The Foreign Policy Pivot I Didn't See Coming

Back in 2022, I wrote about how Awami League's foreign policy tried to keep every major power invested in Bangladesh without becoming dependent on any single one, India for security and historical ties, China for infrastructure financing, the West for trade access. I called it a genuine diplomatic achievement at the time, and I still believe that. Watching how quickly the current government has moved away from that balance has been one of the more unsettling developments of the past several months.

In June, Prime Minister Tarique Rahman visited Beijing and described China as Bangladesh's "most valued and trusted partner," language I don't think any Awami League government used quite so plainly in fifteen years of actual, substantial Chinese infrastructure investment. More strikingly, this August, Bangladesh signed on to a mutual-defense arrangement alongside Pakistan, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia, while New Delhi's repeated invitations for Rahman to visit India have gone unanswered.

I take seriously the concerns raised publicly by figures like Sajeeb Wazed about Pakistani intelligence influence expanding inside Bangladesh under this realignment, even though I recognize he's obviously not a neutral voice here, he's Sheikh Hasina's son. I'd rather point to the pattern itself: a security pact with Islamabad, warmer language toward Beijing than this country has used in years, and a cold shoulder toward the neighbor that backed Bangladesh's independence in 1971. Some regional commentators have actually read the government's India posture more generously than I do, as a departure from BNP's historically frostier relationship with Delhi. I hope they're right and I'm wrong.

But I don't think it's alarmist to say that fifteen years of carefully not choosing sides is being unwound faster than most people are willing to admit, and I don't think that's a small thing for a country in this particular neighborhood.