China’s influence in Bangladesh, boosted by the 2024 ouster of New Delhi-aligned leader Sheikh Hasina, is likely to deepen after this week’s election, although politicians and analysts say India is too large a neighbour to be sidelined completely.
Bangladesh votes tomorrow and the two frontrunner parties have historically had far cooler ties with India than Hasina did during her uninterrupted 15-year rule from 2009. Her Awami League party is now banned and she is in self-imposed exile in New Delhi.
Meanwhile, China has stepped up its investment and diplomatic outreach in Dhaka, most recently signing a defence deal to build a drone factory near Bangladesh’s border with India.
Chinese Ambassador Yao Wen is often seen meeting Bangladeshi politicians, officials and journalists, according to the embassy’s Facebook posts, discussing infrastructure projects worth billions of dollars and other cooperation between the two countries.
“People in Bangladesh see India as complicit with Sheikh Hasina’s crimes,” said Humaiun Kobir, foreign affairs adviser to leading prime ministerial candidate Tarique Rahman of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party.
“People will not accept building relations or doing business with a country that is harbouring a terrorist and allowing them to destabilise our country.”
India and Bangladesh have curtailed entry visas to each other, and publicised engagements between Indian and Bangladeshi officials have been rare since Hasina’s fall.
Bangladesh’s interim government has repeatedly and unsuccessfully asked India to extradite Hasina, especially after a Dhaka court late last year sentenced her to death for ordering a deadly crackdown on the uprising.
A United Nations report estimated that up to 1,400 people were killed and thousands wounded, although Hasina has denied ordering the killings.
China has been Bangladesh’s largest trading partner for more than a decade, with annual bilateral trade hovering around US$18bil (RM70.7bil) and imports of Chinese goods accounting for nearly 95% of the total.
Chinese companies have also invested hundreds of millions of dollars in Bangladesh since Hasina left.
Under Hasina, Indian conglomerates, including the Adani Group, expanded their business in Bangladesh, although no new deals have materialised since.
“China is steadily building its influence both in the open and behind the scenes, benefiting from the crisis in India-Bangladesh relations,” said Constantino Xavier, a senior fellow at New Delhi think tank Centre for Social and Economic Progress.
Analysts however say deepening engagement with China does not automatically shut out India.
“Bangladesh needs both China and India, and you have to think of it in pragmatic terms,” said Lailufar Yasmin of Dhaka University. “While ties with China may improve, any party that comes to power will not be imprudent enough to ignore India.”
Bangladesh, bordered by India on three sides and the Bay of Bengal to the south, relies on it for trade, transit and security cooperation, while New Delhi needs stable relations with Dhaka to manage its land border. — Reuters
