Delhi wary of Dhaka’s closer ties with Beijing

 

The Narendra Modi administration in Delhi is having a second thought on how to handle the current Bangladesh regime which talks nice with Delhi but courts Beijing to gain legitimacy and foster development, according to some pundits and policy makers in the Indian and Bangladeshi security establishments.

There is little new about such brain-storming within Indian think tanks. But much of the Western media had termed Sheikh Hasin’s Beijing trip within months of the controversial Jan. 2014 election as a “move to take Beijing into confidence to counterbalance acerbic Western criticism of faltering democracy in Bangladesh.”

As such Western criticism continued, MP Simon Danczuk asked on May 25 the UK minister of state for foreign and Commonwealth office, Hugo Swire, “Does the minister not think it is time to start applying some form of sanctions to try to get Sheikh Hasina to hold a proper general election in Bangladesh as soon as possible?”

While such supine threats and brinkmanship played about, the regime of Sheikh Hasina tilted further toward Beijing and Moscow to safeguard her illegitimate, wobbly regime from external pounces.

In the meantime, the regional component of this great game was being played ardently among the so called R-3 (Bangladesh, China and India), drawing in the process much attention of Indian security establishments, think tanks and the media alike, especially since the last week’s visit to Dhaka of the Chinese defense minister, General Chang Wanguan.

However, the visit to Dhaka of the Chinese defence minister was a routine one, followed by a similar visit to Beijing in December 2015 by Bangladesh army chief, General Abu Belal Muhammad Shafiul Huq. The main Indian concern over the ongoing China-Bangladesh defence cooperation is the fear of Delhi losing its grip in Northeast India (NEI) where seven sensitive Indian states loosely hang with Indian map by an 18 km thread-like Shiliguri corridor at the tip of Bangladesh’s northern border with West Bengal. Particularly vulnerable among those seven states is the Arunachal Prodesh on which Beijing claim its sovereignty.

Despite much progress made to allay such Indian fear by signing by Dhaka of a number of agreements for regional connectivity over land and waterways, Delhi thinks the Hasina regime did not abandon or deviate as yet from the comprehensive bilateral defence cooperation agreement signed between Dhaka and Beijing in 2002 during the reign of Khaleda Zia.

The 2002 agreement stipulated overlooking such occasional outcry that echoed in Delhi since 2008 following Dhaka’s decision to buy a consortium of defence products from Beijing; including maritime patrol boats, surface to air and anti-ship missiles of C802-A variety, 44 MBT 2000 battle tanks to join the already supplied 200 older Chinese tanks, scores of FC-1 and FC-20 fighter jets, and, two Ming-class, diesel-run submarines ordered in 2013, for which Beijing agreed to build a submarine base in Chittagong.

In terms of ranking in export of military hardware by China, Bangladesh is second only to Pakistan. From 2011-16, Bangladesh had spent over $1.65 billion on Chinese arms procurement, trailing behind Pakistan which had purchased nearly $4 billion worth of military hardware from China during the same period.

PM Sheikh Hasina had reiterated during her latest meeting in Dhaka with the visiting Chinese defence minister her previously made request of February 2015 that an “expedited move be taken by Beijing to commence the construction of the Chittagong- Kunming road link.

Sources say, the Hasina regime is quite leery of the Western powers and their stand against her government since the conclusion of the January 2014 election without participation of the main opposition parties. On this particular count, she’s least willing to depend on India either, as claimed by one particular source closer to policy making, due to Delhi’s strategic partnership with Washington.

The Hasina administration thinks the land and naval connectivity with Beijing is much better bait in terms of economic dividends, as well as an insurance policy to shield her questionable regime in moments of crisis. The senior policy maker of the ruling AL, referred to above, asked, insisting on anonymity, “What India can do at the UN Security Council in case Bangladesh is in trouble?” He added:  “China is a permanent member of the UNSC and can do a lot. That’s why our government is more interested in dealing with both China and Russia at the strategic level without antagonizing Delhi.”

That explains a lot why the Hasina regime’s behavior is so cavalier towards the USA and many of her NATO allies. Besides, since the 2002 defence cooperation agreement with Beijing, China had helped Bangladesh with military hardware of all different hues and offered uninterrupted training and maintenance services.

Above all, during her Beijing visit, Sheikh Hasina had inked a number of bilateral agreements; including a joint venture to establish a 1,320 megawatt coal-fired power plant, an economic and technical cooperation agreement, agreement on disaster rescue equipment supply and, undertaking of joint flood prevention and management study. The two countries also signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to create a Chinese economic and investment zone in Chittagong and discussed the feasibility of constructing Bangladesh’s second deep sea port at Sonadia; which could provide sea access to China’s Yunnan province, India’s landlocked northeastern states, and the Himalayan nations of Nepal and Bhutan. To the contrary, Indian total investment in Bangladesh is yet to surpass $600m mark while Delhi’s official commitment to loan $1bn still hangs in a limbo. Above all, unexpected delays in signing the Teesta river water sharing treaty and routine killing of innocent Bangladeshis by Indian border guards had turned most of the Bangladeshis more antagonistic against Delhi.

Due to such reasons, the AL leadership seems to believe that a Chinese-assisted strong military setup will keep the military happy, which has been rendered morally vacuous since the inhuman genocide of 57 of its officers during the border force mutiny in 2009; for which Indian complicity had surfaced in many of the internal investigations.

Source: Weekly Holiday