Bangladesh’s newly elected Prime Minister Tariq Rahman signed a landmark agreement, choosing China for his first foreign visit amid deteriorating relations between India and Bangladesh. According to the agreement, China will establish an economic zone in the Bay of Bengal near the strategically important port of Mongla on India’s east coast. It is particularly noteworthy that, The project was earlier awarded to India but was dropped from the project due to deterioration of relations between the two countries during the Mohammad Yunus-led interim government and China is now set to fill the void.
This information has been given in a report of Bangladesh Business Standard, A Chinese state-owned economic zone will be built on 110 acres of land at Bagerhat near Bangladesh’s second-largest seaport after Chittagong. Just 188 km from Kolkata and located near the Sundarbans, China has a manufacturing industry, It plans to develop warehouse and storage facilities. It is worth mentioning, In 2015, India and Bangladesh signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to set up two economic zones in Chittagong’s Mongla and Mirsrai during Sheikh Hasina’s government., j‘India was supposed to provide loan assistance aimed at modernizing Mongla port. Subsequently, a new beam between Mongla Port and Khulna to increase bilateral trade‘Lopez was also built. In 2018, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government chose the Hiranandani Group to develop the land in Mangala and four years later, in 2022, an agreement was signed with the Bangladesh Economic Zone Authority (BEZA).
However, the situation changed in 2024 when Sheikh Hasina fled the country and took refuge in India after a massive student revolt against corruption. During the interim government led by Mohammad Yunus, anti-India sentiment rose in Bangladesh and radical Islamist leaders accused Hasina of appeasing India. Amid the chaos, in 2025, the Yunus government dropped the Indian firm from the project for allegedly not starting work within the stipulated two years. Taking advantage of the bitterness between India and Bangladesh last year, the Chinese embassy in Dhaka proposed to build an economic zone on 110 acres., The agreement was finalized during Tariq Rahman’s visit to China this week.
This shift in Bangladesh’s policy raises two major strategic concerns for India. first of all, An important project has gone out of India’s hands and secondly, Paving the way for China’s increased presence in the Bay of Bengal and the entire Indian Ocean region. There are fears of strategic competition between India and China in areas traditionally considered by New Delhi as its sphere of influence China has already invested heavily in 17 port projects on the Indian Ocean from Gwadar in Pakistan to Djibouti in East Africa under the Maritime Silk Road initiative. About 80 percent of China’s energy imports, the world’s largest crude oil importer, go through the Indian Ocean, That’s why ports like Mongla are so strategically important to Beijing. Investment in port projects does not mean direct military access, however, Still, China has been accused of using previously invested ports for surveillance and surveillance.
Apart from the Mongla port, the Bangladesh government has also hit another sensitive spot in India by agreeing to increase cooperation with China in the management of the Teesta river project. Despite the long-running dispute between India and Bangladesh over the sharing of Teesta waters, former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina always gave priority to New Delhi for the conservation and management of the river. China’s current participation in the project will raise India’s concerns, Because it is a strategically sensitive 22 km stretch that connects India’s Northeast to the mainland. ‘Chikench Nek‘ or located near the Siliguri corridor.
These recent steps in Mangla Port Economic Zone project and Teesta River management clearly indicate that Bangladesh is gradually leaning towards China. However, it should be noted that China has always been Bangladesh’s largest trading partner. But Bangladesh cannot deny its geographical reality, India shares the longest border with the country. The Mongla port project marks an important strategic moment and subsequently how Bangladesh balances its economic relationship with China while maintaining a long historical relationship with its largest neighbor India., This will be particularly noticeable to the international community‘b.