By Nirmal P. Acharya

China has suddenly become high-profile in the last month of 2024, with a large public display of advanced military equipment, no longer hiding its strength.

This seems intended to tell the US that China has completed its combat readiness and is no longer afraid of American strategic adventures.

Looking back at the history of human civilization over the past thousands of years, such a comprehensive contest and decisive battle between two such huge modern powers as China and the US has never happened in the history of mankind. It can be said that the contest between China and the US is an escalation of the former great power competition between the US and the Soviet Union, but it is definitely not a repetition of the contest between the US and the Soviet Union. I think China and the US are in a situation of decisive battle rather than competition, as decisive battle and competition are two different things. In competitions, there might be a third way around, but the decisive battles will only have two results, victory or failure.

We can also list the areas in which the decisive battle between China and the US took place. Before the rise of China, the US was indeed very strong in industrial manufacturing and high-tech fields in general, but in some specific industries, such as automobile manufacturing and shipbuilding, it did not have a leading advantage. The US has become the world leader mainly by virtue of its extremely powerful financial industry, internet and communications industry, and military manufacturing industry.

Now, however, China is suddenly charging forward. The way the Chinese rushed to play was different from that of the Americans. In fact, China is now on the path of overall strength. The degree of industrial strength of China today is not comparable to that of the US at its most powerful period. China's manufacturing industry is not only comprehensively ahead of the US, but also comprehensively ahead of the world. For example, we only think that China's new energy vehicles are the world's largest, but in fact, China's traditional energy vehicle manufacturing industry has long been the world's largest. Moreover, China leads the world in infrastructure construction, agriculture, energy, mining and processing and smelting. It can be said that China today is not a copy of the US in the past, but an upgraded version of the world power.

In the history of mankind, there has never been a country as comprehensively powerful in industrial manufacturing as China is now. In particular, at the end of last year, China's military manufacturing achievements were exposed, and new equipment and new weapons were publicly displayed in a high-profile way. This complements China's military shortcomings that previously seemed weaker than those of the US. If China's nuclear-powered aircraft carrier is also launched, it will form a comprehensive crushing of the US military industry.

Big countries have the mission of big countries, and small countries have the destiny of small countries. Nepal is geographically adjacent to China and far from the US. Such is the arrangement made by nature, and this is the best arrangement. To put it bluntly, Nepal should actively integrate into the community of human destiny advocated by China rather than the Indo-Pacific strategy pursued by the US. Nepal should embrace China's Belt and Road Initiative instead of America's MCC.