is what they presume and perhaps conclude.

The Chinese remain undeterred and have made it a point to come to Nepal in a regular basis at least to keep the Nepali authorities reminding of their prime security concerns.

High placed sources maintain that if Beijing concludes that Nepal no longer remains a safe place for its overall security then it is all prepared to deploy its RED Army along Nepal-China border of which some have already been deployed.

Nepali observers consider that South Asian region awaits a great political cataclysm in the near future which may bring both India and China face to face under this or that pretext. The pretexts are already in the making, opine Nepal's military/security strategists.

However, when this upheaval will hit South Asia or better say the Himalayan Asia hard is a tricky task to predict at this juncture yet the symptoms of which have begun surfacing with the Indian defense analysts claiming that India and China will soon go for a war.

Some even claim that both the neighboring giants as and when face each other militarily, there may be some Nepal element associated with the cause of a war. The other smaller nations in South Asia will also have their own sort of contributions.

This perhaps should explain Nepal's strategic location in Himalayan Asia-between two elephantine adversaries.

However, what would be that Nepal element remains yet in an unclear shape but some matured brains here opine that it could possibly be the Tibet factor which has all along been annoying China as it considers that it is the Nepal-India open border phenomenon which has remained as a prime source for those foreign forces to pounce upon China's Tibet from the Nepalese soil.

"China thus wants to teach a befitting and a final lesson to India", claims Professor Dipak Gajurel, one political scientist associated with the Tribhuwan University in his fresh article published in Naya Patrika daily dated November 8, 2011.

Whether China is in a mood to teach lessons to its arch rival is not known, however, what is known for sure is that India and China of late have definitely been feeling uneasy in the conduct of their bilateral relations.

Needless to say, China is expanding its relations with the countries in South Asia. The US theory of "String of Pearls" is not already in place but also strengthened further with the fresh Chinese request to Pakistan that China be allowed to establish a "Military Base" inside the Pakistani territory. Nepali observers maintain that Pakistan may not deny the Chinese fervent request. It does hint that China now is in an aggressive mood and is planning on how to encircle India from all the possible sides. This is what the Indian defense analysts too claim.

To quote one Indian scholar Vikash Bajaj who in his article published as back as in 16 February, 2010, in the New York Times perhaps explains the Indian fear of increasing Chinese clout in South Asia.

Just look what this matured Indian scholar has to say, (sic), “As trade in the region grows more lucrative, China has been developing port facilities in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar, and it is planning to build railroads in Nepal. These project, analysts say, are part of a concerted efforts by Chinese leaders and companies to open and expand markets for their goods and services. But these initiatives are irking India, whose government worries that China is expanding its sphere of regional influence by surrounding India with a “string of pearls” that could eventually undermine India’s pre-eminence and potentially rise to an economic and security threat”.

The Indian scholar is correct. China definitely has intensified its “all possible ties” with the countries of South Asia immediately after, analysts presume, the US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton some months back advised India to play a greater role and begin looking beyond the region. China must have got the point. Moreover, the fresh India-US nuclear arrangements too must have annoyed China to the hilt.

India has thus profuse reasons to get nervous.

The Indian panic is perhaps best explained by a JNU scholar, Professor Swaran Singh, who while presenting his working paper in Kathmandu, November 7, 2011, on “China in South Asia and India’s Apprehensions” modestly advises India’s smaller neighbors in his own way, (sic), “If either China or India continues to use South Asia for their self-assertions against each other or allow themselves to be used by smaller South Asian states for short-term gains then the end result may not be very encouraging for the region”.

Undoubtedly, Professor Singh is speaking on behalf of India. The panic is thus real.

The fresh insult of the Delhi based Chinese Ambassador by an Indian reporter over the inclusion of some Indian lands in the China prepared map and the Ambassador's sudden outburst against the same reporter does tell that things have approached a level which need to be settled once and for all for the overall political stability of the South Asian region. The SA people need permanent stability in this part of the world.

(The Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin just the other day told that Pakistan was a long time ‘key partner’ of the federation in South Asia). This adds to the advantage of China in South Asia by implication.

Nepal-a lame and duck state serving under the mercy of the Indian establishment will find it more difficult if and when India and China become face to face.

Nepal has neither the capability to extend its support to China nor to India. At best, Nepal can watch the two elephants fighting with each other. The fact is also that when two elephants fight it is the grass (Nepal) which is the hardest hit.

It should be in this light the former heir apparent of the Kingdom of Kashmir Dr. Karan Singh's Nepal visit as an emissary of Smt. Sonia Gandhi, has to be understood. Dr. Singh who pleasingly works under Gandhi must not have come only for receiving the honorary doctoral degree from the Kathmandu University and to make lectures on Vedanta but instead he was here to sound the Nepali ruling elites that Nepal must not expand and enhance its relations with China. After all, an Indian national will certainly look upon his own country's interests.

All in all, Nepali politics has already come under the shadow of an imaginary India-China war. As things stands today, it is very much likely that Nepali politics will continue to remain under the grip of the ugly Nepali leaders in rotation.

Equally true is that Nepal may soon feel the punch of an impending South Asian disturbance if the claims being made by the Indian defense analysts and international relations expert come true.

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Comments

Posted on - 2011-11-10 by LUMBINI - NEPAL
Who knows the coming days may human's hick-up will begin in Asia to remember late king of Nepal Shree Panch Briendra Bir Bikram Saha Dev. Thanks

Posted on - 2011-11-10 by Soil of Nepal - Love of the World
Sky never see the earth and earth never meet to sky - but, the sun arise and set in time again and again. In between that time the human always lives on this earth and watch the sky generation to generations . May still they try to find where is the PEACE?