The conventional understanding of international relations is breaking down rapidly from the perspective of growing cooperation and closeness in the Global South. It stands on the verge of collapse and demands a redefinition of the same. Unipolarity in international relations has been rejected by both political and economic cooperation among nations.   The present world has been speedily marching toward multi-polar centers, unfolding new norms of international relations and politics, thus unstoppable breaking the shell of unilateralism that has unquestionably been founded on the U.S. hegemony, particularly after the breakdown of the Soviet Union.

 Notably, the rise of China and Russia, as crucial economic and political stakeholders,  is rapidly paving the way for the advancement of multilateralism. Hence, this new development has in all aspects potential for accelerating the paradigmatic shift in the existing NATO alliance-dominated conventional world order. Followed by the constant rise of India, Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia, Mexico, and some other countries, China’s economic rise provides a prospect for the mighty Global South-led economic order, intelligibly seen in the form of BRICS plus. In this context,  the propensity for reshaping the pro-Euro-American global order is rife. The signs of change in the global order have become crystal in the light of this desired development.  The visible signs in this regard are not only symbolic but spectacular. They represent a spectacular tendency of a paradigm shift indeed. Presumably, the global south-led world order will promote a new form of internationalism, avoiding imperialism. The non-colonial attitude of the Global South is a fundamental ground behind this argument.

The Cold War era witnessed the USA and the Soviet Union as two superpowers competing for unlimited leverage in every international polity and affairs sphere. The Cold War situation rendered geopolitics as a major determinant of the international order.  The presence of the Soviet Union presented an effective deterrence but the the USA stood determined to control the world through its countless military bases, and hegemonic interventions with the support of Nuclear weapons and arsenals. While the Soviet Union looked passive, the USA was jingoist and imperialistic. The USA emerged as an imperialist power involved in regime change, overlooking the United Nations. The world order faced relentless chaos. In this wake, the geopolitics rendered many nations paralyzed in their free trade and economic, as well as political, relations. In such a condition, less powerful countries like Nepal faced the tremendous pressure of neo-colonialism.

Impacts of Geopolitics in the Exercise of the National Sovereignty

The crisis of the Cold War broke out once America decided to enter War in the Korean peninsula. This decision was fateful for the geopolitics of Asia, South East Asia, and China in particular. In the emerging perspective of this war, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Soviet Union signed a treaty of strategic alliance in February 1950. Eight months after the treaty, the PRC had to enter the Korean War to resist American aggression by assisting North Korea. The Soviet Union supported the PRC and North Korea with logistics and air defense. The world thenceforth was fully divided into two blocs, making the geopolitics of Asia a perennial source of conflict and tension. The U.S. arming of Taiwan with nuclear weapons was one of the most undesirable consequences.

During the early 1950s, when the Soviet-American confrontation escalated, the Communist Party of China ( CPC) openly allied with the Soviet Union. On 30 June 1949, Mao Zedong, the CCP Central Committee Chairman, issued his famous “lean-to-one-side” statement: “Externally, unite in a common struggle with those nations of the world which treat us as equal and unite with the peoples of all countries. That is, we ally ourselves with the Soviet Union, with the People’s Democratic countries, and with the proletariat and the broad masses of the people in all other countries, and form an international united front… We must lean to one side.”[1]

The political implication of Mao’s outlook was straightforward. The PRC could not side with the America-led camp in the Cold War, which had sided with Chiang Kai Shek’s regime during the Civil War, giving sophisticated weapons and ammunition to suppress the Communist Revolution between 1945-49. Mao’s lean-to-one-side approach was also generated from the CPC’s assessment of the severe nature of America’s threats to the national security interests of the PRC. Since early 1949, as the CPC approached the final victory, CPC leaders were very concerned about the possible direct American intervention in China.[2] In January 1949, the extended Polit Bueureau meeting Xibaipo made American intervention one of the central topics of discussion.[3] In the meeting, Mao Zedong stated: “When we make war plans, we have always considered the possibility that the U.S. government may send troops to occupy some coastal cities and fight us directly. We should continue to prepare for this now to avoid being taken by surprise if it occurs.[4]

 The significance of the Korean War in the intensification of the Asian geopolitical situation is obvious from the above Mao’s statement. The U.S. hegemonic policy in Asia, surrounding China and South East Asia, was one of the major factors for the acceleration of the fragility of the geopolitics in Asia, which persists even now. U.S. President Harry Truman announced on 27 June that the United States would come to rescue South Korea and send the Seventh Fleet into the Taiwan Strait to neutralize this area before the end of the Korean conflict.[5] The UN Army-led by America arrived in Korean Waters and began its operation. Its Air Force bombarded the Yalu River Bridge and China’s territory, killing civilians. This war was the prelude to making Asian geopolitics extremely hot and volatile, which in the days to come led the region prone to tension and conflicts.  The 1962 War between China and India cannot be isolated from this fateful situation, which in turn made Nepal’s geopolitics a source of chronic issues, forcing Nepal to struggle tirelessly to maintain a balance in the relationship between China and India. The defeat of the USA in the Korean War had a serious impact on Nepal’s geopolitics constituted by its location between two giants of Asia.

The USA saw Nepal as a safer sanctuary for its China containment policy, thus inducing its thicker presence since 1950, though its mission in Nepal was set up in 1948. The USA began supporting the Government of Nepa financially in 1950. The advent of the USA in Nepal was pre-empted by the PRC’s mission to liberate Tibet. Henceforth, the fundamental purpose of the American mission in Nepal was to ‘oversee, monitor, and arrange support for Dalai Lama to resist PRC in Tibet. This mission of the USA made Nepal’s geopolitics a mess, indeed. The defection of the Dalai Lama from Tibet in 1959 was the scheme of the CIA, which provided open arms support to the Tibetan rebels to organize sabotage activities in Tibet using Nepal’s territory. The rebels continued to function in Nepal until the early 1970s, followed by the PRC’s urge to the royal government of Nepal to take necessary actions to suppress them or to allow the People’s Liberation Army to enter Nepal’s territory. Hence, Nepal had to mobilize its armed forces to eliminate the rebels in the Northern Territories of Nepal.

Definition of Geoplotics in the Context of Nepal

How do we define geopolitics in the contexts of the above situations that witnessed break out of conflicts and tensions, thus affecting the normal relationship between nations or groups of nations? The situations above suggest that geopolitics does not merely indicate physical geography. It necessarily involves the situation of relations between nations concerning trade, trade routes, access to the ocean, borders, and even climate. It involves a host of interactions between nations with or without problems, but when the relations are strained geopolitics transforms into a conflict or tension, thus making it more visible. In Nepal, the modern founding King of Nepal defined its territory as ‘Yam between two big boulders—referring to China and India.’ Most Nepalese, therefore, define geopolitics as a negative burden on Nepal’s sovereignty—a kind of constant threat to its national sovereignty posed by clashes of interests between two neighbours and other overseas nations. The negative burden on Nepal’s politics and economy by other countries has been considered a major component of Nepal’s geopolitics by its citizens.

Economic geography is another significant component of geopolitics. With abundant natural resources, like oil, Middle Eastern countries have a significant influence on international relations. The resources also bring competition among other nations in the Middle Eastern countries. Both these aspects carry crucial attention to the given geography. The economic geography is potentially linked-up with political influence. Hence, the possibility of conflicts among powerful countries in the Middle East is rife. Nepal’s geographical importance in the economy is not less important due to its vast natural resources, including uranium deposits. Hence, the 1950s’ politically strategic significance of Nepal is now attracting the eyes of powerful countries in its economic resources. Population size and distribution, the proximity of powerful countries’ competition for the exploitation of economic resources and their security interests, civilizational and religious competition and, last but not least, the situation of the people-to-people connectivity make other important factors of geopolitics. All these factors are equally sensitive in the case of Nepal’s geopolitics. Moreover, the changed context of international politics affects all these factors tremendously.

Post-Cold War Geopolitics of Nepal

In 1992, the Soviet Union demised, leaving the world in a unipolar power equation—under a sheer power monopoly of the US. In a short time, the U.S. power monopoly was transformed into the US military adventurism, followed by arms proliferation. The power monopoly, violating all control mechanisms, allowed the US administration to decide issues unilaterally. So occurred the invasion of Iraq and Yugoslavia. With the unipolar global situation at hand, the US administration moved, in the words of Noam Chomsky, unchecked with its strategic aim of global control as its vital interest.[6]

If we look back to the early post-Second World War era, the United States of America aimed to keep world order in its hands. American diplomacy during the Cold War focused on establishing military bases across the world, which significantly affected the détente of regional or international geopolitics by heightening their fragility. The rapid multiplication of the military bases and the growth of war industries in the U.S. and its allies accelerated the arms race across the world. In Nepal’s vicinity, both China and India entered into the enhancement of their security apparatus and military weapons, thus entering into a sophisticated system of war engines. Nepal’s fear of its location heightened, thus. The geopolitics of Nepal became more and more hotter in this perspective. However, Nepal developed a non-aligned or non-tilting foreign policy to maintain balanced relations with two big neighbors. In this wake, Nepal learned many important skills and arts. Two factors, however, challenged Nepal’s conventional approach to balancing relations with two neighbors. First, both neighbors in the past shared underdeveloped economies and had less influence in the spheres of international affairs. In that situation, Nepal smartly succeeded in its mission. However, now both neighbors have achieved a significant rise in their economies and have turned to be major players in international affairs. In light of geopolitical change, its conventional approach to balance has become outdated. Further, with the emergence of the USA and its allies as key players in Nepal’s geopolitical situation, the earlier situation has changed. Nepal has to look after the balance of relations with three key players. In this context, Nepal has neither adequate experience nor skills to tackle the situation, thus exposing itself to the danger of constant interventions in the internal affairs of the State.

Understandably, America views China’s rise as a threat to the global as well as Asia’s regional geopolitics. This view represents nothing but an American agony of failing to contain China.  China’s rise has nothing to harm and injure the regional and world’s peace and tranquillity. On the contrary, the rise of China, along with other countries, has brightened the prospect of world peace and prosperity of humanity at large. The propaganda that generates fear about China’s economic development is, therefore, a part of the U.S. strategy to preserve its hegemony, which poses a serious risk to Nepal’s geopolitics, making Nepal a scapegoat for the power conflict between China and America, India and America and India and China. The U.S. fervor for controlling Asia threatens the Asian regional peace and security. In the words of Chomsky, “The US is surrounding China with military bases, not conversely”. In the opinion of a Singaporean academic turned diplomat, Kishor Mahabhubani, the West, the U.S.A. in particular, has failed to accommodate the changes heralded by multilateralism.[7] This tendency shows that the U.S. and its allies are not ready to accept the reality of multipolarity in the global order.

Some U.S. strategy analysts tell stories of classic security dilemmas in the region. These stories are sheer lies, however. The Global South feels no security threat from the rise of China, Russia, and India as crucial stakeholders in international affairs. Undoubtedly, their rise has lifted Asia’s global posture. The U.S. and its allies have gone to the South China Sea, but not China to the Atlantic or Caribbean Sea. India and China have entered the BRICS forum and the conventional coldness is reduced. Russia and China have become strategic all-seasoned allies. Hence, the prospect of tension in Asia has tremendously reduced, if the U.S. ceases its hegemonic interests. Thus, the issue of Asian geopolitics, including Nepal’s, here is the West’s design to control the economic geography of Asia.[8]

Some results have shown that China, Russia, and India’s rise as essential stakeholders in international politics has been affirmatively refashioning the structure and dynamics of present globalization. As equally important stakeholders, the rise of new nations is vitally necessary for better and fair globalization. The emerging globalization dynamics show that the world is immensely versatile and intelligibly becoming multilateral in the global power structure and economic cooperation. Perceivably, the nature of the current dominant power, under the U.S. leadership, is facing a difficult time and rapidly decaying. It is hard for the U.S. to maintain its monopolistic and imperialistic stand logistically, financially, and morally.

Conclusion:

The rise of multilateral and cooperative globalization will open better options for the development of the globe, both in terms of economic well-being and prosperity and peace. But with the breakdown of the status quo by the rise of many important stakeholders, international diplomacy may face a complexity posed by multi-faceted contentions, claims, assertions, competitiveness (if not rivalries), and perceived fear of one another. With the rise of China and Russia, two  prominent members of the Security Council, India, Brazil, South Africa, and Germany, as emerging regional stakeholders, have created multiple layers of the global power structure. However, there is no need for the United States of America to be alarmed by this fact. The proxy war between Russia and NATO is nothing but its fear of losing its domination.

This war is the choice of the U.S.A. Laszlo Andor, a political critic, wrote: “Since April, when the Western military and financial aid to Ukraine was stepped up, Ukraine became even more dependent on US policy and Washington’s war aims. And those are less difficult to figure out. The US (with the UK on its side) primarily wanted to use this conflict to weaken Russia…The White House also wanted to line western and central Europe into a genuine global conflict ‘between democracy and autocracy’, in which China and Russia are designated as main adversaries of the liberal West.”[9]  In the ‘Policy Brief’ of Toda Peace Institute, Ramesh Thakur writes: “Who are the conflict parties? The immediate parties are Russia and Ukraine, with neighboring eastern European states, involved to varying degrees in funneling arms (Poland) and as staging posts (Belarus). However, the main conflict parties are Russia and the US-led NATO. In an authentic sense, Ukraine’s territory is the battleground for a proxy war between Russia and the West that reflects the unsettled questions since the end of the Cold War. This reality explains the ambivalence of most non-Western countries.”[10]

The entire perspective of geopolitics in the present world must be seen from the above situations of global affairs. Geopolitics are neither bad nor good in themselves. They are turned good and bad by several factors. However, the quest for unilateralism of the U.S. and its allies and the constant rise of multilateral players in international affairs and economic cooperation have a chance of confrontation, thus making the geopolitics of countries like Nepal volatile. It is viewed that Nepal can only protect its geopolitics from falling into quandary by making it an active participant in the newly emerging economic platform of the BRICS.

(Professor Yubaraj Sangroula, Ph.D. – Former Attorney General of Nepal.)