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By Nirmal P. Acharya

On September 25, on the eve of its National Day on October 1, China, with great ease, launched an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) carrying a dummy warhead that hit its designated target in international waters in the Pacific Ocean. The ICBM flew 12,000km over the US-controlled Guam.

The official response from the US is somewhat surprising. On the same day, a Pentagon spokeswoman said that the US did receive advance notice of China’s intercontinental missile launch. In the view of the US, this is a good thing, indicating that China and the US have taken another step in the right direction. It will help prevent the risk of military miscalculation between China and the US. It reflects the strategic mutual trust between China and the US. The US hopes China will continue to give advance notice in the future.

This Chinese missile launch, and the very polite US response to it, signals the end of a direct hot war between China and the US before it has even begun.

There will be no winners in a hot war between China and the US. For the US, not winning means losing; but for China not losing means winning. This is because the US is a hegemonic country that needs to maintain its hegemonic status by harvesting the world, and its foundation is plunder. China is a developing country, and its foundation lies in production.

If the US does not win a hot war, it will lose the ability to harvest the world and thus lose its hegemony. What is the fate of an empire that has lost its hegemony? The answer is clear in history textbooks. China, on the other hand, can thrive and prosper as long as it does not lose a hot war, relying on its strong industrial capacity, huge population, and vast territory.

If the US wants to defeat China without a direct hot war with China, it will have to wage a proxy war against China. At present, the Russia-Ukraine war and the Palestinian-Israeli war are actually proxy wars launched by the US.

The US scans China’s periphery with its eagle-like eyes, looking for the best proxy candidate for its proxy war against China. In its sights are Japan, the Philippines and, of course, Nepal. By joining the US MCC, Nepal is tied to the US Indo-Pacific Strategy.

So will Nepal sooner or later be pushed into a proxy war by the US against China? Personally, I don’t think so. This is because China’s ICBM launch in the direction of the US mainland shows that China is determined not to fight any proxy war with the US. If China has to fight, it will fight the US directly.