Nepal, Jan. 12 -- Nepal at the moment is facing considerable difficulty in balancing China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the US's Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC). These are two mutually opposing geopolitical programmes in Asia today. At face value, both BRI and MCC are aimed at economic development. However, they are also strategic security partnerships for maintaining the sphere of influence and countering influence in Asia and the Indo-Pacific region. Under these circumstances, it is imperative that Nepal finds a pragmatic way forward that does not involve it being aligned to any military alliance.

For Nepal, it would have been better to assess the pros and cons from a moral and ethical perspective before joining BRI and ...