Bangladesh is heading into a February 12 election with its politics shaken and its foreign relationships suddenly in flux. Into that uncertainty, China is stepping decisively. Beijing is deepening its footprint in Dhaka at the exact moment India’s influence is weakening, raising a larger regional question: is China deliberately tightening a strategic ring around India?
From the Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal, India already faces China along a contested land border. To the west sits Pakistan, Beijing’s closest regional partner. To the east, Bangladesh is drifting closer to China amid rising anti-India sentiment. And to the southeast, Myanmar remains firmly aligned with Beijing. Looked at together, critics argue, the pattern increasingly resembles a classic encirclement strategy.
China’s Expanding Role in Bangladesh
China has moved quickly to capitalize on Bangladesh’s political transition after the fall of Sheikh Hasina, a leader closely aligned with India for 15 years. Reuters reports that Beijing has stepped up diplomatic outreach and investment, most notably signing a defense deal to build a drone factory near Bangladesh’s border with India.
That project is not just symbolic. Drones are a military capability, and the factory’s location sends a clear strategic signal.
China’s ambassador to Bangladesh, Yao Wen, has been highly visible, regularly meeting politicians, officials, and journalists while promoting infrastructure projects worth billions of dollars and broader cooperation. China is already Bangladesh’s largest trading partner, with annual trade around $18 billion and Chinese goods accounting for nearly 95% of imports within that trade relationship.
Since Hasina fled to India, Chinese companies have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in Bangladesh. Indian firms that expanded during Hasina’s rule have not secured new deals since. The shift in momentum is unmistakable.
What Beijing Wants From Dhaka
China’s approach in Bangladesh follows a familiar template.
First is security cooperation, highlighted by the drone factory and broader defense engagement.
Second is large-scale infrastructure investment. These projects deepen economic ties while embedding Chinese companies, financing, and influence in key sectors.
Third is trade dominance. China already holds a commanding position in Bangladesh’s import market, and further expansion increases Dhaka’s long-term economic dependence on Beijing.
As Constantino Xavier of the Centre for Social and Economic Progress put it, China is “steadily building its influence both in the open and behind the scenes,” benefiting directly from the deterioration in India-Bangladesh relations.
Why India and Bangladesh Are at Odds
The rupture with India is rooted in Bangladesh’s political upheaval.
Sheikh Hasina was ousted in a Gen Z-led uprising in July 2024 after years of increasingly authoritarian rule. She fled to India, where she remains in exile. Bangladesh’s interim government has repeatedly demanded her extradition, especially after a Dhaka court sentenced her to death in absentia for ordering a violent crackdown. A United Nations report estimated up to 1,400 people were killed, though Hasina denies ordering the killings.
Her presence in India has become a powerful symbol for critics in Bangladesh.
Humaiun Kobir, an adviser to BNP leader Tarique Rahman, said, “People in Bangladesh see India as complicit with Sheikh Hasina’s crimes.” He added, “People will not accept building relations or doing business with a country that is harbouring a terrorist and allowing them to destabilise our country.”
Beyond Hasina, long-standing grievances persist. These include water-sharing disputes, border killings, trade frictions, and resentment that India legitimized disputed elections in Bangladesh over the past decade.
Anti-India Sentiment, Especially Among the Young
BBC reporting shows how deeply anti-India sentiment has spread, particularly among younger Bangladeshis.
Graffiti reading “Dhaka, not Delhi” covers university walls and even appears stitched onto clothing. A Dhaka University student told the BBC, “The young generation feels India has been intervening in our country for many years,” pointing to what many see as India’s backing of Bangladesh’s democratic decline.
Avinash Paliwal of SOAS said, “Delhi is struggling in Dhaka because of deep anti-India sentiment in Bangladesh.”
Nahid Islam, leader of the youth-backed National Citizen Party, was even more direct, telling Reuters, “New Delhi’s hegemony is deeply felt among young people, it’s one of the main issues of the election.”
This public mood limits how far any new government can move toward repairing ties with India, even if it wants to.
Cricket as a Proxy Battleground
Even sport has become entangled in the diplomatic crisis.
A Bangladeshi cricketer was dropped from an Indian Premier League team following pressure from Hindu groups in India. Dhaka responded by banning IPL broadcasts. Bangladesh then requested its men’s T20 World Cup matches be moved out of India. When the ICC rejected the request, Bangladesh withdrew from the tournament.
Pakistan followed by announcing it would boycott its match against India in solidarity with Bangladesh. Visa restrictions, protests, and tit-for-tat gestures have since multiplied, pushing relations to their lowest point in decades.
Bangladesh Still Needs India
Despite the drift toward China, analysts stress Bangladesh cannot simply ignore India.
Bangladesh is surrounded by India on three sides and relies on it for transit, trade, and security cooperation. India, in turn, depends on stability in Bangladesh to manage its long land border.
Lailufar Yasmin of Dhaka University summed up the dilemma: “Bangladesh needs both China and India, and you have to think of it in pragmatic terms.” She added that no government would be “imprudent enough to ignore India.”
The likely outcome is not a clean break but a recalibration, with China gaining ground while India’s influence diminishes.
Pakistan and Myanmar in the Bigger Picture
Bangladesh’s shift looks more consequential when placed in a regional frame.
To India’s west sits Pakistan, Beijing’s closest strategic partner. China and Pakistan describe their relationship as “unbreakable,” backed by joint weapons programs, intelligence sharing, and deep economic ties. Analysts argue Pakistan functions as a strategic proxy that keeps India’s attention divided.
To India’s southeast lies Myanmar, another Chinese-aligned state. Beijing has long backed Myanmar’s military leadership, secured access to ports and pipelines, and used Myanmar as a critical outlet to the Indian Ocean that bypasses the Malacca Strait.
With Pakistan to the west, China and Nepal on the northern border, Myanmar to the southeast, and Bangladesh drifting eastward toward Beijing, critics see a tightening arc around India.
ACZ Experts See an Encirclement Strategy
China frames its actions as development, stability, and partnership. Bangladesh frames them as national interest. Pakistan and Myanmar frame their ties with Beijing as strategic necessity.
But critics argue the pattern is too consistent to ignore. China is leveraging political crises, offering defense cooperation near Indian borders, expanding economic dependence, and reinforcing pressure through aligned neighbors.
None of this requires open conflict. Strategic encirclement works by shaping options before a crisis begins.
What Comes Next After February 12
The immediate question is who forms Bangladesh’s next government and how it balances domestic pressure with regional realities.
Tarique Rahman has struck a cautious tone, telling Reuters, “We’ll try to have friendship with all countries, but of course, protecting the interests of my people and my country.”
Analysts warn that if relations with India remain broken, the incentive to move “full steam ahead with Beijing” will only grow.
China does not need Bangladesh to become a formal ally. It only needs the relationship with India to stay fractured long enough for Chinese influence to become entrenched. In that sense, the slow tightening around India may already be well underway.