Shy diplomacy harms Sino-Nepal relations
After the Nepali government decided to form a committee to study the border issue with China on September 1, a senior Nepali journalist called this scribe and urged China to make the truth public immediately so that political figures from Nepali Congress couldn’t take much advantage of the rumour that China had encroached Nepali land in Humla District for their personal interest. During the recent visit of Fatema Z Sumar, Vice President of Compact Operations at the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), Arun Kumar Subedi, a Nepalese foreign affairs pandit raised a sharp question: What on earth is China’s attitude on the ratification of MCC by Nepal’s parliament?
He argued that external forces were supporting anti-MCC debates and protests. If China didn’t, he insisted that China should refute the accusations directly through social media since all those who were against MCC claimed that endorsing MCC would distant Nepal from China and even damage SinoNepal ties.
Their ideas got no response. Coincidentally, the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on bilateral cooperation under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) isn’t available, which let down some journalists and scholars.
They want to compare BRI and MCC in an exact way. The former is popular and the latter is full of controversy, but interested people fail to find the agreement of BRI while they can easily go through the MCC compact and its execution version on the official website. This writer witnessed another instance when New Delhi imposed an economic blockade on Nepal starting on September 23, 2015, which brought forth a humanitarian crisis for Nepali people in the streets.
One after another, Bangladesh, European Union and United Nations expressed their concerns over the obstruction of essential supplies and urged India to end the blockade which lasted four and half months into 2016.
As one of the only two close neighbours of Nepal, China uttered no single word related to India’s subjugation, though China had done a lot to lift Nepal out of the hot water.
This kind of case coming out one after another points out some features of Chinese diplomacy characterized by some quietness and more shyness.
The principle doesn’t change during the past decade in South Asia, and irony to some westerners who intentionally treated China’s struggle with those who play the bully for defending national interests as aggressive and abrasive. Later on, they branded China’s diplomacy "wolf warrior diplomacy,” a bad name.
The quiet and shy diplomacy has something to do with the characteristics of implicitness of Chinese people. They think the best communication is telling people the truth without being rude to their faces. They also believe that actions speak louder than words. An ancient Chinese saying goes, “Peach blooms need not blow their own horns; spontaneously sightseers come to them in droves.”
Secondly, it is a tradition for Chinese diplomats to keep as cautious, low-key and pragmatic, from Zhou Enlai, the first premier of the People’s Republic of China to Deng Xiaoping, the most powerful statesman in China from the late 1970s until he died in 1997. The reputed strategy designed by Deng Xiaoping says, “Observe calmly; secure our position; cope with affairs calmly; hide our capabilities and bide our time; be good at maintaining a low profile, and never claim leadership.” Like a fish out of water, a windbag and being impulsive derail the “hide and bide” policy.
Thirdly, it is also the need of the times. To undermine western unity, a relatively weak China has to humbly keep the South Asia giant India inside the “united front” by avoiding provocative and disruptive debate.
During the past decades, China has been tending the tree of friendship and cooperation between China and India, hopefully, it can flourish. The tending is so careful that smaller countries including Nepal in this region occasionally feel left out silently by the orient dragon.
No man is wise at all times. The side effects of shy diplomacy have been observed by several politicians and commentators. One minister once complained that China always encourages Nepal to develop good relations with India, which itself is good wishes. But more often than not, good ties of Nepal and India is only a gloss and if India attempts to bully and abuse Nepal, what should Nepal do? China rarely comments on such misbehaviour, lamented the minister, without realizing that Nepal seldom expresses its critical problems publicly to China too.
China generally considers Nepal’s political crisis as its internal affairs, so China shouldn’t do anything that may result in interference and anger India, wrote Pro. Yubaraj Sangroula in his bestseller South Asia-China Geoeconomics published in 2018. At the same time, Nepali people are “relatively passive, shy, and humble.” Shy diplomacy thus boldly finds its jumpingoff place in the other side of the Himalayans.
In a recent conversation with this writer, veteran journalist Kanak Mani Dixit shared a reasoning case to prove how over-consciousness and hypersensitivity in communication between two close neighbours hurt innocent both – the Ring Road Improvement Project of Kathmandu Valley under China's aid.
A symbol of time-tested friendship, the 27 km Ring Road was constructed in 1977 under Chinese assistance and this improvement project for the 10.4 km long KoteshworKalanki section was started in 2013 and had been completed in 2019.
The Himalayan country's first eight-lane road with an underpass did glorify both political leaders with a national goal of 'Prosperous Nepal, Happy Nepali' and the masses who thought the disorder transportation in that area was a nightmare filled with struggles.
But the admiration seemingly faded away fast, with increasing traffic causalities thanks to the lack of “people-friendly road infrastructure” and “awareness of road safety among people.” Many local media even called the newly completed road “a death trap,” claiming China was responsible for those accidents. Dixit analyzed that the road was expanded like a superhighway in the middle of an urban valley, showing design flaws from the outset, which, on the other hand, were never questioned by Nepali officials, and as a result, the whole blame fell on China. “Following up the reverence held by politicians that Nepal should not challenge China to make it unhappy, officials said they cannot speak anything negative in front of Chinese counterparts,” he further explained.
The truth is simple -- the Nepali side seems weak in the discourse with China side, which is apt to resort to some implicit ways to express themselves.
Two wrongs don’t make one right. Lastly, both sides fall a sacrifice to nothing but unnerving silence and excessive shyness.
Such kinds of incidents ring the bell backwards. According to strategic analysts, the shyness maintained by Nepal and China both in diplomacy to each other sets a fuse to miscreants against harmonious Sino-Nepal relations.
In fact, history tells us that wise and sober former leaders from both countries have set good examples to demonstrate what Mark Twain said, “Frankness is a jewel.”
When Prime Minister BP Koirala visited Beijing in March 1960 and told his Chinese counterpart Zhou Enlai that India had provided 180 million rupees as economic aid to Nepal, Zhou answered that China would gift “a little bit less than that.”
Asked by confused Koirala, Zhou candidly replied that China wouldn’t deliver such an impression -- China is trying to compete with India in Nepal.