By Focus and AFP | 2025-07-09

One year after mass protests drove longtime Bangladeshi leader Sheikh Hasina into exile, the country has undertaken a sharp geopolitical realignment that analysts warn could entangle Dhaka in a dangerous great-power rivalry.

The shift, spearheaded by interim leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, was made clear in March when he broke precedent and chose Beijing, not Delhi, for his first state visit. There, Yunus secured $2.1 billion in loans, investments and grants, as reported by the Dhaka Tribune in March.

The visit also delivered Beijing a prize: a $400 million deal to modernize Bangladesh's Mongla Port, granting China another strategic foothold near India's northeastern corridor -- an area New Delhi views as crucial to its national security.

Symbolically and strategically, the trip signaled Dhaka's shift away from its decades-long tightrope walk between India and China, as ties with New Delhi sour.

"India-Bangladesh relations have probably never experienced such intense strain before," Praveen Donthi of the International Crisis Group told AFP on July 7.

There is deep resentment in Dhaka over the fate of fugitive ex-prime minister Hasina, who escaped a student-led uprising by helicopter last August and flew to New Delhi as thousands of protesters stormed her palace.

Yunus said popular anger in Muslim-majority Bangladesh had been "transferred over to India" because New Delhi's Hindu nationalist government offered Hasina sanctuary.

Hasina, 77, has defied extradition orders to attend her crimes against humanity trial. A Bangladeshi court already has convicted her in absentia for contempt of court with a six-month sentence.

New Delhi has since rejected Dhaka's requests for her extradition.

'A new stage'

Bangladesh's interim government says it is still focused on building democratic consensus; however, its foreign policy shift has moved ahead at full speed.

During his visit to Beijing, Yunus declared that relations with China had entered "a new stage," according to Chinese state media Xinhua News Agency.

He even suggested Bangladesh could become "an extension of the Chinese economy" and a maritime gateway for India's "landlocked" northeastern states -- a comment widely perceived as provocative in India.

Yunus's administration meanwhile publicly opposed Taiwanese independence in March, the first time a Bangladeshi government had done so.

China is "keen" to work with the next elected government with "sincerity, steadfastness, love and affection," said Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, a senior figure in the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), the likely frontrunner in next year's election, AFP said in its July 7 article.

Bangladesh in recent years had already expanded military and diplomatic links with Beijing.

According to the Swedish think tank SIPRI, China supplied 72% of Bangladesh's arms between 2019 and 2023, including submarines now stationed at the Chinese-built BNS Sheikh Hasina naval base -- now renamed BNS Pekua.

Inaugurated in 2023, the base can dock six submarines and eight warships simultaneously.

Adding to regional unease, Dhaka's new alignment has extended to security partners beyond China.

In June, officials from Bangladesh and Indian archrival Pakistan held trilateral talks with colleagues from host China, where Beijing's foreign ministry announced new cooperation programs in trade, industry, education and agriculture.

'Treacherous quicksand'

Yet the rush toward China carries risks, say analysts.

"Bangladesh, in its hasty geopolitical gambit, may have just traded a delicate tightrope for treacherous quicksand," wrote Wahiduzzaman Noor and Samantha Wong in The New Atlanticist in May, highlighting the strategic risks of Dhaka's embrace of China.

While Bangladesh has gained from Chinese investment, many Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects have drawn criticism for inflated costs and opacity.

The BRI is a Chinese-funded global infrastructure project meant to ease poor countries' exports of raw materials to China.

China is now Bangladesh's second-largest country creditor after Japan, with total disbursements since 1975 reaching $7.5 billion, The Daily Star reported in January.

Meanwhile, New Delhi has tightened trade rules affecting Bangladeshi exports and has increased military activity near the border.

Relations remain frosty: a long-delayed April meeting between Yunus and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi yielded few signs of reconciliation.

While Yunus's outreach to China may elevate Bangladesh's international profile, critics caution that the interim government -- operating without an elected parliament -- lacks a mandate for such sweeping foreign policy changes.

Bangladesh now faces a pivotal choice: continue deepening its ties with China and risk further regional isolation, or recalibrate its foreign policy to maintain a more balanced strategic posture.