Yunus’s China visit shows Bangladesh is toeing Pakistan’s path – Firstpost

Muhammad Yunus’s recent four-day visit to China exposed his frustrations. India’s measured silence over Bangladesh’s flurry of provocations unsettles Yunus and his cohorts. Economic crisis, political vendetta, targeted attacks on minorities, especially Hindu men and women, kangaroo courts, civic chaos, law and order crisis, increasing isolation, religious fundamentalism, etc, unearth the incompetence of the unelected group of people who have self-appointed themselves as the ruling elite of Bangladesh.

The US support for Yunus has thinned significantly because of the electoral defeat of the Democrats. US aid is less likely to come to Bangladesh under Donald Trump’s administration. On April 2, he imposed a 37 per cent tariff on imports from Bangladesh under the “Reciprocal Tariffs” system to counter unfair trade practices. The tariff pressure will bleed Bangladesh, especially its garment industry. Bangladesh’s garment export to the US constitutes the lion’s share of its export profile. This decision from the US will hit Dhaka badly. The economic vulnerability may trigger social unrest soon. The US support is sparse. Bangladesh does not feature even marginally in Trump’s assessment of South Asia.

Since the US is no longer in Yunus’s catalogue of benefactors or friends, he runs to China for support. Islamic fundamentalism at home and the invitation to the Chinese debt trap will make Bangladesh the Dragon’s vassal state. Bangladesh emulates Pakistan. The hatred for India is a euphemism for Hindu hatred. It is so strong that Bangladesh loses its reason and goes wholesale to China for self-destruction. It also touches the pressure points to make India react. New Delhi’s indifference to Yunus rattles him severely. He mentions India’s northeast, landlocked geography, and disconnection from the sea space. He valorises Bangladesh as the guardian of the Bay of Bengal.

The borrowed courage is a short-lived one. Bangladesh does not have any strength of its own. It depends utterly on India for everything from eggs to electricity. Yunus weaponises Bangladesh’s geostrategic space. Inviting China does not make India weak. It makes Bangladesh vulnerable. If India has its Achilles’ Heels, so do Bangladesh and China. Neither China nor Bangladesh is entirely self-sufficient. New Delhi’s tolerance is not its weakness.

In fact, during the sidelines of the BIMSTEC summit in Bangkok on Friday, Modi raised the issue of the safety of Hindus and other minorities in Bangladesh while asking Yunus to avoid rhetoric that ‘vitiates the environment’.

Bangladesh’s pressure points are so many and so insecure. Bangladesh’s Beijing camaraderie will be short-lived, and reality will soon bite the current unelected leaders. They will bundle Bangladesh into a grave crisis, leaving it in deep trouble. China is nobody’s friend. It only guards its interest. Handing over Bangladesh and its maritime space to China invites a debt trap and surrender of the former’s sovereignty. China’s overtures to Bangladesh undergird a deep-seated interest in exercising hegemony over the Bay of Bengal.

Yunus said, “Seven states of India, the eastern part of India, called the seven sisters… they are a landlocked country, a landlocked region of India. They have no way to reach out to the ocean.” He calls the seven northeastern states of India landlocked countries and then corrects himself by saying they are landlocked regions of India.

Is it a Freudian slip, the unconscious manifesting through the crevices of a slip? Is it senility or a conscious attempt to imply something ominous? When Yunus does everything in his arsenal to provoke India, can this slip be construed as deliberate? How does it matter to him whether India’s northeast is landlocked? Why does he juxtapose it with the extension of the Chinese economy in the Bay of Bengal? When did Bangladesh become the guardian of the Bay of Bengal?

This is pure provocation. It also ascertains Yunus’ anxiety and frustration. Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, the Maldives, Myanmar, and African countries invited China to improve their economy but got embroiled in the Dragon’s debt trap and compromised sovereignty. Therefore, Bangladesh treads Pakistan’s path. The hatred for India is so deep that Yunus and his Islamist compatriots will not hesitate to sell Bangladesh to China. Surrendering to China only means an indefinite suspension of Bangladesh’s sovereignty.

Given the background of the Chinese unsubstantiated claim on Arunachal Pradesh, Yunus’ politically loaded remarks undergird the ill intentions, provocations, optics, and messaging. The critical areas of the recent China-Bangladesh bilateral agreements were the China Industrial Economic Zone (CEIZ), Mongla Port expansion and modernisation, among other things.

Amid these pronouncements, the one-China policy, opposition to Taiwan’s independence, and Taiwan as an inalienable part of China rhetoric were included to spice up the meeting and raise a few eyebrows. This reduced the Bangladesh-China meeting to mere messaging and cliches. The tedious moralising lectures or homilies are mere symbolisms, recurrently retold to signal the relevance of some issues.

The joint press release referred to the Chinese companies working to develop the CEIZ in Chattogram, the Teesta River Comprehensive Management and Restoration Project (TRCMRP), etc. Teesta is a braided river and on a barind tract. Building dams on it carries environmental consequences and agrarian crises. The catchment area remains in India. If India does not release the water, the dam downstream is a futile exercise.

Apart from Teesta and CEIZ, the Xi-Yunus meeting signed increased economic and technical cooperation, infrastructure, culture, translation, media, health, and other paltry things. China knows very well that Yunus is not the elected head of the government. Once the electoral process begins, the democratically elected leader may disapprove of the MoUs signed between Xi Jinping and Muhammad Yunus.

Yunus and Jamaat-e-Islami forcefully took over the power through students’ protests to do domestic reforms. Conversely, they have created more chaos and disruption than what they opposed. They hardly do any domestic reforms and instead indulge in foreign policy. The election is nowhere to be seen on the horizon, except uttered consistently as a refrain. Reforms in collusion with the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) without recognising the Awami League may later be construed as fraudulent and undemocratic.

However, China never takes Yunus seriously. It uses his desperation for recognition and resuscitation of the collapsing Bangladeshi economy. Beijing uses Yunus to raise the Taiwan issue by making flippant statements when the world is least interested in Taiwan. The American sensitivity towards Taiwan is self-evident. Yunus unnecessarily irks Trump when making statements about Taiwan. It was unexpected of Yunus. He did it deliberately. This may invite some repercussions. Be that as it may.

The domestic front is quite dire in Bangladesh. Bangladesh Army chief Gen Waker-Uz-Zaman commented on the anarchy, political vendetta, infighting, and religious radicalism on February 25 and warned the people at the helm of Bangladeshi politics of the risk of losing sovereignty. This warning demonstrates the gravity of the deterioration of law and order conditions in Bangladesh.

Yunus typically toes the Pakistani path. He externalises all the problems of Bangladesh to conceal his incompetence. He even reaches China to amplify the externalisation of its domestic disruption. This tactic will not bury the truth. The truth is that neither Yunus nor Jamaat-e-Islami is an elected entity in Bangladesh.

The phase of excitement and expression of emotive energy is over. Reality hits hard. Diversion or prevarication overrides the brutal reality on the ground. Muhammad Yunus has specialised in this craft since he became the Chief Advisor of Bangladesh’s interim government. His China trip is a magnificent illustration of this craft.

Jajati K Pattnaik is an Associate Professor at the Centre for West Asian Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Chandan K Panda is an Assistant Professor at Rajiv Gandhi University (A Central University), Itanagar. The views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.