Bangladesh is tilting towards China and away from India, regardless of the outcome of today’s election. This makes Washington unhappy.
A strategic shift in South Asia
Today’s elections in Bangladesh, the country’s first truly competitive electoral contest since 2008, will be a test of the democratic reforms that followed the student-led protests that ousted Sheikh Hasina as prime minister two years ago. The vote could also consolidate the country’s pivot to China that is reshaping the power balance in South Asia at India’s expense.
Throughout her 15 years in power, Hasina prioritised relations with India, where she remains in exile there despite demands for her extradition to Bangladesh after she was sentenced to death for ordering a brutal crackdown on the 2024 uprising.
But Bangladesh’s interim leader, Muhammad Yunus, has deepened ties with China and with majority-Muslim countries including Pakistan and Turkey while maintaining important relationships with the United States, the European Union and Russia.
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Already Dhaka’s biggest trading partner, China has expanded economic and defence ties in recent months with deals including a plan to build a drone factory near Bangladesh’s border with India. Bangladesh is also in talks with Pakistan to buy the JF-17 Thunder fighter jet, a combat aircraft developed jointly with China, while strengthening an existing defence partnership with Turkey.
Hasina’s Awami League party is excluded from today’s elections and the two parties leading in the polls are both likely to maintain the current foreign policy trajectory. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has long been cooler towards India than Hasina’s party and the Islamist Jamaat‑e‑Islami has historical links to Pakistan.
BNP leader Tarique Rahman has toned down criticism of New Delhi in recent months and Jamaat e-Islami has sought to allay the fears of Bangladesh’s Hindu minority by selecting some Hindu candidates. Neither party is likely to trigger a rupture in relations with India, which surrounds Bangladesh on three sides with a 4000km border, but New Delhi cannot expect a return to the norm under Hasina when it was able to depend on Dhaka aligning with its foreign policy positions.
If India is watching Bangladesh’s geopolitical shift with concern, so too is the US, as its ambassador, Brent Christensen, told Reuters on Tuesday.
“The United States is concerned about growing Chinese influence in South Asia and is committed to working closely with the Bangladeshi government to clearly communicate the risks of certain types of engagement with China,” he said.
“The US offers a range of options to help Bangladesh meet its military capability needs, including US systems and those from allied partners, to provide alternatives to Chinese systems.”
Christensen said Washington wants to see a good relationship between Bangladesh and India but promised to work with “whichever government is elected by the Bangladeshi people”.
All the signs are pointing to that government being willing to work with almost everyone, whether Washington likes it or not.
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