News, Views From Nepal

YUba Nath Lamsal: - Foreign policy is said to be the extension of domestic policy. Sometimes, it may be otherwise. External events in certain cases may influence country’s domestic policy. In the present globalised and heavily interconnected world, events and developments in the neighbourhood and around the world may alter foreign policy course. The geopolitical contours of the world keep changing and it has changed drastically with the dawn of the 21st century. Accordingly countries especially big powers continuously change their strategy and policy to maintain their dominance and realise their strategic interests. Small and weaker countries, too, are compelled to adjust their policy with the change of international scenario and geopolitical landscape. Thus, foreign policy cannot be a static matter. It is a dynamic pursuit which requires timely adjustment and update depending upon the global context and developments in the neighbourhood. Strategic course If foreign policy and s

Yuba Nath Lamsal: Politics is a virtuous vocation supposed to be dedicated towards the greater good of the citizenry. However, politics, of late, is getting bad name in the eyes of people. Politics has lately emerged as an instrument for personal and partisan benefits. People’s agendas are taking a back seat whereas partisan interests reign the supreme in the domain of politics. Authoritarianism is rising in the world and illiberal trends are dominating even in the established democracies. In the name of election, consents are being manufactured and people’s verdicts being doctored. According to V-Dem Institute’s Democracy Report 2023, ‘advances in global levels of democracy made over the last 35 years have been wiped out’. The report says ‘72 per cent of the world’s population – 5.7 billion people – live in autocracies by 2022 and the decline is most dramatic in the Asia-Pacific region, which is back to levels last recorded in 1978’. The report further states “the world has more

Yuba Nath Lamsal: The multi-front geopolitical tussle between the United States and China has surfaced more forcefully with the Biden Administration seeking to confront Beijing in the technological theater. In a not-so-surprising move, the US House of Representatives, the lower chamber of parliament, overwhelmingly passed a bill on March 14 that may eventually lead to the banning of the Chinese social media application TikTok. ‘The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act’ is yet to take the form of law as it still awaits Senate approval and the president’s endorsement. President Joe Biden has already given a nod to sign once the bill comes to his table. However, the bill’s fate is uncertain as the Senate remains non-committal so far. The bill seeks ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, to sell its shares within six months or face a ban in the United States. TikTok is a powerful social media site with over a billion users worldwide and 170 million in th

Yuba Nath Lamsal: We live in an era of history’s most critical juncture. The heightened geopolitical contestation among great powers has sounded worldwide alarm with fear of escalation of conflicts in various trouble spots. Even a slightest miscalculation may provoke war. Ukraine is the latest example of how a country that fails to read the mood and mind of powerful neighbour lands in trouble. While Ukraine war is fundamentally Vladimir Putin’s making by brazenly invading a small and sovereign neighbour. However, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, too, is partially responsible as he failed to gauze the intention and interest of big and powerful neighbour. Kyiv under Zelenskyy moved too close to the Western security alliance and sought NATO membership, which Russia took as a serious threat to its national security. Zelenskyy’s hyper nationalism and Putin’s ego caused irreparable damage to both the countries. The war has already dragged on to the third year and there is no sign o

Yuba Nath Lamsal Mark Twain has said ‘history does not repeat itself but it often rhymes’. In the history of human civilisation, events have often reoccurred but not in exactly similar fashion. In the international order and geopolitics, history has, so far, not repeated but rhymed. The wheel of history continues to roll with triumphs and tumults. In the course of time since human civilization began, several empires rose and fell. The structure of global order, too, has continued to change and taken different shapes. The unipolar world order that came into being after the collapse of the Soviet Union has now crumbled. The bipolar world order is brewing with China rising almost neck and neck with the United States as a super power. According to Lowy Institute’s Global Diplomacy Index 2024, while United States has ‘edge over China in Americas, Europe and South Asia, China is ahead in Africa, East Asia and the Pacific’. Both these powers are in the race of enlarging their influence