-Survival Strategies of a Small State-
Dev Raj Dahal, Kathmandu, Nepal
LEVELS OF ANALYSIS:
The desirability of this new concept that is more flexible and positive to interdependence is also suggested by the ongoing transformation of the international system and the state-centric view.
Nepal cannot afford to be indifferent to and unaffected by the global movement of capital, goods, technology, knowledge, people, and so forth.
The nation, moreover, is subject to acute dependence on the international power system (legitimacy) and market factors such as foreign aid, trade, technology, investments, etc.
A drastic change has occurred in the concept and character of international relations; and the Nepalese people, like the people of other countries, are faced once again with multiple loyalties and overriding domains of power at several levels: individual security legitimized by the principles of human rights; subnational or national security recognized by the credo of national self-determination; state security presupposing the sovereignty of state underlined in international law and the UN Charter; regional security established through the pooling of state sovereignty for common benefit; and common security or global human security embodying all the elements for the creation of a just and legitimate global order.
These security constructs are interrelated, implying that even interdependence in this sense implies that continued survival, stability, and prosperity of this nation rest on the sustained goodwill and cooperation of others.
Having said this, it would now be pertinent to briefly examine several foreign policy strategies Nepal has so far resorted to.
Present-day Nepal’s geostrategies have largely been influenced by the Treaty of Peace and Friendship Nepal signed with India in July 1950, with security, economic, and demographic components, in which the two countries agreed to pursue their common strategic policies and India offered to support Nepal’s defense modernization, economic development, and strengthen cultural and technological cooperation.
Because of the limited menu of choice, both the governments had to comply with the resolution of common necessities through a special relationship — a notion astutely crafted to convey to the peoples of both countries the idea of close mutual interdependence. Speculation was also rife that China had later acquiesced in Indian hegemony over Nepal during Zhou-Nehru summit in the fifties.
The psychology underlying the notion indicated Nepal’s weakness in carrying out independent foreign policy.
This school of thought often considers China as a remote factor with no immediate strategic interests in Nepal, and therefore contends that the former can influence little the geopolitical developments of South Asia.
During his press conference in Kathmandu on April 28,1960 Zhou En-lai had, however, clearly stated the Chinese position: “Prime Minister Nehru said that the Indian people had feelings towards the Himalayas. I said in reply that this was true not only of the Indian people, the Chinese people also had feelings for the Himalayas, and the peoples of Nepal, Bhutan and Sikkim also had feelings for the Himalayas, too.” It was in this context that the treaty of Peace and Friendship signed between Nepal and China on April 20 of the same year and the Treaty of Friendship and Trade signed in September 1956 became the pillars of Nepal-China ties in the coming years.
Although no concrete evidence exists to refute this notion of strong Chinese feelings, the Treaty of Peace and Friendship India signed with Nepal and the letters exchanged with it tried to link Nepal with the hard issues of defense akin to the case of Austria before 1955.
The treaty spelled out the provision for mutual consultation to devise effective counter measures for containing an external threat to either of them.
After India’s independence from the British empire, the new Indian government assumed itself as the heir of the British Raj in its relations with Tibet, Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan, and Burma and entered into treaty relationships with these states which are based on three fundamental assumptions: mutual threat perception of communist China; creation of a common security regime with the Himalayan states for subcontinental security; and the evolution of a long-term cooperative framework.
In fact, a policy of convergence between the foreign policies of Nepal and India was promoted for at least five years following the treaty when Nepal was facing political instability and China was consolidating its position in Tibet.
India’s fears of the imminent Chinese threat, however, dissipated as soon as the euphoria of Hindi-Chini-Bhai-Bhai set in. The growing Sino Indian rapprochement based on the 1954 treaty and the five principles of Panchasheel reflected a mood of peaceful coexistence.
This also brought a strong neutralist inclination in Nepalese foreign policy analogous to Switzerland’s between the two World Wars, because even India had few tenable reasons to resist Nepal’s China opening and diversification in foreign aid, trade, and international relations.
The 1962 border war, which established China as a strong factor to be reckoned with, geographically reversed the regional balance of power, severely frayed the security linkage until the Arms Assistance Agreement was signed between Nepal and India in 1965, and induced an Indian credibility gap.
Nehruvian rationalizations on the concept of Himalayan security lost their viability, and whatever notion of security India had inherited from British India began to appear disproportionate to its power and institutions.
Yet, it stood adamant on dealing with the neighbors in the conventional bilateral framework without outside powers involvement.
Nepal had accepted the post-war security regime by default, defined by the treaty and strengthened by economic and political policies, letters of understanding, and other relationships.
Yet, the elements of discord that remained were substantial.
Kathmandu, for example, conceded to this policy so long as it did not offend Chinese security interests.
It was neither irrational nor inappropriate to take a divergent position as it often did on various issues of regional and global importance depending upon the circumstances.
Nepal’s role of a ménage à trois — harmony among the three (Nepal-India-China) – in the fifties, thus gradually shifted to that of a tertius — balancing the influence of both the neighbors for its own advantage in the sixties.
The Nepalese diplomacy, thus, far from being a puzzle and therefore something transient, was a link in the pattern established in Europe and Asia by many small states like Denmark, Sweden, Austria, Thailand, and Malaysia.
Late king Mahendra, like his forefather king Prithvi Narayan Shah, adroitly operated his moves on the assumption of Nepal’s pivotal position in the Asian cold war politics — evolving the monocratic Panchayat system after his takeover of the Nepali Congress government between communism and democracy.
In so doing, his overriding security objective was the containment of ideological influence through the process of Nepalization of language and culture, nationalism, and promoting the laws in favor of national and regime preservation.
After the shift in policy from special relationship with India toward a stance of nonalignment in regional and international politics, Nepalese foreign policy also manifested its flexibility broadening the choice in policies.
The growing interactions with China and Pakistan, the principal rivals of India, served as the main props of king Mahendra’s strategy for the regional balance of power.
Until the evolution of the identity of interests between India and the Soviet Union in South Asia in the beginning of the seventies, even the Soviet and American financial and diplomatic support provided Nepal some leverage in dealing with its neighbors.
One consequence of the Chinese success in 1962 war was to modify India’s hard stance toward king Mahendra’s policies vis-a-vis the anti-royalist forces operating from the Indian soil.
The king clearly believed that China had no grand designs of communizing Nepal and his foreign policy moves did dilute the need for special ties with India.
Nepalese prime minister K. N. Bist, who in June 1968 openly called for the withdrawal of Indian Military Liaison Mission in Kathmandu and its intelligence posts on Nepal-China border, declared: “Nepal cannot compromise its sovereignty for India’s so-called security,” a statement which marked Nepal’s assertive bid to shake off special relationship.
During this time, despite its intermittent dependence on India and China, Nepal had evolved a relatively independent foreign policy, siding with one or the other on specific issues but aligning with neither.
Meanwhile, it not only did stay out of the Sino Indian clash but also prevented both the neighbors to inflict damage on it. The questions that are often asked in this context are: Does Sino-Indian detente weaken or enhance Nepal’s foreign policy maneuverability? And, what types of strategy are most propitious for Nepal facing regional bipolarity and global multipolarity?
To be sure, regional bipolarity more strongly influences Nepal’s policy context than does global multipolarity.
As long as India and China remain mere survival is not enough to satisfy the popular aspirations of the people.
The Nepalese desire to safeguard national security meant a high degree of independence from both India and China.
For, if dependency was the hard fact of Nepalese life, it was considered more beneficial in the long run to diversify dependence and recapture economic sovereignty.
But alienating both neighbors was perceived as a more risk-prone diplomacy than joining one side, if options were available, to avoid a disaster from either side.
This, however, was only a worst-case-scenario. Strategic alliance with either of them would be a high-cost, high-risk policy — one that could cause irreversible domestic social and political polarization.
In order to strengthen its own position relative to China and India, Nepal, therefore, looked for assistance from Japan, Europe, and America since the fifties; declared a peace zone for itself in the mid-seventies, and internationalized its role and status in the United Nations, nonaligned conferences, and the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC).
The management of bilateral and multilateral linkages with the UN, nonaligned countries, SAARC, and other INGOs has thus become very important for Nepal because these forums have provided a framework for diplomatic maneuvers as well as critical inputs to its foreign policy.
Membership in international institutions provides small states equal voting rights to participate in crucial decision-making. Of all these factors, SAARC’s feedback is clearly reflected in its behavior.
In the days ahead, as South Asian regionalism grows, more regional coordinating mechanisms will be required not only in the soft arenas of economic, social, and technological cooperation but also in high politics — in the realms of politics and security – as the European Union and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations suggest.
Regional cooperation has emerged as a necessity for small states to broaden their ties with the outside world, to reduce unwanted dependency, and to promote mutual interest by sharing knowledge, technology, and capital as well as by undermining the negative effects of globalization.
The increasing regionalization of political economy has made Nepal’s ties with India and China a stable cornerstone of its foreign policy and relieved it from the Norwegian-like political culture where a strong sense of equality often generates a tension between the core and the periphery.
As a small state it has a great stake in regional peace and stability and stands stoutly against imperialism, colonialism, hegemony, and apartheid.
The basic policy consistency between king Mahendra and King Birendra continued until 1989, both of whom knew the importance of foreign policy for a small state, and did not like to sacrifice one country’s friendship for another’s interests. On September 6, 1973 King Birendra said, “Nepal is not a part of the subcontinent; it is really that part of Asia which touches both China and India.”
This statement refutes Nepal’s ascribed status as a mere buffer state.
But, the decades of seventies and the eighties unfolded a new geopolitical realignment — Sino-American versus Indo-Soviet.
Nepal’s anti-Soviet stands on Afghanistan produced a certain incongruity of interests between Nepal and India as India’s nexus in the Soviet Union’s China containment strategy was regarded hardly beneficial in the context of the increasingly assertive Sino-American strategy to foil the Soviet maneuvers.
The emergence of Bangladesh, Indo-Pak war, Sikkim episode, and ethnic crisis of Sri Lanka have emerged as critical elements to shape the Nepalese perception of the increasingly insecure milieu of the region’s geopolitics.
The Nepalese feelings of insecurity became more acute as India, instead of renewing the Trade and Transit treaties of 1978, imposed an economic blockade against Nepal after their expiry on March 23, 1989; blocked essential commodities; and tried to impose a unified trade and transit treaty.
The use of economic leverage against Nepal was substantial and fully coordinated with security, political, and communication networks.
Nepal’s purchase of arms from China in August 1988 served as the immediate pretext as a violation of India’s monopoly for the supply of arms and ammunitions to Nepal.
But in fact, Nepal had already received occasional military assistance from Britain and America in 1963, asked for the abrogation of 1965 Arms Assistance Agreement with India in the late sixties, and had shown its disinclination repeatedly to share the Indian security perception.
The other reasons India adduced were the violation of the spirit of 1950 treaty; imposition of additional custom duties on Indian goods, and the introduction of work permit scheme for foreigners in 1987.
Nepalese resentment and resistance, in turn, was fueled by the violation of its air space by Indian Air Force planes, raids by the Indian CRP Force in Mane Bhanjyang village of Nepal (December 1986), violation of the spirit of reciprocity inherent in the treaty of 1950 for sharing water resources, growing trade imbalance, and a host of other irritants.
Disharmonic perceptions and the hard realities of power thus transmuted into the conflict between a small state and a regional giant.
The blockade shortly turned into a trade embargo and continued until new elites dominated by Congress – Left coalition were catapulted into power following the popular agitation of 1990 and the consequent collapse of the Panchayat regime.
Trade routes with India were reopened after the new premier K.P. Bhattarai’s visit to India and the signing of the Joint Communique (June 10, 1990).
This Communique not only put Nepal-India relations to a position of status quo ante-1987, the day when work permit was introduced in Nepal but also spelled out provisions for a “common security, common rivers, common market, common currency, etc.” with India.
The separate treaties of trade and transit, however, were signed in December 1991 during the visit of Premier G.P. Koirala to India. But the Joint Communique defined Nepal’s overall foreign policy position for the foreseeable future.
After the Jana Andolan, an entirely different view on foreign policy was articulated.
The interim government of K.P.Bhattarai and its successor G.P. Koirala government of Nepali Congress, as in the late fifties, formulated a trisected foreign policy that called for nonalignment in general; deepening relationship with India in particular; and fostering friendly relations with the rest of the world for regional and international behavior.
The ideology of democracy and human rights had been given substantial importance and linked perfectly with the global wave of privatization.
But the insertion of democracy and human rights as the instruments of Nepalese foreign policy has created a conceptual confusion in defining the ends and means of foreign policy.
In fact, democracy, like human rights, is more a way of life than a policy while foreign policy is a means to promote national interests, not a way of life.
Human values are the ends and policies are the means.
Confusing the ends with the means has thus engendered a teleological fallacy.
A not-too-dissimilar confusion persisted in advertising the trade-off between democracy and nationalism.
This confusion is partly the product of historical distortion, and partly of political confusion.
One plausible reason for the strong concern for democracy is that the struggle for democracy in Nepal has continued for long; whereas, after the Treaty of Sugauli, Nepalese did not have to fight for nationalism.
This may explain their modified sensitiveness toward nationalism.
The hard reality, however, is that if democracy is lost, it can be gained as Nepalese regained it in the nineties; but if nationalism is lost, the nation may be gone forever.
This establishes the correlation, rather than a trade-off, between the two. Certain elements of the Constitution of Nepal 1990 that institute transparency, right to information, and endorsement of treaty or agreements of vital importance by a two-thirds majority of the parliament do suggest the need for democratic control as well as for consensus in the substance and style of foreign policy.
The lack of ideological consensus among the major political parties on foreign policy despite constitutional requirement would subject the national interest to partisan politics weakening thereby the effectiveness of foreign policy.
For small states, such democratic control creates credibility, long-term commitment, role acceptability, and image — important for projecting national identity.
The fundamental assumption of realpolitik, too, suggests that national interest is not served either by subordinating itself to or by siding blindly with like-minded regimes.
The Interim and Congress governments dethroned many foreign policy strategies pursued by the Panchayat regime and created new ones in their place: reaffirmation of common security with India, refrainment from importing Chinese arms, withdrawal of support to the Pakistani proposal on a nuclear weapons-free South Asia, and the virtual abandonment of the Peace Zone proposal.
Such unilateral measures can hardly promote Nepal’s security. Multilateralism can better do it ensuring its historic role as a player rather than a pawn in the game of world politics.
The democratic image of Nepal has certainly created a new identity for gaining sympathy of the world community but the image by itself does not augment the power of the nation unless it can guarantee self-respect and pride.
In a liberalized environment, pride could have been enthused by defending national self-determination and demanding a just regional and global order.
To be sure, if liberalism does not lead to national development, it merely becomes a self-deluding ideology.
Defending foreign policy as an extension of domestic politics alone, where a change in government leads toward a corresponding change in foreign policy, undermines the vital process of foreign policy.
Government is only one single factor of foreign policy out of many such as geography, history, national character, global distribution of power, and so on, which no government is capable of controlling at will.
This means the gravity of the immutable conditions of a state makes foreign policy a matter of unbroken continuity rather than a matter of choice, suggesting that a regime-oriented foreign policy is unsustainable.
The extension theory described in the old textbooks of international politics has relevance only for powerful states whose domestic behavior is reflected in their foreign relations.
Nepalese inability either to influence or control the regional and global power order, even to project domestic peace to international peace, turns its foreign policy orientation into a perpetual struggle for adaptation.
This also means that regime legitimacy alone does not by itself guarantee the security of the nation and well-being of its people. Harmony between nations depends largely on how their internal and external interests are interlinked and balanced.
# Text courtesy: “The Political Economy of Small States” edited by Ananda Aditya for Nepal Foundation for Advanced Studies, (NEFAS) second edition 2001.
# Thanks the NEFAS and the distinguished author Dev Raj Dahal: Upadhyaya.
# To be concluded.