Bangladesh is moving towards a more diversified foreign policy as its ties with China deepen, signalling Dhaka’s ambition to emerge as a more independent strategic actor in South Asia while reducing its reliance on India.
The shift follows the fall of Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League government in 2024 amid a student-led uprising. Under an interim government led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, and later under the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which came to power in February, Bangladesh has expanded its diplomatic, economic and defence engagement with Beijing.
The two countries are preparing to launch a “2+2” dialogue covering diplomacy and defence, adding a new institutional dimension to relations already centred on infrastructure, trade and investment. Humaiun Kobir, Bangladesh’s state minister for foreign affairs, announced the initiative after meeting Chinese Ambassador Yao Wen on August 30.
Shafi Md Mostofa, an associate professor specialising in South Asian foreign policy at the University of Dhaka, said the dialogue reflected a deliberate attempt by Dhaka to diversify its international partnerships. “China is indispensable for infrastructure, trade and defence modernisation, while Bangladesh also remains engaged with India and other partners,” Mostofa said.
The strategy, he argued, allows Bangladesh to obtain economic benefits and advanced technology from China without becoming dependent on a single major power. But the growing Chinese role is also likely to alter regional calculations, potentially prompting India and the United States to reassess their approach to Dhaka.
Defence cooperation is particularly sensitive. Bangladesh has finalised an agreement to purchase 20 to 24 Chengdu J-10CE 4.5-generation multirole fighter jets from China in a deal valued at up to US$2.3 billion. Mostofa said Bangladesh would need to maintain parallel relationships, using Chinese economic and military cooperation while preserving pragmatic ties with India.
“A rupture with India is not on the cards,” he said, describing Dhaka’s position as a “more complex balancing act”. Bangladesh, he added, would seek to ensure that neither relationship undermined its sovereignty or development priorities.
Since Hasina’s ousting, Dhaka and Beijing have signed at least 15 new memorandums of understanding and agreements covering trade, investment and other areas. During Prime Minister Tarique Rahman’s visit to Beijing in June, 11 Chinese companies proposed US$9.21 billion in investment in Bangladesh.
Umer Karim, a political science and international studies researcher at the University of Birmingham, said the closer relationship reflected Bangladesh’s desire to “assert its strategic autonomy” and establish itself as an actor in its own right in South Asia. China, he said, offered Dhaka access to high-end defence products alongside deeper economic engagement, while Bangladesh’s traditional reliance on India as a security provider was beginning to change.
That shift could further complicate relations with New Delhi. India and Bangladesh relations reached a low point after India allowed the exiled Hasina to remain in the country following her departure from Bangladesh. Dhaka is seeking her extradition for a court trial, adding a political dispute to the broader strategic tensions.
Jon Danilowicz, a retired American diplomat who served in Bangladesh, said China had strengthened its position by cultivating relationships with Bangladesh’s major political stakeholders during the interim government period. There was now, he said, “a broad domestic consensus in Bangladesh about the importance of the China relationship”.
For India, the question is increasingly whether to seek to restore its traditional primacy with Bangladesh or adjust to a neighbour with greater strategic room to manoeuvre. Danilowicz said strong ties with China would remain an important pillar of the BNP government’s “Bangladesh first” foreign policy.
Nilanthi Samaranayake, a security analyst and adjunct fellow at the East-West Centre in Washington, noted that China was already Bangladesh’s main supplier of military equipment before Hasina’s overthrow. Yet she argued that antagonising India was not in Dhaka’s interests.
Bangladesh’s broader objective, she said, was to maintain as many partnerships as possible while stabilising its economy and domestic politics after the turmoil of 2024 and expanding its diplomatic and military presence in multilateral institutions. For Dhaka, the challenge is therefore not choosing between India and China, but using both relationships to secure greater strategic autonomy.
