News Desk
DHAKA — Muhammad Yunus, Bangladesh’s interim leader, is rolling the dice with a China-first policy that feels eerily familiar. Look back to Sri Lanka under Mahinda Rajapaksa, whose regime from 2005 to 2015 dove headlong into Beijing’s embrace, only to end up battered and begging India for a lifeline. Bangladesh’s current gambit — cozying up to China while the U.S. pulls aid and India fumes — is Russian roulette with a loaded chamber.
At day’s end, Dhaka may find itself shot in the leg, hoping New Delhi bandages the wound. The Maldives under Mohamed Muizzu offers a counterpoint: a wobble toward China, then a pivot back to India’s orbit, proving the subcontinent’s giant still holds sway.
Rajapaksa’s Sri Lanka was the blueprint for China’s strategic opportunism. Billions flowed in — $1.5 billion for Hambantota Port, $1.4 billion for Colombo Port City — under the Belt and Road banner. The pitch was prosperity; the catch was debt.
By 2017, Sri Lanka couldn’t pay, ceding Hambantota to China on a 99-year lease. When the economy tanked in 2022, Beijing tossed a measly $74 million in aid while India rushed in with $4 billion — food, fuel, medicine. Rajapaksa’s bet on China left Sri Lanka limping, its sovereignty chipped away, and its people rioting. “We played with fire,” said Ruwanthi Perera, a Colombo analyst. “India pulled us out.”
Bangladesh under Yunus is spinning the same cylinder. Since Hasina’s fall in August 2024, his government has leaned hard into China — $24 billion in trade, $2.9 billion in glitchy arms, a 22-official delegation this week — while snubbing India over Hasina’s refuge in New Delhi. The U.S. aid halt in January, slashing $200 million, nudged Dhaka closer to Beijing’s loans and promises. Yet, Yunus’s silence on China’s $137 billion Brahmaputra mega dam — a water chokehold in waiting — mirrors Rajapaksa’s blind eye to debt traps. Faulty F-7 jets and spare-part droughts already hobble Bangladesh’s military. “It’s a one-way street,” said Shahab Enam Khan, a Jahangirnagar University professor. “China wins; you lose.”
The Maldives under Muizzu tells a different tale. Elected in 2023 on an “India Out” platform, he courted China with gusto — a free-trade deal, $1.4 billion in Belt and Road projects. But reality bit fast. Tourism, 80 percent of the economy, leans on Indian visitors; security ties with New Delhi run deep. By late 2024, Muizzu softened, praising India’s “closest ally” status after a $400 million currency swap and troop exits under negotiation. “We misjudged the balance,” a Maldivian official told Al-Jazeera. China’s cash came; its staying power didn’t.
Bangladesh lacks that foresight. Yunus, a novice in geopolitics, is trading India’s proven grit — think 1971’s liberation war — for China’s fleeting largesse. Rajapaksa’s legacy is a warning: stack the deck with Beijing, and you’re the one who gets beaten. When Sri Lanka’s crisis peaked, India delivered; China dawdled. Bangladesh, with 10% inflation and a wobbly regime, can’t afford this gamble. The Brahmaputra dam looms, the arms rust — and India watches, its patience thinning. Yunus may yet limp back, begging for Delhi’s aid to escape the chamber he’s loaded himself.
