By Mehmet Enes Beşer
Bangladesh in the past two decades has witnessed unparallel economic advance and comparative political stability under the leadership of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Through the success saga has been the robust economic and strategic relationship with India, Bangladesh’s largest and formerly most critical external actor neighbor. From cross-border linking and sharing of energy to security and trade, the foreign policy of the Hasina government has been sharply lopsided towards leaning towards New Delhi. However, as Bangladesh sets its sights on the next phase of regional integration—a phase of linking, industrialization, and strategic diversification—the limits of a one-dimensional India-focused policy are now beginning to unfold. It is here that China comes into the picture, not to replace India, but as a necessary counterbalancing force with the potential to increase Bangladesh’s geopolitical bandwidth.
To grasp this new dynamic, one needs to point out the asymmetries inherent in the present Bangladesh–India relationship. Despite both countries’ efforts at enhancing trade, Bangladesh is still burdened with a humongous trade deficit with India, and other grievances—unrealized water sharing deals to persistent border killings—await resolution. Furthermore, India’s habit of securitizing its eastern neighborhood established a paradigm where strategic loyalty is traditionally anticipated in place of economic cooperation. For a middle-income emerging country like Bangladesh, these limitations are a dilemma: how to stay regionally integrated and not subordinated.
China offers Dhaka an alternate model—a model of infrastructure development, industrialization, and non-interference. Chinese investment has increased in Bangladesh over the last few years, high-profile endeavors like the Padma Bridge railway link, Payra power station, and the Karnaphuli tunnel all strengthening China as a development partner. China does not ask for political alignment or security concessions as the cost of investment, as in the case of India. Instead, Beijing acts under the guide of economic pragmatism, project-based diplomacy, and patient long-term strategy.
For Bangladesh, playing this partnership card has several benefits. Firstly, it allows Dhaka to diversify its sources of capital, technology suppliers, and markets and therefore not be overly dependent on one partner. Secondly, it allows Bangladesh to negotiate from strength with India. With a third player in the game, China, Dhaka is no longer negotiating from a position of strategic weakness. It is capable of three-way balancing between powers to gain preferable terms, in trade, transit, or connectivity.
Thirdly, Bangladesh is presented with by China a greater sweep of regional connectivity—a sweep that encompasses the South Asian, Southeast Asian region, and up into the broader Indo-Pacific. Bangladesh geographically sits at the confluence where South Asia and Southeast Asia come together but is constrained in its connectivity ambitions by India’s contained ambitions. BRI-funded projects involve multimodal connections between Chattogram and Kunming, Dhaka and Mandalay, etc. These corridors will transform Bangladesh from a satellite subregion to a transregional hub.
Increased cooperation with China means increased risk, naturally. Bangladesh will have to ride out debt sustainability concerns, technology dependence, and diplomatic resistance from India and the Western bloc. Still, the assumption that Dhaka would need to choose between India or China is gratuitous. Strategic diversification is no formula for abandonment but for initiative. Bangladesh can and should make partnerships on its own national interest—rather than other countries’ or organizations’ interests of choice.
This re-equilibrating is not China hedging against powers. This is redefining the terms of engagement. Bangladesh’s influence by China allows it to gain leverage to ask for more balanced terms of trade from India, request immediate follow-up on stuck bilateral agreements, and push towards a more balanced regional pecking order where small countries are not permanent junior partners.
Second, China’s inroads to Bangladesh need not be imagined as a zero-sum game. China may supplement, not duplicate, Indian and Western initiatives in climate resilience, public health, and cyber infrastructure. Bangladesh needs to adopt one foreign policy strategy where it aligns such opportunities with its own development agenda rather than seeking strategy towards big neighbors.
Conclusion
Hasina’s era ushered in an age of growth and consolidation, but Bangladesh’s future foreign policy is multidirectional integration—instead of unidirectional alignment. Under the shadow of India’s presence in the region, Bangladesh gets the wherewithal to develop an independent, confident regional vanguard from China. With infrastructure, trade, and connectivity, Beijing can help Dhaka overcome the gravitational pull of the history of dependence and chart a course based on balanced engagement.
This is not a call to Dhaka to turn towards Beijing, but that it opens up the field of play. Strategic wisdom in the 21st century will not be served by dogmatic loyalty, but by flexibility, leverage, and the ability to make one’s own destiny in a contested world of geopolitics. For Bangladesh, that means welcoming China—not to replace India, but to ensure that no one ever gets to decide its future again.