Dhaka, July 25 (IANS) Partnerships must be built on transparency, accountability and balanced negotiation, a report has highlighted while citing Bangladesh’s growing engagement with China.
It argued that the key question is whether Bangladesh will protect its national interests with equal clarity, confidence and foresight.
According to a report in Bangladesh’s newspaper, Daily Sun, the ties between Dhaka and Beijing have entered a new phase following Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Tarique Rahman’s visit to China last month which yielded an extensive package of agreements covering infrastructure, trade, education, healthcare, defence and party-to-party cooperation.
“Closer ties with the world’s second-largest economy are not unusual. But the speed and breadth of the new engagement raise important questions about how Bangladesh can maximise the benefits while safeguarding its own strategy,” it stated.
The report noted that a key outcome of the visit was a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and the Communist Party of China (CPC).
“Unlike conventional state-to-state diplomacy, such agreements create direct links between political parties. Through its International Department, the CPC has long cultivated these relationships worldwide as part of Beijing’s broader diplomatic outreach. Researchers have also highlighted the role of the United Front Work Department in expanding China’s engagement with overseas communities, academic institutions and civil society organisations,” it mentioned.
Highlighting the evolving media landscape, the report said that China Media Group (CMG), China’s state broadcaster, has strengthened its engagement with Bangladeshi media through content-sharing agreements, journalist exchanges and cooperation with local broadcasters.
“Such partnerships are common in international media diplomacy, but they also provide Beijing with greater opportunities to project its narratives abroad,” it added.
The report pointed to China’s growing footprint in Bangladesh’s infrastructure, citing the expansion of Mongla Port, the proposed Chinese Industrial Park nearby, and the Chinese Economic and Industrial Zone in Chattogram.
However, it warned that global experience suggests that “transparency, competitive procurement and careful debt management” are essential to safeguard Bangladesh’s long-term national interests.
Emphasising that economic dependence is another area of concern, the report noted that although bilateral trade has surpassed $24 billion annually, Bangladesh’s exports to China remain only a small fraction of the total.
“Future negotiations should therefore focus not only on attracting investment but also on improving market access for Bangladeshi goods and addressing the widening trade imbalance,” it stressed.
Recently, a report in leading Bangladeshi daily ‘Dhaka Tribune’ said that although Bangladesh can derive opportunities from relations with China, those opportunities carry the risk of long-term dependency if not strategically balanced. It noted that defence modernisation should be pursued in line with the country’s economic capacity, technology development and human resource growth.
–IANS
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