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The winds of a new cold war between the US and China have started blowing even in Kath­mandu. The latest example of it is the forewarning by an American official about Chinese investment in Nepal and the counter-remark by the Chinese Ambassador in Kathmandu. On Monday, Joseph Felter, US Dep­uty Assistant Secretary of Defense for South and Southeast Asia, had remarked that Chinese investments should be transparent, that they should serve Nepal’s interests and that Nepal should avoid falling into a debt trap. Chinese Ambassador to Nepal Hou Yanqi countered Felter’s remarks the following day, saying that the US was propagating false and irresponsible information. Although western diplomats had been whispering about the growing collaboration between Nepal and China, we hadn’t yet heard the kind of official expression Felter made this week. Now that the Americans have legitimized the China-targeted Indo-Pacific Strategy, they have started talking freely.

It was also from Felter that we heard for the first time that the American grant of $500 million to Nepal under the Millennium Chal­lenge Corporation (MCC) is part of the Indo-Pacific Strategy. It’s been quite a while since the Nepal Army has been conducting a joint military exercise named Balance Nail with the US Indo-Pacific Com­mand. Regardless of how we inter­pret the Indo-Pacific Strategy, it seems the US has started viewing, placing and dealing with Nepal under this scheme.

Such American intimation was also reflected during the bilateral meeting between Foreign Minis­ter Pradeep Gyawali and his US counterpart in Washington DC in December. The statement issued by the US State Department soon after hinted that “Nepal’s central role in a free, open and prosperous Indo-Pa­cific” had been a topic of discussion in the meeting.

 The Indo-Pacific Strategy hasn’t yet assumed the shape of a military alliance like NATO or a regional organization like SAARC

The Indo-Pacific Strategy hasn’t yet assumed the shape of a mili­tary alliance like NATO or a regional organization like SAARC. So it’s not clear how much a country needs to cooperate to be considered a part of the strategy. In fact, this strategy seems to have been advanced in a clever manner to serve long-term interests. A country doesn’t need to announce that it is a part of it, but now it seems the partnerships America strikes will mostly be under this strategy.

The strategy is similar to the Chi­nese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in that China has started placing all its partnerships under the BRI umbrella. But the difference is that China has begun giving the BRI a definite shape. And member coun­tries have to sign on to it and take part in its summits. For instance, President Bidya Bhandari is going to Beijing in April to participate in the second BRI summit.

By contrast, the US hasn’t given an organizational shape to the Indo-Pa­cific Strategy. But the BRI and the Indo-Pacific Strategy have emerged as weapons with which America and China are competing for world dom­ination in the 21st century.

As Foreign Minister Gyawali was conversing with US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, the US Sen­ate was finalizing a bill that has significance for Nepal as well. US President Donald Trump signed the bill into law a few days later. That law, called the Asia Reassurance Initiative Act (ARIA), is the one that directs the Indo-Pacific Strategy.

ARIA defines the Indo-Pacific as the region that houses half the world’s population, has the most vibrant economy and poses a chal­lenge to American security strat­egy. It says the US-dominated world order is being challenged in differ­ent ways by China, North Korea and terrorist outfits like ISIS. The US goal is to overcome all such challenges and maintain its world domination.

Although ARIA’s purported goals are to enhance American security and financial interests and spread its values, its core concern is a ris­ing China. Growing US interest in Nepal—which shares a border with China’s Achilles heel Tibet and which has a direct stake in Tibetan issues—is therefore natural.

Nepal is mentioned twice in ARIA. Under the heading ‘Promoting US Security Interests in the Indo-Pa­cific Region’, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are labelled ‘Democratic partners’ with which the US is going to increase collaboration. (India has been called a ‘defense partner’ and given distinct importance.) As Chinese investment in Nepal’s infrastructure grows, the US is also showing an eagerness to follow suit. That donors are finally channeling investment away from seminars and toward infrastructure is good for Nepal, even though they might be doing it to compete with each other.

The second time Nepal is men­tioned in ARIA is under the head­ing ‘Promoting democracy in the Indo-Pacific Region’, which says the US is going to provide aid of over $210 million a year between 2019 and 2023 in order to ‘bring democ­racy to China’ and ‘protect Tibetan tradition, culture, environment, etc.’ It says this amount is going to be invested in NGOs working with the ‘Tibetan community’ in Tibet and ‘other Tibetan communities’ in Nepal and India. That it says ‘Tibetan communities’ instead of ‘Tibetan refugees’ raises questions as to who the definition covers and how the policy will be implemented in Nepal. Managing Chinese responses to it might well be another source of a headache.

In December, US President Trump also signed a separate law concern­ing Tibet. The Reciprocal Access to Tibet Act has a provision of denying a US visa to Chinese officials who deny American citizens a visa to visit Tibet. Considering all these recent happenings, it seems the US wants to revive the Tibet issue from a new angle. How will that affect Nepal? Will Nepal be made ‘a listen­ing post’ to keep an eye on Tibet? Or will it be made ‘a launching pad’? We need to think about it before it’s too late.

The foundation of ARIA is the National Security Strategy that Trump made public in December 2017. The strategy considers China a military rival and suggests ways to counter Chinese economic aggres­sion. In the cold war between the US and China, countries like Nepal have little role to play except being a spec­tator. The third actor in this rivalry among the two giants is India, which has its own expectations. Nepal has to collaborate with all three of these powerhouses; it also has to dodge their military objectives. Until recently, all we needed to under­stand was India. But now China and America have become active geopo­litical players in Nepal. If Nepal can skillfully handle the new dynamics in diplomacy, it presents an oppor­tunity. Else, it spells disaster.

As Professor Shreedhar Kha­tri said recently, Nepal needs to learn how to deal with great powers. We can neither escape from India, nor stop the arrival of China and America. We have no choice but to learn to maintain parallel relations with them.

In the past one month the Nepali state has hosted two religious events. One, the Kathmandu summit of a South Korean Christian organization; and two, the com­memorative marriage ceremony of Lord Ram and Goddess Sita in Janakpur, held under the aegis of the Province 2 government, and with the participation of Yogi Adi­tyanath. These events had ‘religious’ significance alright, but they were also harbingers of ‘religious politics’. Constitutionally, the Nepali state should not be linked to any particu­lar religion. Thus the government’s active involvement in religious activ­ities is rather sad. First, let us discuss the summit organized by Moon family’s Univer­sal Peace Federation. The goal of this organization is to bring under its influence the political leaders of various countries who are either marginalized or have time to spare. By catering to their needs, it seeks to maintain a strong influence over the political class so that it gets to freely proselytize. In a farcical devel­opment, during the summit, one of the two senior leaders of the rul­ing party acted in the capacity of the organization’s guardian while another went to receive a religious award from its founders.

If we refuse to learn from our mistake, the problem that has been dogging our southern neighbor for past 70 years may enter Nepal

This event also raised some diplo­matic questions. What message was Nepal sending to the outside world by inviting the likes of Aung San Suu Kyi (universally criticized for her inaction on Rohingya refugees) and Hun Sen (an elected autocrat)? What message was it giving to China by playing host to Pacific island states that recognize Taiwan? And what message was being convened by Nepal government that is seemingly in favor of religion-change to the Indian leadership wedded to Hin­dutwa?

Even from a religious standpoint, there is a room to question the mes­saging to the followers of diverse faiths in Nepal by being seen as sup­porting a particular religion? Inter­estingly, a big chunk of the Christian community in Nepal is miffed with the government for its support of a ‘Christian cult’.

Compared to its neighbors, Nepal has traditionally been liberal and tol­erant. Even though over 80 percent of its people are Hindu the country easily accepted a secular turn. Prin­cipally, this decision of the Constit­uent Assembly to separate state and religion was right. In this light, it is lethal for the state to be involved in self-contradictory religious activi­ties. The government’s proximity to an organization involved in religious conversions has created the ground for another kind of extremism.

Coincidentally, at this time, Yogi Adityanath was in Mithila to take part in a commemorative marriage ceremony between Ram and Sita. As well as the Chief Minister of an Indian state, he is also the head priest of Gorakhnath Maath, a Hindu temple in Gorakhpur. Above all, he wants to be known as Gorak­shak-pithadishwar, mainly because his politics is religion-based. Aditya­nath is considered not just a Hindu hardliner in the BJP, he is thought of as an out-and-out radical. To understand how radical his thoughts are you only need visit his website and evaluate his attitude towards minorities in his own state.

Earlier, the Janaki Temple used to be the main organizer of the mar­riage ceremony. This year, both Province 2 government as well as the federal government are involved. In preceding years, no political figure had headed the ‘marriage proces­sion’; it was celebrated as a purely cultural event. The arrival of Adi­tyanath this year thus gives both political and religious messages.

Adityanath is no stranger to Nepal. The Gorakhnath Maath he heads and the Shah dynasty of Nepal have old ties. Adityanath has even penned a book called Hindu Rastra Nepal: Atit aur Bartaman (‘Hindu state Nepal: Past and Present’), in which he lauds erstwhile Shah monarchs for their promotion of Hindutwa, and argues that Nepal should go back to being a Hindu state. Adityanath used to take part in programs in Kathmandu organized with the same intent. Nowadays, for­mer king Gyanendra himself goes to see Adityanath.

That Hindutwa activists are trying to turn back the political clock in Nepal is no longer a secret. The BJP has its own interests. Its leaders believe that if Nepal can be con­verted to a Hindu state again, the BJP will be politically validated and that it will send a positive message to the Indian electorate.

When the Nepali constitution was being drafted in 2015, there had been a kind of coercion to impose this BJP belief on Nepal. At that time two for­mer prime ministers of Nepal—Sher Bahadur Deuba and Pushpa Kamal Dahal—had even given New Delhi their ‘word’ that Nepal’s Hindu character would be restored. It was partly because Nepal reneged on this ‘promise’ that India imposed the crippling blockade, as former Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai has recently revealed.

India wanted to use the Madhesi Uprising to justify the blockade and Madhesi leaders became its instru­ments. But when New Delhi decided to lift the blockade, it used its police­man to chase away the Madhesi protestors blocking the Indo-Nepal border in Birjung. This reality must never be forgotten. Because in pol­itics such experiments tend to be repeated.

Pastors or priests, Nepalis like to welcome guests, not extremists. If the government is seen as sup­porting these religious extremes, it is only a matter of time before there is an accident. That said, it does not seem to be the intent of either the provincial or the federal government to engage in religious politics by inviting Moon’s religious organization or by welcoming the Yogi. Current controversies may be the result of lack of knowledge or situation-specific reasons. If our state actors learn to stay true to the spirit of the constitution—that the state should be neutral on religious matters—these religious controver­sies will die down.

But if we refuse to learn from our mistake, the problem that has been dogging our southern neighbor for past 70 years may enter Nepal as well. If that happens, as former President Ram Baran Yadav cautioned in a recent public event, “We could invite a war in the name of religion”.