New Delhi: The unrest in Nepal—the third South Asian country in four years where street protests led to toppling of the government—could have implications for India, Anbarasan Ethirajan reports in the BBC. For, New Delhi has a “special relationship” with Kathmandu, and it’s all the more critical due to its “strategic location”.
“The Western Theatre Command of China sits right across Nepal. The route to the Indo-Gangetic plains comes straight through Nepal,” Maj Gen (Retd) Ashok Mehta, an expert on Nepal, tells the BBC.
“The unrest also has implications for the large Nepalese diaspora in India. An estimated 3.5 million Nepalis work or live in India, but experts say the actual number could be much higher. Nepal is predominantly a Hindu-majority country and communities across the border have close family ties,” notes the report, adding that Nepal and Bhutan are the only two countries in the region where citizens can work in India without restriction.
In The Wall Street Journal, columnist Sadanand Dhume dives into the laundry-list of tensions between New Delhi and Beijing, noting that differences between India and China “run too deep” to build a lasting relationship, though the US is concerned about the prospect of a “Beijing-Moscow-New Delhi axis”.
“While there’s no doubt that Mr Trump has set back American diplomacy with India, it doesn’t automatically follow that New Delhi will ally with Beijing,” he says.
Other than the border tensions, which culminated in combat and the deaths of 20 soldiers on the Indian side and four on the Chinese, China “props up India’s archnemesis, Pakistan, both diplomatically and militarily. China supplies about 80 percent of Pakistan’s military imports and actively aided the Pakistani air force in the four-day India-Pakistan clash in May”, he adds.
“In recent years, New Delhi has wooed investors away from China, and Beijing has tried to slow India’s industrialisation by stalling exports of tunnel-boring machines and rare-earth magnets. China has also leaned on companies such as Apple subcontractor Foxconn to prevent Chinese engineers from training Indians.”
On US tariffs, he notes that the nation “risks losing the gains achieved over decades of patient and skillful diplomacy with India”.
The Guardian reports on US President Donald Trump’s latest salvo—he has asked the European Union to impose 100 percent tariffs on India and China to force Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine.
“The pressure on the EU from Trump comes at a pivotal moment for his tariff policies. In May, the US trade court ruled that the tariffs ‘exceed any authority granted to the president’. A federal appeals court upheld that ruling at the end of August, and the case is now heading to the supreme court,” notes the British daily.
“The uncertain future of Trump’s tariffs has complicated the administration’s negotiations with trading nations and threatens to leave the US with a huge bill should the court rule against them.”
While asking the EU to impose tariffs on India, Trump also posted on Truth Social Tuesday that he was pleased to announce that India and the US are continuing negotiations to address trade barriers and that “I look forward to speaking with my very good friend, Prime Minister Modi, in the upcoming weeks”.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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