Last Friday, Muhammad Yunus, chief advisor to Bangladesh's interim government, met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing. This was Yunus's first state visit abroad since he assumed leadership of the interim government following a coup last August that ousted authoritarian Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
According to international media reports, the office of Nobel laureate Yunus, chief advisor to Bangladesh's interim government, stated after his visit that Bangladesh secured $2.1 billion in investment, loans, and aid. Bangladesh will establish a Chinese industrial economic zone, with 30 Chinese companies committed to establishing locations. The two countries will also strengthen cooperation on water resource management. China also plans to provide a $400 million loan to upgrade the Port of Mongla, Bangladesh's second-largest port.
However, the Chinese government's official statements made almost no mention of these specific cooperation projects and the amounts involved.
Regarding Yunus' first visit to China, Jasmin Lorch, a political scientist specializing in South Asian politics at the German Institute for Development and Sustainable Development (IDOS), pointed out in an interview with this station that the Bangladesh interim government originally wanted to arrange for Yunus to visit neighboring India first to demonstrate its importance to bilateral relations, but due to New Delhi's cold attitude, the first state visit was finally changed to China.
Lodge said: "China is an important trading partner of Bangladesh, and Bangladesh urgently needs to expand exports and attract foreign investment to stabilize its economy. During this visit to China, the two sides also successfully signed a number of investment agreements."
Behind the "Community of Shared Future": China-Bangladesh Cooperation May Deepen Asymmetric Dependence
According to a press release from China's official Xinhua News Agency, Xi Jinping and Yunus focused their discussions on deepening investment cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative. China emphasized that China and Bangladesh will jointly promote unity and self-reliance in the "Global South" and work together to "build a community with a shared future for mankind."
However, as China's investment and loans to Bangladesh continue to increase, Lodge warns that this could negatively impact Bangladesh's democratic transition: "One major risk is the exacerbation of the debt problem, and another is Bangladesh's growing dependence on authoritarian China for key economic and infrastructure projects. Furthermore, Chinese investment and trade cooperation often come with few social or environmental standards. Therefore, overall, the tangible benefits to the Bangladeshi people from this cooperation remain unclear, and the related infrastructure projects may also pose serious environmental risks."
In addition, although China is Bangladesh's largest trading partner with an annual bilateral trade volume of US$25 billion, and Beijing granted zero tariff treatment to Bangladesh's exports to China in December last year, Reuters reported that Bangladesh's annual exports to China are only about US$1 billion, and are mainly concentrated in the textile sector, highlighting the country's huge trade deficit with China.
Warming China-Bangladesh ties put India-Bangladesh ties to the test
Meanwhile, since Bangladesh's people overthrew their authoritarian government, tensions have flared with neighboring India. Former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina fled to India after the coup, but India has yet to respond to Bangladesh's request for her extradition. Meanwhile, as China-Bangladesh relations continue to deepen, the outside world is also concerned about the impact this will have on South Asian geopolitics.
In this regard, Rocky analyzed that the increasingly close interactions between China and Bangladesh are bound to cause uneasiness in India, especially in potential cooperation projects such as the Bangladesh Port and the water resources management of the Teesta River. These developments are not only contrary to India's interests, but the distribution of water rights of the Teesta River has long been a sensitive issue between India and Bangladesh.
However, she also pointed out that the direction of India-Bangladesh relations still depends on India's medium- to long-term response strategy, while Bangladesh is likely to continue its traditional diplomatic approach of maintaining a balance between China and India. "The warming of China-Bangladesh relations may further widen the distance between Bangladesh and India, but it may also prompt India to re-strengthen its interactions with Bangladesh to prevent the continued expansion of Chinese influence in the region."
