By Yug Bahadur There was a visit to Nepal just about a week ago, by a high-ranking Chinese official, Liu Jianchao, who is the Chief of the International Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC). This was an important visit for Nepal by a high-ranking Chinese official, especially after the present government led by prime minister Sher Bahadur Deuba and his coalition partners ratified the MCC (Millenium Challenges Corporation) deal with the United States. Everyone is aware of how the US is trying to disturb China politically, economically and socially through different means. This was authenticated more by the fact that a high-ranking American official of the US State Department, first went to the Tibetan refugee camp in Kathmandu, as soon as she arrived here on an official visit. Also on the strength gained from MCC, the US tried to bind Nepal in a military venture soon after bringing the Stat Partnership Programme (SPP) for Nepal to approval. We are also aware of the US and some European countries who want to create problems for China by targeting its ‘soft underbelly, that is Tibet. They never say anything about how the Tibetan people have prospered these days, they only want to talk about the refugees, many of whom have been funded by them. Meanwhile, India has given shelter to the Dalai Lama, who is more of a political leader than a spiritual leader of Tibet, an internationally recognized autonomous province of China. In comparison, India is still only a bully at the regional level, whereas the US is an international bully which creates more trouble for people of impoverished nations, in the name of liberating the citizens of those countries from dictators or communist rule. These days, any country with natural resources or poor countries with weak rulers are targeted by the US government for gains and strategic purposes. Ironically the Americans or rather the American government says it is only trying to help the citizens of such countries as it said the MCC would do in Nepal. Did the Americans like it when the previous president of that country Donald Trump virtually introduced mass anarchy when he had to leave office? No they certainly did not like it and still efforts are being made to prosecute Trump. But when similar incidents take place in other countries, they simply call it ‘peoples’ power’. We cannot forget how the US government supported such acts in the Philippines, in Indonesia, in Tunisia, in Libya and even Syria to name just a few countries of which the leaders of these nations had to face the wrath of the US government. For instance closer home to America, Manuel Noriega, the President of Panama, a close ally of the US before, was dragged from his office on the orders of American president George W. Bush and imprisoned for a long time in a US jail in Florida. He was later jailed in France and then in his home country when he died at the age of eighty three. He never became a free man after the US marines captured him in Panama. Is this fair and is this justice? Yes we know, Osama bin Laden carried out some inhuman acts, including masterminding the attack in the US by using passenger jets for terrorist acts and killing many innocent people. But it is also a fact that he was killed brutally when he was living in Pakistan with his family. The US government did not bother to inform even the Pakistani government, once an ally, about this attack carried out by its Special Forces. The same happened in Libya when ‘people's power’ helped pull down the charismatic Libyan leader Muammer Kaddhafi and he was lynched by a mob which caught him, of course with the lure of attractive ransom money paid by the US government and also information provided by it. The same thing happened to Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, who was also captured by US forces and later hanged to death by orders of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) based in the Hague, Netherlands. Many leaders must have ruled on why they supported the US in the past, but they were punished later when they could not comply with the wishes of America. It was almost at the height of the Cold War when a movie titled ‘The Russians are Coming’ was produced in Hollywood, which is considered the capital of cinema in most parts of the world. This was a total propaganda movie, in which America painted the Soviet Union (Russia) as an enemy of the free world. Much later came another Hollywood movie starring the popular hero Sylvestor Stallone as ‘Rambo’, in which he is seen working with the rebel forces in Afghanistan and single-handedly destroying a Russian military force in a remote part of that country. Both these two films must have given some escapist therapy and solace to the common Americans and also those who clandestinely work to do all the dirty work of the US government. Rambo went on to be a favourite ‘hero’ for many and in these movies, he was portrayed as a ‘special forces’ soldier who could eat the tough marine of his own country for breakfast. This is exactly like the portrayal of the legendary ‘agent 007’ or James Bond, who worked for Her Majesty’s Secret Service. He was shown as a super cool person who could alone fight the fiercest of enemies and coolly come back from such missions and demand for a Martini, ‘shaken not stirred’. This would also have provided much relief to the citizens of Great Britain, which now is not only a splintered ‘small’ Britain, but also a nation in constant political turmoil. Just ask the present prime minister Boris Jhonson about this. Now to come to where we started, it can’t be said whether they have a super agent like Rambo or James Bond, but India definitely has very smart politicians, efficient foreign policy experts and a strong bureaucracy, which concentrates more on doing harm to others rather than work for the Indian common people. So it is flabbergasting why Maoist party leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ chose to go to India just days after the high ranking Chinese leader visited Nepal. The same can be said about the hush, hush visit to New Delhi by prime minister Sher Bahadur Deuba’s wife Dr. Arju Deuba, who allegedly has been accused of indulging in corruption and also taking undue advantage of her power while delivering the missions of different INGOs. At the same time, the prime minister himself looks as if he is in another space and always shows fidgety manners even in public gatherings. He seems not to care what happens to his own party or the nation, forget the poor Nepalis. The Indians for many years have been treating Nepali politicians and bureaucrats as their own stooges, and they can easily ‘twist their arms’ if they feel they are not working as per their wishes. It is strange why Prachanda, who has named his own party after Mao, chose such a time to go to India. In the changed China, in spite of the revolution he brought to that country Mao is not a popular name. But we know that Prachanda and his fellow leaders were given shelter by India during the violent Maoist movement here and India itself branded that party as a ‘terrorist group’ cheating Nepal at the worst level. At this delicate and sensitive period, it is difficult to see the current lot of leaders getting the country out of the present political and economic mess it has gotten into because of the lack of vision of the leaders and the utmost desire to get rich in any way they can people in different sectors. So the question is not whether Nepal will turn into another Sri Lanka, as it has already gone through such turmoils in the past, it is a question of whether Nepal will be turned into another Ukraine with China fighting a pitched battle against the US-India team exactly like grass being trampled when two huge elephants are fighting among themselves. That would be a more tragic scenario and while the few rich people may abandon Nepal, it will again be the common people who will have to face this frightening time exactly like some grass being trampled during an elephant fight. Have our present lot of leaders the vision or tact to save Nepal?