For the past few years, government leaders have frequently talked of pursuing economic diplomacy to speed up development at home by furthering Nepali economic interests abroad. Even during the Panchayat period, especially towards its second half, the concept of economic diplomacy was a catchword in the speeches of government leaders; and in the post-1990 democratic era, successive governments made much of it, and that continues even to this day. It is altogether another matter whether the results match the rhetoric and whatever investment has been made for the purpose. To start with, to project economic diplomacy as a new kind of diplomacy sounds rather odd as it may only serve to exalt the government’s diplomatic activity aimed at creating the public impression that the government is engaged on some great project for the people. Despite all this hype, little has been achieved, besides the creation of some posts and some junkets undertaken in the name of this brand of diplomatic initiative.

What Nepali government leaders seem to have ignored is that promoting national economic interests is a vital part of the overall diplomatic obligations of the government representatives, either those accredited to foreign capitals or the head of gover-nment/state and ministers. Indeed, for thousands of years, countries have conducted their foreign policy mainly to secure vital economic interests — to create markets or gain raw materials or cheap labour, etc. The entire edifice of colonialism and imperialism is based on this economic logic. Even today, countries, all the more so the big and powerful ones, tend to conduct their international politics with their economic interests uppermost in their minds. If in the Middle East, it is oil, in other areas it is other things. And powerful countries often tend to threaten to use or actually use the diplomacy of force if the accepted channels do not yield the results they want.

And these countries do not advertise as pursuing economic diplomacy as a campaign. A country delicately positioned geo-politically, Nepal needs to handle its overall diplomacy in such a way that its economic interests are maximised. But our efforts leave much to be desired. Needless to say, businesspeople will do everything in their power to secure their business interests. But there are myriad examples of the heads of state or government of other countries having gone out of their way to secure individual business interests of the private sector because their countries stand to benefit in one way or the other. Our government leaders and diplomats should learn the habits of their foreign counterparts, including those of Nepal’s two giant neighbours. The world is becoming even more interdependent with increasing globalisation and economic liberalisation. This trend stresses the need to integrate into overall diplomacy the country’s economic objectives and interests, which should first of all be identified for short and long terms.