N. P. Upadhyaya
Kathmandu: Not so many people in Nepal know that the US Vice President Kamala Harris almost secretly visited several Asian countries prior to the US exit from Afghanistan.
The US exit from Afghanistan was set for August 31, 2021, however, the things took a different turn the day the sitting corrupt President Ashraf Ghani fled from Kabul to an unknown destination which later came to be the United Arab Emirates.
Ghani’s escaping from Kabul enhanced the speed of the Talibani advance towards Kabul and tentatively on August 15, 2021, the Afghani political and administrative set up came into the hands of the Afghani-Talibs.
The rest is history to be written by the Talibs who are now at the helm of Afghani affairs and expected to abide by the international norms and conducts and their soft attitude to different ethnic tribes and stance on the women folks.
Any harm done to women folks shall be taken otherwise by the International community.
The Talibs better be clear on this stance.
Among many other notably political happening after corrupt Ghani’s disappearance from Kabul and concurrently with the ascendance of the Talibs in the seat of Kabul government, the Indian regime is the hardest hit in that India used and overused Afghanistani territory to intrude into and create chaos and political instability inside Pakistani territories.
In a way, several Indian spies like Kul Bhushan Yadavs were at work to tease Pakistan.
So when the US forces were packing from Afghanistan, the US vice President, as stated earlier, Kamala Harris was in a secret mission touring Asian countries.
Writes international relations expert Dr. Bhaskar Koirala in his fresh article ” Sino-Nepal ties in ‘post-Afghan’ era” that, (sic), “it is no coincidence that the US Vice President visited several countries in Asia just a week before 31 August 2021 deadline set by the Joe Biden Administration for US troops withdrawals from Afghanistan”.
Dr. Koirala asserts that it is “precisely due to the Chinese strategy to consistently expand its relations over the last two decades with not just Nepal but virtually all the South Asian States, that has made alarm bells go off in Washington”.
He then prefers to “connect” VP Kamala Harris fresh visit to Asian countries to arrest the Chinese expansion in South Asian nations.
Dr. Koirala could be correct in that “he is taken as a China expert” in Nepal as he has studied in China.
Dr. Koirala maintains that “fast forward fifteen years, and there has been a revolution in the landscape of China-South Asia ties encompassing every conceivable infrastructure program from Oil pipelines to gas fields, sea ports, highways, mega hydro-electric projects, ambitious railways proposals”.
As the luck would have it, China’s President Xi Jinping in the recent months is talked to have “denied” a summit meeting with President Joe Biden.
Perhaps it was this denial from the Chinese side that appears to have enraged the US President Joe Biden to formally announce yet another security Troika of sorts, the AUKUS-comprising of Australia, the United Kingdom and the US.
This fresh security apparatus is generally known as ” three white men’s club” which, very surprisingly and most importantly omits the presence of the South Asian regional scoundrel-the Indian regime which is no less than a menace to the entire world and more so to the smaller nations of South Asia.
The US needs to understand India better. But Alas!
President Joe Biden has announced the formation of the AUKUS coinciding with the whirl wind tour of the US Vice President kamala Harris to a few selected Asian countries only in the recent days and weeks.
The Quad and the fresh AUKUS, needless to say, have come into existence to contain China.
Writes a Chinese scholar Li Haidong, September 17 through his Twitter handle that ” Washington is building a NATO –like alliance in the [ Indio-Pacific] region, with AUKUS at the core, and the US-Japan and US-South Korea alliances surrounding it and the Quad at the outermost level, because India is not a US ally. Can’t be trusted by the US.
India’s former Ambassador and a political analyst M. K. Bhadra Kumar takes the formation of the AUKUS as the step-brother of the Quad.
Kumar is one among the many in the South Block picked and preferred net of the Think Tank.
Kumar appear to have been in unbearable pain in not finding India housed in the new security arrangement-the AUKUS.
Writes yet another political commentator from India, Manoj Joshi that “the announcement of a new security partnership–Australia-UK-US(AUKUS)-which will enable Australia to equip its navy with nuclear propelled attack submarines, is a clear signal to China as well as to the American allies in Asia that Washington is determined about stepping up to meet Beijing’s challenge in the Indo-Pacific region. Though allies in Europe, like France have reacted bitterly to the formation of the AUKUS.
“America is back”…America is Back” so had claimed the US new President Joe Biden in his inaugural ceremony January early this year itself.
However, the formation of several security blocks by the US scattered in different parts of the world is talked to be against China or aimed at containing China makes the neutral political observers to think that when it comes to the prestige of America, even the man with liberal face President Joe Biden will not compromise…. Not at least with China.
A veteran political analyst from Nepal, Shashi P. B. B. Mala comments on the AUKUS saying that ” Biden is now organizing the entire US foreign policy around countering what he sees as China’s aggressive assertions of naval power in the Pacific region, and especially in the South China sea”.
This does mean that the Quad and the new security alliance AUKUS is all about a calculated design to encircle China.
If it is so, then the Submarine deal that France have had with Australia has gone to the dogs.
The cancellation of the Sub Marine transaction thus hits France financially hard and very much benefits the US automatically.
France has now reasons to feel conned by both Australia and the United States of America.
Immediately after the formation of the AUKUS, France reacted by saying that “it was a stab in the back”, is how the French foreign minister Jean Yves Le Drian described the US President Joe Biden’s announcement of a new club of three-the US, Australia, Great Britain-under the guise of countering China in the Indo-pacific region”.
This was not all, the French defense minister Florence Parly was also taken aback by the new declaring of the formation of the AUKUS.
Malaysia said recently that Canberra’s decision to build Atomic Powered Submarines could trigger a regional arms race, echoing concerns already raised by Beijing.
“It will provoke, says Malaysia’s Prime Minister’s office, other powers to also act more aggressively in the region, especially in South China Sea, without mentioning China, reports the NewsHub dated September 19, 2021.
Beijing so far has said that it is nothing but the revival of a “cold war mentality”.
However, President Joe Biden said while addressing the UN General Assembly, September 21, 2021, that the US is “not seeking a new Cold War”.
Without mentioning China directly, Joe Biden acknowledged increasing concerns about rising tensions between the two nations (US and China).
But he said, we are not seeking a new Cold War or a world divided into rigid blocs.
Yet the Quadrangle that has just come into existence in Dushanbe, Kazakhstan at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization comprising of Russia, China, Pakistan and Iran, may act like a security block, time permitting, to counter the AUKUS or for that matter the Quad led by the US.
Much depends upon China and Russia on how the two powers wish to use the Quadrangle meant only for Afghanistani affairs as a security block or a group of four on Afghani affairs.
South Asian experts say that if need be, the RCPI quadrangle could be used as a security block against the Quad or the AUKUS at least to safeguard this part of the world.
Let’s see how Russia and China jointly answer/respond to the threat posed by the AUKUS and the bit old Quad.
All in all, the international politics is getting complicated with the emergence of security blocks in different parts of the world which is sure to prompt the nations under the “target” to devise schemes to fittingly respond to the threats coming as it does from the newly formed AUKUS.
The Malaysian Prime Minister is correct when he says, (sic) “It will provoke, says Malaysia’s Prime Minister’s office, other powers to also act more aggressively in the region, especially in South China Sea.
The world is expected to see great alignments and realignments in the days ahead.
Countries in South Asia will have rough and tough times as they will be forced to choose a strategic partner: either the US led alliance or that led by China.
No third option left.
How Pakistan and Iran will react to the new security block AUKUS led by the US will have to be carefully watched.
Pakistan will choose the US or will side with the China will perhaps determine the fate of the South Asian region as India will surely stick to the US decisions.
A strong Pakistan-the regional super power in offing, must keep South Asia safe.
And how to keep safe, the Pakistani establishment must devise plans that neither berates China nor the US.
This will put the Pakistani diplomatic acumen to a litmus test indeed. A tight rope walk indeed it would be for Pakistan.
Nepali observers now confidently say that the French anger with the formation of the AUKUS has financially robbed the country and thus a clear crack in the Western alliance could be seen which bodes ill for the alliance itself in the long run.
The French anger is logical indeed.
And needless to say, the developed fissure in the Western alliance will benefit China for sure.
Giving the formation of the AUKUS yet another dangerous twist, the Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev has described the AUKUS alliance of Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States as another military bloc mainly directed against Russia and China and says that “AUKUS” puts the entire Asian security architecture at risk.
In his interview with Russia’s Argumenty i Fakty newspaper, Patrushev described the QUAD alliance, comprised of the US, India, Australia and Japan, as a “prototype of an Asian NATO”, reports the Eurasian Times dated September 21, 2021.
The Eurasian Times further adds quoting Patrushev that “Washington will try to involve other countries in this organization, chiefly in order to pursue anti-China and anti-Russia policies,”.
A smart Patrushev has some soothing words for France when he says, ” the Americans (have) squeezed their French partners out, grabbing a profitable deal for the construction of nuclear submarines for Canberra. Apparently, Atlantic solidarity has a price”.
“As the Australian government has dumped a huge deal to buy French submarines, France is now threatening to block talks on a planned free trade agreement between Europe and Australia, writes the Business Standard (TBS) dated September 22, 2021.
That the crack/rift/fissure has already developed in the Western Democracies gets proven by the following statement made by Clement Beaune-the France’s European Affairs Secretary wherein he says “keeping one’s word is the condition of trust between democracies and between allies”.
Clement further says that “it is unthinkable to move forward on trade negotiations as if nothing has happened with a country in which we no longer trust”.
Clement’s somewhat anger loaded remarks does tell that France will not settle for less as this country has taken the cancellation of the Submarine deal as an affront to the entire nation.
In the meanwhile, China has warned that Australia’s new defense agreement with the US and UK is “extremely irresponsible” and risks triggering an arms race in the Asia-Pacific region”, so writes Catherine Wong for the South China Morning Post dated 16 September, 2021.
The China’s foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian has already said that the three-way pact would “severely damage regional peace and stability and intensify the arms race”.
Zhao called the move “extremely irresponsible” and that China will closely monitor future developments.
Henry Storey writes for the Interpreter (Published by the Lowy Institute) dated September 17, 2021, that “As the United States, United Kingdom and Australia move to form a new AUKUS grouping, various reports have emerged of a “new Quad” led by China and featuring Iran, Pakistan and Russia.
Iran’s imminent admission to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and plans for the four countries to cooperate on Afghanistan and Russia-China-Iran naval drills, are examples of some of the geopolitical developments fueling such speculation”.
Is then the RCPI- the quadrangle taking a security block shape in the near future? Keep fingers crossed.
This is what we too have mentioned here in these paragraphs.
With these securities related developments across the world, Nepal is happy with its “no national foreign policy”.
Even if it has one that could be taken as “Nepal’s foreign policy” is at best unfortunately pegged with the noted regional Scoundrel-India’s foreign policy.
Nepal’s foreign policy in fact is what India decides and at times coerces Nepal to follow its dictates on international issues.
Nepal’s foreign policy is, sorry to say and it is unfortunate also, what the Indian pimps and crooks like Bijaya Chouthaiwala, Dinesh Tripathys, Ram Madhavs, Yechurys, Chamars, and Domes spell out for Nepal.
Yes, it is.
Nepal began to copy Indian foreign policy when India politically invaded Nepal with the tacit support of those who were Nepali nationals but with Indian face in the year 2005.
It was this year when Nepal submitted itself to the mercy of the South Asian menace-that India is by all political standards in practice in the world.
It was also the year when India calculatedly forced the Nepali Royal institution to enter into the Jungles and the previous concrete jungle dwellers in NOIDA, Delhi were installed in Kathmandu’s power corridors with late Girija Prasad Koirala’s unflinching support to the Indian Union.
The world has concerns with the Quad and the newly formed ANKUS, Nepal has as such no problems as Nepali leaders hardly may have heard of the new security blocks coming into existence. “We are fools so we are Bahadurs and vice versa”. That’s all.
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