Is Bangladesh turning into a springboard for regional and global power play? Part-III

On the other hand, bigger neighbor India opposes coercive measures against Bangladesh insisting that it would be counterproductive and propel the country closer to China. Along with Japan, India has been hugely contributing towards Bangladesh’s development endeavors and countering China’s flagship Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), of which the neighbouring country is a partner.

China congratulated Hasina on her electoral victory. She held meeting with Xi Jinping in August 2023, with the Chinese president claiming Beijing is ready to “strengthen coordination and cooperation with Bangladesh in multilateral affairs and safeguard international fairness and justice”.

New Delhi’s concern is that additional sanctions would boomerang and further enlarge China’s footprints in the Bay of Bengal region. China has undertaken multiple mega infrastructure development projects in Bangladesh. Dhaka and Beijing have forged a strategic partnership and an understanding has been reached between the top political leaderships of the two countries. The Bangladesh-China relations have scaled new heights following Dhaka’s joining the BRI in 2016. This is major reason behind Beijing’s backing for the Hasina government.

For India, Bangladesh is both strategically and economically important, but its traditional influence in the Bengali nation has been challenged by the Asian giant. Bangladesh’s volatile electoral politics surprisingly has brought the two strategic adversaries on the same camp supporting the Hasina government.

China also attaches strategic importance to Bangladesh since it shares a land border with India, including in the narrow Siliguri Corridor, which is also termed as “Chicken’s Neck” that connects the land-locked North Eastern region with the mainland. This 20 km land corridor that runs between Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh. New Delhi’s policy makers and defence establishment apprehend that this sensitive stretch is vulnerable in any potential conflict with China.

New Delhi has been arguing that China is making concerted efforts to extend its influence in Bangladesh as it battles for regional supremacy with India. According to reports, several Chinese enterprises, including state-owned have invested around $26 billion over the last seven years in various sectors of Bangladesh. The China-Bangladesh trade has increased by 58% in the last 12 years.

China has succeeded in making deep inroads into Bangladesh’s economy and defence, which remains an area of concern for India. But there is an understanding about India’s vital security concerns within the AL government. While Bangladesh is mainly dependent on China for procuring military hardware, the AL government has initiated the process of diversification of its defence acquisition. However, India has not been able to make much headway in penetrating Bangladesh’s lucrative defence market despite extending a 500 million concessional line of credit.

At the same time, the Hasina government has cancelled the Chinese deep seaport project in Sonadia and awarded a similar project at Matarbari in Cox’s Bazar to Japan. Bangladesh under Hasina is trying to strike a balance between the competing interests of India and China and has leveraged its geo-strategic importance unlike many other small nations.

Bangladeshi observers have noted that the Hasina government has secured much needed technical and financial assistance from its multiple development partners without annoying New Delhi, Washington, Moscow and Beijing. This has been a tightrope diplomatic walking for Dhaka. But the Hasina government was under pressure to take aside on the eve of crucial general election. But it remains to be seen how her government manages pressure in the cross-currents of geopolitics.  

Bangladesh under Hasina’s rule has made significant strides on the economy front in the last one decade. The country is currently one of the fastest growing economies in Asia even surpassing its bigger neighbor India. The AL government has also been successful in implementing the social security measures in an impoverished country. Bangladesh’s per capita income has increased three-fold and the World Bank estimates that over 25 million have been pulled out of abject poverty in the last two decades. Utilising the country’s own funds, loans and development assistance, the Hasina government has implemented several strategic infrastructure development projects, including the $2.9 billion Padma Multipurpose Bridge. Experts say the mega bridge is expected to enhance GDP by 1.23%.     

However, critics maintain that the socio-economic achievements have come at the cost of undermining the country’s fledgling democracy.  They have also pointed out that Bangladesh is beset by serious economic problems, including dwindling foreign currency reserve requiring nearly $5 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund in 2023. Besides, the AL regime was facing an anti-incumbency wave amid recent economic downturn and ever rising inflation.

The prevalence of rampant corruption, nepotism and growing authoritarianism has also alienated a sizeable section of Bangladesh’s population. Rumeen Farhana, the BNP’s international affairs secretary, has remarked that Bangladesh will remember the January 7 election as the “most absurd and illegitimate one in its history”.

The Western observers of Bangladesh’s protracted political turmoil are of the opinion that the AL regime’s various acts, including arrests, imprisonment, crackdown on dissent, and particularly its refusal to release top BNP leaders from jail prior to the election will determine the thinking of the US and other Western countries towards Bangladesh in the post-poll phase.

A Bangladeshi academician based in the US also noted that the whole election was “stage-managed” to provide a semblance of legitimacy which is “otherwise just dividing the parliamentary seats among the ruling party and its allies”. He added that the winner of the 12^th general election will not receive any legitimacy from the Western nations.

However, the observers have cautioned that the Western countries will not take a rash decision, including severing of relations with Bangladesh given the close commercial ties they maintain with the South Asian country and its strategic importance in the light of power competition in the Indo-Pacific. But questions will be raised in the Western countries regarding the credibility of the election which in their perspectives was neither free and fair nor inclusive. But it is likely that the Western powers would review future relations with Bangladesh, with “downgrading of ties a possibility”’—noted an American expert on South Asia.

However, after the declaration of election result, the US said it would continue partnering with Bangladesh. Prime Minister Hasina also stated that Bangladesh wants good relations with the US and the rest is up to the White House. The Wall Street Journal wrote that Hasina’s electoral victory marked a “defeat for Biden, who has made Bangladesh a centerpiece of his effort to place democracy at the heart of US policy”. It appears that Bangladesh on the eve of election was turned into a geo-political chessboard for the major regional and global powers.

Regime change in foreign countries had been an instrument of promoting US’s interests in the hey days of Cold War. Bangladesh’s liberation from Pakistan in 1971 through a bloody war is also to be seen against the backdrop of Cold War with the US and China backing the military junta of Yahya Khan, while India and Soviet Union supporting the Bengali nation’s independence.

It seems the Cold War rivalry has revisited Bangladesh. Prime Hasina on the polling day said Bangladesh is lucky to have a trusted partner like India which had stood solidly behind her country during the Liberation War. Her statement assumes significance given the differing positions of the two super powers on the Bangladesh issue in 1971. It will be interesting to watch how things unfold in Bangladesh in the coming days.