On August 5, angry crowds stormed Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s official residence, forcing the (now former) leader of the country to flee to India. Army chief Waker-uz-Zaman, who refused to back Hasina’s call to deploy the military to quell the protests, announced a new interim government amidst the instability.
The mayhem began in early June, when the Bangladesh High Court ruled that the 2018 legislation for abolishing job quotas was illegal. The historical job-quota system reserved 56% of government jobs for revolutionary heroes, who fought in the 1971 War for Independence, and their descendants. With 32 million youngsters out of work, the decision sparked public outcry. The government responded with violence, gunning down more than 150 protestors throughout the conflict.
While the incident seems to be domestically instigated, some commentators do not rule out the conflict being a ‘color revolution’ rallied by the US to topple the Bangladeshi regime. Wang Jin, a Professor at the PRC’s Northwest University, concurred that the US assisted the protestors as it felt insecure with a pro-China regime in power.
Wang explained that the PRC has been a close partner of Bangladesh, providing loans to the country at times of serious economic crises. Hasina has just visited the PRC in early July, signing 21 agreements to further bilateral collaboration on digital economy build-up, trade, investment, and infrastructure development. For Wang, Hasina’s downfall at this exact moment is a US-driven conspiracy to curb PRC influence in the region. To better evaluate the validity of his claims, there is a need to delve deeper into the relevant geopolitical context.
On land, Bangladesh’s neighbours, Myanmar (ASEAN) and India, bridge two of the largest economic entities in Asia. Facing the Indian Ocean, it holds three ports in the Bay of Bengal, which connects to the Strait of Malacca, a crucial route for global trade. While the route’s importance to the PRC declined as Beijing cultivated new Sino-Myanmar Crude Oil and Gas Pipelines to transfer energy resources on land, Bangladesh remains strategically significant. Influence over the Bay of Bengal is still crucial for safeguarding energy transfers from the Middle East to Kyaukpyu, Myanmar, where the opening of the pipeline is located.
As early as 2005, the US and India labelled Bangladesh a major strategic point in the PRC’s ‘string of pearls’ strategy, which seeks to cultivate bases and diplomatic ties extending from the Middle East to Southern China. The PRC, meanwhile, rejected allegations of any military intentions in Myanmar and Bangladesh, merely emphasising the commercial significance of Bangladesh as part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
Up till mid-2023, the PRC has already aided Bangladesh in building 12 highways, 21 bridges and 27 electrical projects, employing over 550,000 locals. The PRC has also been the top trading partner of Bangladesh for more than 13 years, with talks ongoing for the latter to join the BRICS bloc. It could be said, therefore, that the PRC is becoming a significant partner of the latter.
Nonetheless, Bangladesh has attempted to rebalance itself to better navigate geopolitical competition. While US accusations over human rights violations have sparked friction between the two countries, Hasina has continuously signalled her willingness to cooperate with Washington. She signed a joint statement with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in April 2023, which reaffirmed commitments to ‘realising a free and open Indo-Pacific based on the rule of law’. Japan is well-known to be a staunch geopolitical partner of the US. The statement serves as a form of reassurance regarding Bangladesh’s commitment to existing international arrangements.
Moreover, Bangladesh, or more precisely, Hasina and her Awami League (AL), retained a close relationship with India, Bangladesh’s top export destination in Asia. India, despite being a member of the BRICS, is a geopolitical competitor of the PRC. It is regarded by the US as a major partner in its Indo-Pacific Strategy to counter ‘Chinese expansion’.
Before Hasina’s China visit in July, AL’s general secretary Obaidul Quader lauded India as a ‘tested friend’ with relations ‘forged by blood’, paying tribute to India’s support for Bangladeshi independence. To him, India is a ‘political friend’, while the PRC is simply a ‘developmental’ partner. Since India also has disputes with the US regarding positions on Pakistan and Russia, Indian support allows Bangladesh to remain more or less ‘neutral’ in the face of great power competition. Overall, Bangladesh under the AL could not be said to be completely pro-China.
After Hasina’s downfall the AL’s opposition, namely the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Jamaat-e-Islami, have gained significant political clout. Unlike their pro-India opponent, the BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami share intimate ties with Pakistan, a close ally of the PRC. Even before Hasina’s downfall, the BNP had considered re-establishing contact with China, noting the country’s economic significance to Bangladesh. Owing to the bipartisan pro-China attitude, Lin Minwang, Deputy Director of South Asian Studies at the PRC Fudan University, considers it unlikely for the protest to weaken Sino-Bangladesh relations. Instead, anti-Indian sentiments are surging.
As such, while Wang Jin’s suspicion of US involvement is understandable, the tables are likely to have turned towards the PRC, not against it. With Bangladeshi-Indian ties weakened, Michael Kugelman, Director of the South Asia Institute at the US Wilson Centre, believes a more ‘pro-China government’ may emerge in Bangladesh, posing ‘new strategic challenges for both the US and India’. The dust is yet to settle, and future observations are needed to see how geopolitical powers recalibrate their strategies in the face of Bangladesh’s rapidly mutating political identity.
Image: Wikimedia Common/DelwarHossain
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