Dev Raj Dahal

Sound foreign policy practice requires leadership vision, willpower, skills, institutions and knowledge of the nation’s historical strength and rapidly changing international milieu, a change that has now disruptive effects. This disruption falls heavily on weaker nations and people. Traditionally, the state and statespersons had the monopoly on power to formulate and execute foreign affairs. Inter-state relations were defined by cooperation, competition and conflict of interests among nation-states. Now, the state-centric global order is inadequate to narrate internationalised mode of production and global movements of civil society autonomous of the state.
International relation is being shifted to global relations where each component of the state and non-state actors such as peoples, political parties, business, civil society, professional organisations and social forces interact with their corresponding counterparts abroad. Their scale and scope of interactions depend on competing capacity and utilisation of leverage. This means non-state actors are sharing foreign policy making with the Nepali state in many issues. Yet, they hardly defend national interests.

Shift of focus
This shift of focus of global relations entailed Nepal to adjust to three considerations: Nepali state and non-state actors have to take public and national interest into account, support each other’s competency and collaborate to achieve shared interests crystallised in public opinion and the state’s reason for existence. Sadly, many non-state actors of Nepal are influenced by funding and philosophy from abroad, and seem critical of the state and lenience to political parties of various hues. They are governed more by sectoral interest and passion thus failing to have any consideration of pursuing national interest. It is the duty of national leadership to aggregate sectoral interests, synthesise them into a wider perspective and transform them into national interests.
Many Nepali scholars believe that foreign policy is the extension of domestic policy. It is partially true. Most of the text books of world politics published in advanced countries write this way. But for relatively small nations, foreign policy is more important than domestic policy. For example, a crisis in domestic politics may change the government or regime but the crisis in foreign policy affects the stability, identity and status of the nation. Nepal has, therefore, to take into account a number of factors:
First, for a relatively small nation like Nepal, located in the strategic pivot of great powers of Asia-- India and China--, a balanced foreign policy bears a number of benefits. It brings acceptability, legitimacy, resources and national dignity in the comity of nations and helps to maintain geopolitical balance in the neighbourhood by addressing security dilemma and improving external freedom of manoeuvre. Correct relations with extra-regional powers such as the USA, the EU nations, East Asia and Russia help it to escape from regional determinism, play constructive roles in global affairs, seek solidarity and cooperation from rival sides and avoid too dependent a relationship on either of blocs - India-USA and Sino-Russia. Wise statespersons give preference to national interests over ideological affinities.
Nepal has, therefore, pursued its membership with solidarity based and international organisations for this purpose assuming that they can act as a deterrent to infringement in its internal affairs. Yet, its excessive dependence on outside world on knowledge, policy, aid, trade, technology, investment, etc. has linked its problems to other’s concerns and needs and weakened its ability to solve internal problems within the framework of its own laws, institutions, power and resources not because they are global in scope like the climate change but also regime change and peace process.
The incompatible chains of interests and preferences of India’s offer of Look East for Nepal, the US offer to link it to the centrality of Indo-Pacific Strategy and China’s BRI amount great powers’ uneasy competition, not mutual cooperation for development effectiveness. This competition is based on their commitment to promoting their individual interests. This has left Nepali foreign policy in limbo, not even courting past practices of providing greater diversity of external involvement in its progress. The current leadership is gravitating to neither side in a complex balance of power. It is stuck on its own survival imperatives imposed by factional fights for power. As a result, Nepali leaders have not been able to move along constitutional direction for political stability and coherence in animating effective foreign policy behaviour.
Nepal is a link nation and potential entrepot for China’s global vision of BRI. Its open border with India offers it a facilitating condition for trade in South Asia and ensures the security of its geopolitical underbelly Tibet where a large number of anti-Chinese powers have converging interests. Nepal’s interest in joining the BRI and MCC is to limit India’s capacity to do harm to Nepal either by economic blockade or through diplomatic isolation. The roots of political instability in Nepal, as many independent scholars argue, are caused by unequal power relations where powerful states seek regime change by supporting the elements opposed to the regime and fill the vacuum of power.
While India is now deeply plagued by COVID-19 effects, China’s pro-active role in South Asia is evident from holding dialogue with regional states to collaborate to mitigate its effects. Regional cooperation of Nepal either through SAARC, BIMSTEC or BBIN is largely limited to its bilateral cooperation with India. SAARC is enlivened only by businesspersons, civil society, non-state actors and communities. The governments of South Asia still think cooperation in terms of state identity, sovereignty and national security, not mutual benefit and resolve the issues of shared concerns. It clogs the openness to new ideas, human security and collective wellbeing.
Nepal’s opening to China’s regional initiatives has only become ritualistic despite the mutual commitments of both sides to pursue strategic partnership, transit diversification, trade and transport connectivity and utilise rich array of natural resources. This demonstrates that Nepal-China relations are just practical, not warm. Nepal leaders’ lack of enthusiasm to participate in the previous Boao Forum for Asia caused non-invitation this time while the Chinese effort to mediate the split of ruling NCP melted any hope of ideological affinity.
Nepali parliament’s disinterest to endorse MCC is another barometer of its ties with the US though the official position is to accept it more to counterbalance India and enable the Washington to see Nepal through its own eyes. India is suspicious of Nepali nationalism in publishing revised map of the nation. Non-acceptance of the EPG report prepared to improve Nepal-India bilateral ties indicates the Indian preference for a favoured status in Nepal either on its own or in coordination with the Western powers to maintain influence in the entire Himalayan geopolitics.
Second, Nepal’s neighbours are promoting state sovereignty and foreign policy based on core national interests. Two types of neighbouring states similar to the Athens and Sparta in the ancient Greek period requires Nepal to balance its geopolitical interest. For it, national coherence is a must for the projection of national interest and effectiveness of role abroad. This means foreign policy should be handled carefully as a collective vision of all Nepalis, not drifting toward distorted power politics of political parties, unfit to meet the aspirations of citizens for justice.
Beyond the neighbourhood policy helps it to bring inputs from international community for the safe adaptation of the nation in a time of accelerated change and shifting nature of geopolitics marked by Asianisation. Nepali foreign ministry, embassies and missions abroad have to play a pro-active role for the accommodation of this new reality. In India, Japan and Germany, leaders and policymakers don’t see partisan approach in their foreign affairs unlike Nepal where foreign policy is played out to change the regime. National interests are concretely defined for the protection of national territory, population, resources and culture where all the sectors of society have shared interests.
Third, Nepal needs to activate its citizen diplomacy as it expresses conscience and less immune to external manipulation. Extending citizens’ participation in state functions can strengthen their cognitive ability to differentiate internal and international interest and utilise external resources for national development like the contribution of migrant workers. The ulterior use of pre-modern form of class, caste, gender, region, religion and territoriality only marks the crisis of citizenship in Nepal and erosion of the power of Nepalis to live in peaceful coexistence within the national political community, the state and pursue collective interest.
Due to thinning of state-bearing institutions in Nepal it is, however, labelled now by international community as a weak state struggling to set the stability of politics, polity and leadership capable of pursuing public good and indigenise suitable public policies. Gunnar Myrdal, not long ago, had bracketed the whole South Asia as soft state where good policy is drafted but not implemented. This has eroded the trust and credibility of leadership. Nepali state can only organise the peoples, protect them, provide security and public services, if national leadership can strengthen its legitimate monopoly on power and enable it to perform core state functions such as security, rule of law and service delivery.

National identity
In many cases, foreign policy helps decision makers in asserting national sovereignty and projecting national identity. Sometimes, sovereignty is pooled for regional and international cooperation. Still, in some cases, sovereignty is adjusted through treaties, where the nation also exercise or penetrate others’ sovereignty and cede one’s own too to some extent as other also share their sovereignty with Nepal. Nepal is small state but the society is big if one counts Nepalis abroad, diasporas around the world and Nepal-friendly forces. These factors provide leverage for Nepal.
The nation should organise them for the assertion of sovereignty at multi-level governance. This means foreign policy focus must be clear about the ends and means of global relations. Foreign policy is a means while human rights, democracy, social justice and peace are basic values that are ends. Nepali leaders should crystallise the issues and interests in terms of political spectrum of survival, vital, major and peripheral concerns, activate citizen for support input and muster domestic and international resources and institutions for the promotion of foreign policy goals.

(Former Reader at the Department of Political Science, TU, Dahal writes on political and social issues.)