China’s Shadow Stretches From Bangladesh to Jammu and Ladakh

As it is, India and China have been involved in a see-saw battle to exert influence in the Maldives and Sri Lanka.

An image from the protests in Bangladesh. 

(Photo: JIBON AHMED)

The news has been full of the dramatic events in Bangladesh—of which the 'India Out' campaign was a central feature. To assess the strategic consequences, we might do well to look beyond Bangladesh at India’s entire eastern borders—and view Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s ouster in the context of the disturbed situations in Ladakh, Jammu and Kashmir, in India’s North-east, and neighbouring parts of Myanmar.

China, which the then Defence Minister George Fernandes correctly identified more than a quarter-century ago as India’s 'enemy number one', is a potential beneficiary of all these stressful situations vis-a-vis India.

The fact (which the media does not adequately highlight) is that China has relentlessly built infrastructure and installed armaments—including artillery, tanks, and airports—along India’s eastern border since 2020. 

Over the past few weeks, some Army officers—including a retired former corps commander of the Jammu region—have held that the spurt of attacks in the Jammu region since the day Modi became prime minister for a third term could be caused by China.

These officers think China may have pushed its best friend Pakistan to cause the mayhem in Jammu and Kashmir so that troops that have been concentrated on the Ladakh frontier since 2020 may be pulled back to the Jammu region. The Jammu region was among the places from which troops were moved to Ladakh.

The way those officers see it, India’s enemies are playing a chess move in one part of the board in order to force a counter move to prevent a `check.’ In that light, the (likely) installation of an anti-India regime in Bangladesh is another major strategic move on the South Asian chess board— potentially to the geopolitical, economic, and military advantage of China, and the disadvantage of India. 

Strategic Losses

Tragically, the terribly ill-advised blockade of Nepal soon after Modi became prime minister for the first time pushed Nepal into China’s arms. A railway line, closer economic and geopolitical ties, and diplomatic alignment have followed.

As if to seal that, our government’s Agniveer scheme for recruitment to the Army resulted in Nepal prohibiting its citizens from joining the Indian Army henceforth. That is a great loss, especially if it results in Gorkha soldiers bolstering the ranks of China’s PLA instead.

Now that many Bangladeshis have been taught to hate India, they might do so even more vehemently than Nepalese citizens did after that awful blockade.

In the geo-strategic context, friendship with the government of Bangladesh could prove an extremely costly piece to have lost on the subcontinental chess board. For, it could expose the 'chicken’s neck' of land that links to India’s northeast, far more than Chinese construction in the Doklam area already has. And, it could expose India in the Bay of Bengal too.

This should worry us deeply. As it is, India and China have been involved over the past few years in a see-saw battle to exert influence in the Maldives and Sri Lanka—both of which were allied to India for a long time in the past. Now, even Bhutan, once India’s closest ally, is trying to balance its relations with China and India respectively. 

Both Superpowers Unhappy

Analysts have been divided over whether the fall of the Bangladesh government was caused by a China-Pakistan conspiracy or by the West. In fact, both could have contributed to Sheikh Hasina’s ouster.

It has been reported that the US was miffed over her refusal to give it control over St Martin’s Island in the Bay of Bengal—supposedly for a military base at which Myanmarese mercenaries were to have been trained to fight those backed by China who currently control stretches in the north of Myanmar. 

There is no doubt that social media messaging created in the West, and disbursed widely in Bangladesh by US-based social media corporations, played a critical role in Sheikh Hasina’s downfall.

On the other hand, Hasina had also refused to let China build a deep-sea port at Sonadia Island. And China was deeply disappointed with her decision to give India charge of the Teesta river management project—to the extent that it was speculated that Hasina cut short her visit to Beijing last month over disagreements on that project. 

However, one should not forget that China congratulated her Awami League party for its victory in Bangladesh’s elections last January in a joint statement issued during that visit. Not just that. Bangladesh and China signed more than 20 agreements during the visit, and elevated their relationship to a `comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership’.

Overall, Hasina did no more than try to balance her country’s relationships with India and China. 

Real Test Now

In light of her tensions with both the West and the East, the real struggle for power may just be beginning—with lackeys of both superpowers jockeying for power in the post-Hasina situation in Bangladesh. 

A leading member of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) was among those who met Liu Jianchao, head of the Chinese Communist Party’s International Department, during the latter’s visit to Dhaka in late June. As the main opposition party, the BNP is likely to form the next government.

India has long viewed the BNP as pro-Pakistan, and antagonistic towards India. A key question is whether pro-Pakistan now automatically means pro-China. Those Indian Army officers who hold that Pakistan’s hostilities in the Jammu region are calculated to make India draw troops away from the China frontier certainly think so.

Two points will be worth watching now. One is how long the interim government led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus will last, and whether it takes important policy decisions. The second is how strong a role the military will have in the new set-up—and which global powers might influence top officers. 

(The writer is the author of ‘The Story of Kashmir’ and ‘The Generation of Rage in Kashmir’. He can be reached at @david_devadas. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)