A G20 selfie moment to cherish for India and Bangladesh

The matter of the moment was a selfie the grinning US President Joe Biden took with Hasina and her daughter Samia Wazed Putul at the summit’s convention centre Bharat Mandapam on Saturday (September 9).

Before posing for the say-cheese moment, the trio had a cordial chat for about 15 minutes, during which time Hasina reportedly extended an invitation to the American President to visit her country. Biden agreed and enquired about the suitable season to visit the tropical country, Bangladesh Foreign Minister Abul Kalam Abdul Momen was quoted as saying by a Dhaka-based newspaper, the Daily Star.

As the role of body language in international diplomacy is regarded just as important, if not more, as the spoken words, the selfie should also bring some cheer to the Indian foreign office.

Dhaka of late has been exhorting India to prevail upon the US to stop what Bangladesh's ruling dispensation feels is interference in the country’s internal matters.

Bangladesh was irked by new visa policy of the US

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced a visa policy in May this year that would deny the travel document to Bangladeshi nationals and their immediate family members who would undermine the process of holding free and fair elections in their country. The elections in Bangladesh are due in January next year.

The announcement came after past allegations of the last two elections in the country in 2014 and 2018 being marred by large-scale violence and vote rigging. As such, the US policy is seen by critics of Hasnia’s Awami League-led regime as a pre-emptive warning aimed at ensuring free and fair elections.

Expectedly, it did not go down well with the Bangladesh government though it put up a brave face in public stating that there was nothing to “worry” about the poll-linked visa policy.

The country’s foreign affairs minister even claimed that the policy supports Prime Minister Hasina's commitment to hold free and fair elections.

Public posturing aside, the Bangladesh government behind the scenes started diplomatic manoeuvring to ward off the American pressure.

That Bangladesh was not pleased with the US policy was evident from a recent comment of Hasina on the issue.

It didn't matter at all if people from her country didn't fly to the United States, and that "there are other oceans and other continents in the world,” Hasina was quoted as saying by Deutsche Welle (DW) in June.

Bangladesh has reasons to be irked by the US policy because it raised several questions pertaining to Bangladesh’s sovereign rights.

How is the US going to determine any infringement of election norms or how will it identify the violators? Will it do its own policing? Will those accused of wrongdoings be allowed to challenge the US decision in a Bangladeshi court?

The policy did not spell these out.

Moreover, similar concern for upholding democracy is not demonstrated in several other countries such as Pakistan where the rights of the citizens are in greater danger.

The US role in restoring democracy in Myanmar too was not exactly exemplary.

Bangladesh banked on India to smooth its relations with the US

India being its traditional ally that had in the past overtly helped Bangladesh to deal with similar external pressure, Dhaka naturally banked most on New Delhi to tide over the stress in its relations with Washington.

That Bangladesh raised the issue with India ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s June visit to the US with a hope that he would take up the cudgels on its behalf during his meeting with Biden was widely reported by the media in both India and Bangladesh.

Bangladesh’s high hopes on India was because it defended it from the onslaught of international pressure ahead of the 2014 elections. The US, the European Union, and many Western countries mounted pressure on the then Awami League government to make way for a caretaker government to take over to conduct elections joining the chorus with the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). The opposition party had boycotted the poll saying the elections under the Awami League government would not be credible.

This time an opinion was building within the corridor of power in Bangladesh that New Delhi was not doing enough to help it out. More so, when the US continued to put the heat on Bangladesh even after Modi’s US visit.

Unlike the UPA government in 2014, the present BJP regime did not openly spell out its position on Bangladesh’s elections vis-à-vis the US pressure, adding to the restlessness of Dhaka.

Worse, there were even reports that suggested that India and the US were on the same page on the issue. This, despite many Indian strategic analysts red-flagging the American policy.

Stating that uneven US treatment of Bangladesh and Pakistan makes little sense, one such analyst Brahma Chellaney recently wrote that the US has a vested geostrategic reason for targeting Bangladesh.

Many say the US foreign policy in Bangladesh is guided by the US-China competition.

“The US's rivalry with China works as a determining factor for its foreign policy across much of this region, including how it advances its democracy-promotion policy in Bangladesh. That's why the US desires to reduce Bangladesh's reliance on China, certainly for economic cooperation but also for military cooperation,” Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the Willson Centre, said in a recent interview with the Daily Star.

In the China-equation, India sees a convergence of interest with the US. Even Indian policy makers feel alarmed by the Hasina government’s alleged growing Chinese slant.

History of China-Bangladesh bilateral relations

China had established bilateral relations with Bangladesh only in 1975, four years after the Bengali nation attained its independence in 1971. The relationship however came a long way from that of hostility, particularly after Bangladesh joined China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2016.

China is now Bangladesh’s top trading partner, direct foreign investor, trade importer, and military hardware supplier, said a recent report of the Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS).

“China has become Bangladesh’s top source of military hardware. Dhaka, likewise, is China’s second-largest arms export destination, behind only Pakistan. In the 2010-19 period, China accounted for 72 percent of Bangladesh’s total arms imports,” the MERICS report added.

Bangladesh’s defence partnership with China has a historic background, which India and the US should not ignore, said a Bangladeshi official who was part of Hasina’s entourage during her just-concluded India tour.

“After Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rehman and members of his family were killed in cold blood on August 15, 1975 by senior army officers, the country slipped into the hands of pro-Pakistani elements. It was during that time that China established bilateral relations with our country and extended military cooperation,” the official told The Federal preferring anonymity.

The tie deepened in the 1980s, and until 2009, China supplied 90 per cent of Bangladesh's military equipment, the official added. In the past decades since Hasina came to power, the dependency had gradually declined to about 70 per cent, according to the official.

China was the source of 82 percent of Bangladesh’s arms purchases from 2009-2013, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

The decline is visible from the recent MERICS report.

The official said it would drop further and pointed out that earlier this year, Japan included Bangladesh in its official security assistance or OSA programme to increase its military ties with Dhaka.

Japan started negotiations with Bangladesh to sign an agreement concerning the “Transfer of Defence Equipment and Technology”, Japanese Ambassador to Bangladesh Iwama Kiminori said in Dhaka in August this year.

Recalibration of Bangladesh’s partnership with China

Recalibration of such a deep-rooted strategic partnership with China certainly could not be done in just over a decade. The US hostility towards Bangladesh will not only make the transformation more difficult but also could be counterproductive as it might push Bangladesh further into the Chinese embrace.

India is aware of this possibility and hence it invited Bangladesh to attend the G20 summit as a guest member to demonstrate the importance it accords to its eastern neighbour. Hasina was also among a handful of world leaders whom Modi invited for a bilateral meeting at his 7, Lok Kalyan Marg residence during the G20 visit. Modi generally avoids meeting foreign guests at his residence.

It was, however, not India's approach that Bangladesh was concerned about this time. It wanted to see what India could do to help improve its ties with the US.

Two brief cordial meetings Hasina had with Biden on the sidelines of the summit should make Bangladesh happy.

Apart from the selfie moment, Hasina and Biden also engaged in a candid chat during the dinner. The US president was seen in another picture firmly holding Bangladesh prime minister’s hand while engaged in a light-hearted conversation with Hasina, her younger sister Sheikh Rehana, and Modi.

"The US is keen to consolidate its relationship with Bangladesh, and for this purpose they are holding talks and sending delegations. He (Biden) has all the intention to build good relations with Bangladesh," Momen said in a media briefing.

That is a big takeaway from the G20 summit for Bangladesh as well as India. The hitch in US-Bangladesh relations had put India in a tricky situation as it was staring at the prospect of losing its closest ally in the region.

Hopefully, the bonhomie between the US and Bangladesh displayed at the summit will last.