Sino-Indian tug-of-war weighs down a wobbly republic
By Sanjay Upadhya
Nepal’s strategic vulnerability between Asia’s two giants has always risen and receded with the state of India-China relations and the external variables influencing them. In the past, the internal fundamentals, regardless of the political system of the day, were sturdy enough to cope with often-competing pressures emanating from the north and south. The improvisation that has become the defining feature of the contemporary Nepalese state has made today’s geopolitical spasms far more ominous.
For two years after the collapse of the royal regime in April 2006, India and the West were keenly attuned to the twists and turns of a peace process inaugurated amid deep contradictions. The monarchy, in virtual suspension, became the glue that held the signatories to a plethora of issue-specific agreements together. Clearly, New Delhi and Washington, among other world capitals, were anxious to see the monarchy continue in some ceremonial form in the interests of stability. The complicated internal and external dynamics involved in reinventing the state – an amorphous concept at best – left them with little else than awaiting the eventual verdict of the people.
Beijing, a longtime backer of the monarchy, used the period to build bridges with the newly empowered political parties. Ever the pragmatist, the Chinese reached out to Maoists, whom they had vigorously opposed politically. The former Nepalese rebels, who had long accused the post-Mao Zedong leadership of betraying the Great Helmsman, reciprocated with great alacrity. They virtually forgave Beijing for supplying arms to the royal regime in its effort to quell the rebellion.
Interesting Manifestations
The new northern dynamics surfaced in other interesting ways. At times, interim prime minister Girija Prasad Koirala – uncharacteristically enough, in view of his political record and reputation – warmed to Beijing, especially after the Indian Oil Corporation interrupted critical petroleum supplies on one pretext or the other. Although the Chinese ambassador had become the first foreign representative to present his credentials to Koirala, in his capacity as interim head of state, the symbolism had its limits.
Beijing declined Kathmandu’s request to revoke a contract the royal regime had signed for the purchase of two aircraft by the erstwhile Royal Nepalese Army. Still, when Koirala implicitly linked India to the unrest in the Terai, it was hard to separate that with repeated Chinese concerns over the region’s deepening instability.
By the time the Maoists rose to power, after their unexpected electoral triumph, Beijing had become increasingly candid in asserting its interests in Nepal. The persistence of the Free Tibet protests in Kathmandu hardened Chinese perceptions of Nepal’s open border with India as a threat to their own security. From describing the royal palace massacre as an external conspiracy aimed at scuttling closer Nepal-China ties to affirming Beijing’s commitment to prevent Nepal from becoming another Sikkim or Bhutan, voices from north became more abundant and unequivocal. Significantly, they seemed equally aimed at audiences in India. The arrival of a succession of Chinese civil and military delegations in Kathmandu underscored the fundamental transformation underway in Sino-Nepalese relations. The Indians appeared on the defensive, a role they were unaccustomed to in recent memory.
Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal’s visit to China, days after assuming the premiership, prompted many Indians to cry foul. The Maoists, in New Delhi’s view, had violated some unwritten code under which an incoming Nepalese leader always visited India first. During his subsequent visit to New Delhi, Dahal emphasized Nepal’s commitment to a policy of equidistance/equiproximity with both neighbors as a geopolitical compulsion. Although it initially won over key constituencies in India, Dahal’s charm offensive could not penetrate others. Defense Minister Ram Bahadur Thapa’s visit to China, days after Dahal returned from Delhi, left skeptics in India with a deep sense of vindication, but certainly not one they could not rejoice in.
The fact that Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee chose to visit Nepal as his country was holding crucial state elections served to underscore Delhi’s growing anxieties. On the eve of Mukherjee’s arrival, Deputy Prime Minister Bam Dev Gautam raised the regional stakes by urging Beijing’s involvement in the resolution of Nepal’s Kalapani dispute with India.
Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi hit the headlines even before he landed in Kathmandu, simply because he was paying an official visit barely a week after Mukherjee’s departure. Urging Kathmandu to help check anti-China activities that could grow in 2009, the 50th year of the Dalai Lama’s flight into and self-exile in India, Yang pledged Beijing’s help to protect Nepal’s sovereignty and independence. He also asserted that China intended to develop relations with Nepal in a way that would serve as a role model for bilateral ties between big and small countries. Clearly, this double whammy could not have been lost on the Indians.
Two days after Yang’s departure, Beijing sent a military mission headed by the deputy chief of its army, Lieutenant General Ma Xiotian. During a meeting with Defense Minister Thapa, the Chinese general pledged to provide the Nepal army with some non-lethal equipment and training facilities. Gen. Ma’s visit succeeded another mission led by the Chinese military commander responsible for the areas bordering Nepal. As all this was going on, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia Richard Boucher, who was expected to arrive in Kathmandu to, according to some reports, announce the withdrawal his government’s terrorist tag on the Maoists, put off his travel plans indefinitely. It became hard to see the events as unrelated.
The Nepali Congress took the China question to the constituent assembly, specifically asking Prime Minister Dahal whether Yang’s offer was made in response to any request he had placed before Beijing. Moreover, the party demanded to know where the threat to Nepal’s sovereignty emanated from. India-friendly media outlets in Nepal reacted with far greater stridency to what they almost universally considered Beijing’s gratuitous concern.
Despite having raised their overall profile so substantially, the Chinese have carefully calibrated their Nepal policy. They do not seem to have developed unqualified faith in the top leadership of the Maoists, especially considering their long-standing links in India during the decade-long bloody insurgency. In early 2008, the Maoist-affiliated Young Communist League (YCL) warned it would not allow Tibetans to hold anti-China protests. Once the demonstrations erupted, the YCL – and Maoist organizations in general – were almost invisible. If this was a gesture to the United States, which was in a watch-and-wait mood on the terrorism tag, it must have made some impression.
Indeed, China’s ambivalence on the Maoists has led to wider initiatives, the results of which have been no less ambiguous. Beijing’s interest in forging a wider communist front incorporating the Unified Marxist-Leninists has been stymied by the factionalism in that party. By raising the Yang issue in the legislature, the Nepali Congress pretty much distanced itself from this putative northern alliance.
The focus has thus fallen on the military, which, after the abolition of the monarchy, considers itself the last line of defense vis-à-vis Nepal’s sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity. The reading here seems to be that the nationalism plank would be attractive enough to forge an alliance between the junior and middle ranks in the Nepal Army and the former rebels. Against this scenario, China’s purported interest in Maoist commanders taking up positions in the higher echelons becomes all the more understandable.
Southern Dynamics
During moments of warmth in Chinese-Indian relations, the dominant sentiment in Delhi has focused on some compact Jawaharlal Nehru and Zhou Enlai had supposedly reached in 1954. Under that arrangement, whose existence Nehru himself had publicly affirmed at the time, Beijing would honor India’s claim of influence over Nepal while Delhi recognized total and irrevocable Chinese sovereignty over Tibet.
During times of bilateral strains, Indians have remained suspicious of Chinese motives but reasonably confident of the limits of Beijing’s options in Nepal. Lately, Indian fears of a Chinese strategic encirclement seem compounded by recognition of China’s enhanced willingness and ability to shape developments in Nepal. This, in turn, has been exacerbated by Delhi’s palpable unease over the fallout of possible Chinese responses to growing American assertiveness in Nepal.
Recent Indian initiatives to sound out former king Gyanendra may be less about drawing him into a democratic alliance than about preventing him from veering too close to a Maoist-led nationalist platform. On one plane, the fact that the restoration of the monarchy has become part of the mainstream national conversation barely a year after its abolition may be indicative of the fickleness of the Nepalese psyche. At an operational level, it is a backlash against the political flaws and flimsiness of the transformation process. Taken together, they do acquire additional import.
Should the constituent assembly fail to complete a new constitution amid constant political bickering, will all options have been foreclosed? The question would assume greater significance amid calls in India, in the aftermath of the Mumbai carnage, for the enshrinement of national security as the prime tenet of Delhi’s Nepal policy. It is not difficult, on the other hand, to recognize how seriously Beijing has perceived the Free Tibet movement to be a pivotal element of a wider American-led effort to contain its peaceful rise.
The logical question here is: how far would the Chinese go in supporting the Maoists? History does not provide much reassurance here. From imperial times, Beijing has made explicit pledges to defend Nepal from foreign threats. But the Chinese declined Nepalese pleas for aid during the 1814-16 war with British India. China refused to bail out King Birendra and King Gyanendra in 1990 and 2006 respectively, especially when the palace’s disputes with India had been directly related to Nepal’s growing defense and strategic ties to Beijing.
Since Beijing’s ongoing engagement increasingly appears to be predicated on reciprocal institutional and official obligations, the question of the future of the Maoists – or any other group – in power becomes immaterial. The geopolitical equations have been rewritten drastically, and perhaps irrevocably. Nepal’s challenge has been exacerbated by its growing inability to influence the intricate variables.
(A version of this article appeared in the January/February 2009 issue of Global Nepali magazine)
