Since the founding of independent Bangladesh in 1971, the country has lived with the dilemma of choosing between its two great rival neighbours, India and China. Political upheavals in Dhaka and changes of ruling parties have had a clear effect on the direction of the country's compass toward one neighbour at the expense of the other.
This was plainly evident in the long and bitter rivalry for power between the two widowed adversaries, Hasina Wajed and Khaleda Zia. Just as Bangladesh drew closer to India and distanced itself from China — with some exceptions — under Sheikh Hasina's governments, the opposite tended to occur during Khaleda Zia's governments (Khaleda being the mother of current Prime Minister Tariq Zia Rahman).
It is therefore no surprise that Tariq Rahman recently made a four-day visit to Beijing — his first trip abroad since assuming the leadership of the Bangladeshi government, succeeding interim President Professor Muhammad Yunus.
The visit can be understood in the context of the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party's well-known preference for China over India, particularly given the tensions currently straining Indian–Bangladeshi relations following New Delhi's sheltering of former Bangladeshi leader Sheikh Hasina Wajed since she was ousted in a popular uprising in 2024.
Bangladesh is taking a considerable risk by pursuing a pivot policy and betting on China in order to antagonise India. Whatever the economic, trade, and investment inducements that Beijing's leaders have promised their new counterparts in Dhaka to entice them into their embrace, India remains the closest neighbour — geographically, historically, culturally, and socially — and indeed bears primary credit and played a decisive role in enabling Bangladeshis to establish their independent state 55 years ago.
This is in contrast to China, which had opposed Bangladesh's secession from Pakistan and even used its veto in the UN Security Council in August 1972 against a resolution to admit Bangladesh as a member of the United Nations.
Because of India's role in Bangladesh's founding, relations between Dhaka and New Delhi witnessed long decades of intermittent close cooperation in diplomatic, cultural, security, and economic spheres, as well as in counter-terrorism, border security, energy, and agriculture. At the same time, China gradually reinforced its strategic and economic presence in Bangladesh, becoming today its largest trading partner at approximately 18 billion US dollars annually.
China has also made heavy investments worth billions of dollars in infrastructure projects, particularly ports, roads, and bridges, and concluded defence deals including the construction of a drone factory near the Indian border, as well as military training and defence production arrangements.
Looking at the outcomes of the recent Chinese–Bangladeshi summit held in late June, the economic file was dominant, as evidenced by the signing of a package of agreements covering trade, green technology, and infrastructure projects — specifically the revival of a long-stalled and controversial initiative to rehabilitate and manage the feared Teesta River (notorious for its devastating floods) without reference to India.
Bangladesh's demands from China appear to have centred on securing billions of dollars in financial support to address structural weaknesses in its economy, and attracting further Chinese investment to create broad employment opportunities in Bangladesh and thereby reduce unemployment rates. China's demands, according to leaked reports, were for Dhaka to reaffirm its support for the