Though words like ‘coup’, ‘dictatorship’, ‘authoritarian regime’, ‘student protests’ remain sensitive in China, in the context of the recent developments in Bangladesh, media and online portals have made use of them.
On 5 August 2024, violent student protests over the reservation quota for the offspring of 1971 War of Liberation resulted in the dramatic resignation of Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her hurried flight to India. President Mohammed Shahabuddin dissolved the Parliament, and the army, as promised, formed an interim government with all-time Hasina critic Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus as its head. The “bloodsucker”, as he was pronounced by Hasina, called her ouster “the second liberation day” in Bangladesh. On 11 August, in a message conveyed through her close associates and made available to the Economic Times, claimed that by surrendering the sovereignty of Saint Martin Island, she could have stayed in power, albeit the Indian Express, quoting her son Sajeeb Wazed, said that the “resignation” statement, published by a newspaper, allegedly attributed to her mother was “completely false and fabricated.” The statement did generate reaction from the interim government saying that Hasina making statements from India will not augur well for Bangladesh-India relations.
China has invested heavily in Bangladesh, it is the largest trade partner and largest weapon exporter to Bangladesh. In a recent study published by the Gateway House, Gen Narasmhan however, says that in the decade from 2013 to 2023, China has invested only US$7.07 billion and released only $4.45 billion for 35 projects under the Belt and Road Initiative. A slightly older study conducted by Bhandari and Jindal suggests that China, by way of acquiring a 25% share in Bangladesh’s largest stock exchange in February 2018, has a strategic purpose to gain greater access to—and possibly control over—Bangladesh’s financial infrastructure, and hence the guts of its economy. Hasina’s closeness to India, China remaining noncommittal to offer her US$5 billion loan to stabilise Bangladesh economy, and Hasina cutting short her China visit by a day in July demonstrate China’s unhappiness with her regime.
Though words like “coup”, “dictatorship”, “authoritarian regime”, “student protests” remain sensitive in China, however, in the context of recent developments in Bangladesh, media and online portals have made use of them. Guanchazhe did file a story titled “A coup in a country with 170 million people!” Sohu.com, in a headline said, “After establishing a comprehensive strategic partnership with China, Bangladesh suffers a military coup.” Some blamed the general dissatisfaction of people with Hasina and her party’s “dictatorial regime”. Most have reported the coup as an outcome of the “economic troubles” of Bangladesh, rather than a “political issue.”
Fenghuang.com said, with a population of 170 million, youths aged 15-29 account for about 45.9 million, but unemployment rate among this age group is as high as 8%, and among the 2.15 million unemployed young people, 800,000 are college graduates. The debt trouble of Bangladesh according to paper.com.cn was a serious issue as foreign debt has increased nearly 3.5 times in the past decade to US$97.01 billion.
Many blamed India’s “interference” in Bangladesh’s internal affairs and Hasina’s close proximity with India. While reporting Hasina’s ouster owing to her refusal to hand over St. Martin Island to the United States, the military.china.com headline said “the first to have felt threatened was the Indian Navy.” Liu Zongyi, a senior fellow at the Shanghai Institute for International Studies, in an interview to Guanchazhe on 6 August, expounds the India factor in Bangladesh. According to Liu, Sheikh Hasina has been “very considerate” (非常照顾) of India’s so-called strategic and security concerns. Not only has Bangladesh joined the Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative (IPOI), one of the pillars of India’s “Indo-Pacific” strategy, but has also allowed India to transit Bangladesh to strengthen its connectivity with North-East India and the “India-held” (印占) southern Tibet, she has also made concessions to India on the governance and management of Teesta River.
This line of argument is also shared by Wang Dehua, an old India hand at the Shanghai Centre for International Studies. Wang posits that Hasina’s foreign policy of balancing between major powers has “offended all parties” (各方都得罪). After getting re-elected, she handed over Teesta River conservation contract worth more than US$1 billion to India, inviting dissatisfaction of China. Liu opines that “India and small South Asian countries including Bangladesh have a zero-sum competition relationship in industrial development.” His take on the role of army is that Hasina resigned in the hope of protecting the interests of her entire group through military, because the military is also part of her interest group. However, there are other voices that say “the Bangladeshi military has chosen to stand on the side of the people.”
Whether there is a US shadow behind the protests, Wang Dehua holds United States as the main force behind this coup. Liu, on the contrary, argues that though there are some people advancing this argument, and have even used Prime Minister Hasina’s public speech about the United States pressuring her to get a military base in Bangladesh as evidence, but holds that protests were not an outcome of a “colour revolution” (颜色革命) orchestrated by the US. While major media groups have quoted Indian media reports on the St. Martin Island issue, nonetheless, experts like Wang Dehua and many other anonymous writings on the social media have offered a Chinese perspective. Some of the reasons for the US setting its eyes on the Island are—enforce hegemony in the Indian Ocean, needs to establish another military base beside Diego Garcia so as to form a pincer movement to better respond to and deal with various contingencies in the Indian Ocean region, wrest control of the Strait of Malacca enabling it to monitor the activities of regional countries in and around the Indian Ocean, and undermine the so-called Chinese “String of Pearls” strategy.
It could be discerned from the above analysis that the coup in Bangladesh also took China by surprise. Ostensibly, the Chinese scholars have expressed their dissatisfaction about Sheikh Hasina’s close relations with India. Most of them have blamed the US as the troublemaker in Bangladesh, and there are undertones pointing to India’s anxieties from the US presence in the Bay of Bengal. They are hopeful that the new government in Dhaka will recalibrate ties with China, for “all political parties in Bangladesh are very clear about what kind of losses Bangladesh will bear if they leave China” argues Xu Liang of Fenghuang Net. Wang Dehua, on the other hand says that both Myanmar and Bangladesh are China’s gateway to the Indian Ocean, therefore, China must strengthen cooperation with them.
B.R. Deepak is Professor, Center of Chinese and Southeast Asian Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.