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The concept of a ‘debt trap’ vis-à-vis the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has been gaining traction in Nepal. It is hard to say whether the reports and views that have come out in the popular media reflect genuine worry over the BRI’s possible harms on Nepal, or whether they aim to deliberately portray China in a bad light.

Not that Nepal should brush aside all concerns of a debt trap. In fact, a close examination of this concept based on evidence from abroad is vital. But, at the same time, should we uncritically imbibe the western views on the BRI and a debt trap? Instead, why not examine Nepal’s own history of dealing with western institutions like the IMF and the World Bank, or with bilateral partners like India, China and the US? Who has wronged us the most? Were it the Chinese who prescribed the disastrous wholesale privatization of state institutions back in the early 1990s? Or have they imposed debilitating blockades on the landlocked country?

It is naïve to assume democratic countries also have democratic foreign policies

It is naïve to assume that democratic countries also have democratic foreign policies. The disastrous American inter­ventions in the Middle East for oil, India’s hardball ‘blockade’ diplomacy, the refusal of the Japanese to atone for their sins in China and Korea, the recent history of western colonization—all suggest democratic countries sel­dom practice abroad what they preach at home. This isn’t surprising. Interna­tional interactions are guided primarily by what modern nation-states define as their national interests, which may not always align with democratic values.

This is not at all to suggest Nepal will be better off swearing unwavering faith to an undemocratic China. That would be another naivety. Again, to restate a cliché, in international relations there are no permanent friends or foes. China has traditionally appeared good to Nepal because unlike India its interactions with us have been limited. Perhaps we can gain much more by closely cooperating with it, which is also essential for the success of a vital national interest of Nepal: diversification. Our new National Security Policy also rightly prioritizes preventing another blockade “at all cost”—which can only happen with greater connectivity with China. Yes, definitely, let us look to safeguard our national interests in our dealings with the northern neighbor too. But let us also learn to draw our own conclusion.

 Why does China see the US-backed concept of Indo-Pacific as a ‘strategic threat’? For the Chinese, “the term ‘Indo-Pacific’ is less the acknowledge­ment of an ineluctable political geography than an initial, inchoate move to create a political initiative, one intended to rival China’s Belt and Road,” Bruno Maçães of the Hudson Institute writes in his perceptive new book Belt and Road: A Chinese World Order.

For its part, the US, Maçães writes, wanted to promote the concept of ‘Free and Open Indo-Pacific Strategy’ as a “push back against the notion that Western values are doomed to lose influence in the core regions of the Belt and Road.” The Americans may deny their recent activism in the Asia-Pacific region is aimed at countering China’s BRI all they like. Yet it has become a truism in this part of the world. With the recent decision of the Indian foreign ministry to set up a separate Indo-Pacific unit, the BJP government has also made its pref­erence for the American Indo-Pacific over China’s Belt and Road crystal clear.

 Expect little of substance from President Bidya Devi Bhandari’s visit

 India again refused to take part in the high-level BRI Forum in Beijing, the second edition of which is being held in Beijing this month. Represent­ing Nepal at the event will be President Bidya Devi Bhandari. Besides addressing the summit, she could sign agreements with her Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on finalizing the protocol to the 2016 trade and transit agreement and on expediting construction of the Keyrung-Kathmandu rail link. The visit will aim to further integrate Nepal into the BRI framework and to give impetus to long-stalled Chinese projects in Nepal.

PM Oli is sending the president instead of going himself as he wants to dispel the default assumption in New Delhi, and in many western capitals, that he is ‘pro-China’. With Indo-Nepal ties finally back on an even keel and Nepal look­ing to cultivate the US as a part of its diversification strategy, Oli does not want to be seen as cozying up to Beijing. He knows there is always the danger of his ever-unreliable com­rade Pushpa Kamal Dahal using changing geopolitical winds to tack his way back to Singhadurbar. Putting all his eggs in a single basket could be dangerous.

Expect little of substance from President Bhandari’s visit. As the Chinese economy slows, their generosity will have a limit. Nor does China want to buttress the western accusa­tion that it is looking to trap smaller countries in the region under a mountain of debt. Yet it will do just about enough to keep Nepal in the BRI orbit, and at a safe distance from the ‘meddlesome’ Americans. The Indians have never been their real problem.

There is a notable difference in the election manifestos of the ruling BJP and the opposition INC in India over the Indo-Pacific Strategy. While the INC manifesto is silent on this, the BJP’s states that the goal of “ensuring an open, inclusive, prosperous and secure Indo-Pacific will be pursued vigorously”. The BJP manifesto is in line with the BJP government’s rejection of China’s proposal to take part in the second high-level BRI Forum this month. India had also boycotted the inaugural event in 2017.

There is a deep divide in New Delhi over India’s role in the American Indo-Pacific Strategy. China hawks see it as a coun­terweight to an overbearing Middle Kingdom in the South China Sea. But many on the left believe India should rather work closely with the next-door China, a fellow developing country, rather than with the distant and ‘unreliable’ US. Yet the right-leaning BJP’s manifesto suggests a clear support for the US strategy, and if reelected, PM Modi seems keen on working with the Americans to contain China’s rise.

The INC is more skeptical of the US but if it comes to power, it too may feel compelled to support the strategy as the gaps between the economic and military heft of India and China widen. Then there are those who see no reason the BRI and the Indo-Pacific cannot go together. But that is easier said. More likely, because of its calculus on Pakistan, India will continue to shun the BRI and support the Indo-Pacific. Smaller countries in the region will not remain untouched by this development.

Recently, the ruling NCP co-chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal visited the US, ostensibly to treat his wife. The hush-hush trip and the American government’s iron-clad guarantee against his arrest for war crimes set the tongues of strategic thinkers in Kathmandu wagging. Even in the past, Dahal has flown to Singapore and Hong Kong, often on the pretext of treating a loved one, to keep his secret rendezvous with security officials abroad. How did Sita Dahal get better so soon after landing in the US? Could it be that the real purpose of the trip was that the Americans wanted to talk to her husband about his possible role in enforcing the Indo-Pacific Strategy in Nepal? That they, and the Indians, still doubt the loyalty of the Beijing-friendly KP Oli and would like to see him gone as soon as the option of tabling a no-confidence motion against the PM opens up in less than a year?

As the American presence in South Asia increases as part of their new strategy, Nepalis, used to seeing their country as a playground for India-China geopolitical rivalry, will have to grapple more and more with a third power. Not that this power was entirely absent earlier.

The ruling Nepal Communist Party Co-chairman and ex-Maoist party leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Pra­chanda’ must have been aware of the risks of travelling to the United States, if only to treat his wife this time. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the US was among the first countries to designate the warring Maoists in Nepal ‘terrorists’. Only in 2012, six years after the Maoists had joined mainstream politics, were the former insurgents removed from the infa­mous list.

Before leaving for the US on March 17, Dahal had appar­ently secured an iron-clad pledge of ‘immunity’ from the Americans. Yet an unpleasant surprise awaited him when he landed on US soil. Officials from Nepali Embassy in Washing­ton DC surrounded him and tried to whisk him away, “almost as if I was still underground,” Dahal later recounted. Only later did he learn that one Dr Tilak Shrestha of the Nepali Congress PR wing in the US had ‘informed’ the FBI that a ‘ter­rorist’ responsible for the death of ‘17,000 innocent Nepali people’ was on American soil.

Even though Dahal had gotten a ‘no-investigation’ assur­ance from the US prior to his trip, he must have known that the American judiciary works independently from the US government. Had someone gone to a US court by invoking the UN’s ‘universal jurisdiction’—whereby someone impli­cated in ‘flagrant violation of international humanitarian law’ can be prosecuted for their crimes anywhere in the world— Dahal might have been in trouble. In 2016, Dahal had had to cancel a trip to Australia after a case was lodged against him with the New South Wales government. Before that, in 2013, a Nepal Army colonel had been arrested in the UK under universal jurisdiction.

Dahal knows that no future trip to western countries will be without risk, especially if transitional justice in Nepal is not settled to the satisfaction of the international community. But even if it is, Dahal or any of the former Maoist leaders will never be completely out of the woods. The Americans felt the need to humor the co-leader of the ruling party at a time they are looking to increase their footprint in Nepal under their new Indo-Pacific Strategy. Should the American priorities change tomorrow, Nepali communists, and especially the for­mer Maoists, could once again find themselves under Amer­ican scrutiny. Unfortunately for them, the American sway in the western world extends far beyond the US borders.