DHAKA – The United States has intensified its efforts to inspire Bangladesh to buy more of its military apparatus in weeks, hoping to win an “emerging” best friend in South Asia, where China is expanding its economic influence.
Infrequently, U. S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper called Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who also oversees the Department of Defense, before this month, for the South Asian country to modernize its army until 2030.
Last year, the two countries began negotiations on the sale of complex military aircraft, such as Apache helicopters and missiles. There is believed to be an agreement in the letters, no main points have been revealed, and Laura Stone, deputy undersecretary of the U. S. State Department, said Congress has not yet been “officially notified. “Any deal will frustrate China, which is now the largest supplier of less expensive defense appliances.
“We seek to deepen our security cooperation with Bangladesh, which is of great mutual interest, with full respect for Bangladesh’s sovereignty and independence of action,” Stone wrote in an email response to nikkei Asian Review questions.
“We are able to serve as Bangladesh’s chosen wife in the sale of defense goods,” said Stone, who oversees India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and maldives at the State Department’s Central and South Asian Office.
Bangladesh has been buying more U. S. weapons since the 1990s, with purchases reaching $110 million in 10 years through 2019, but that is overshadowed by the $2. 59 billion it has spent on the army apparatus in China since 2010, according to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
Ali Riaz, a leading professor of political science at Illinois State University, said the timing of the phone call between U. S. Secretary of Defense and Bangladesh’s prime minister is “very important” because of Dhaka’s warm relations with Beijing.
Indeed, China’s influence in Bangladesh goes beyond industry and infrastructure investment. After the COVID-19 pandemic took root, China sent supplies, such as masks and gowns, and a medical team to Bangladesh, which conducted a level 3 trial of a vaccine. evolved through chinese personal company Sinovac Biotech.
Beijing recently lifted price lists for 97% of Bangladesh’s imports after obtaining a contract to build a $250 million airport terminal in the northeastern city of Sylhet, which borders India.
Bangladesh is now looking to establish a $1 billion Chinese credit line to manage the Teesta River after a water exchange agreement with India languished for years, basically due to opposition from the state of West Bengal on the Indian side.
Bangladesh has drawn a very fine line between India and China, now Washington has taken a proactive approach.
“The Bangladeshi government will have to balance conflicting expectations. Bangladesh can do so if national interests remain the number one consideration,” Riaz wrote in an email to Nikkei.
International defense relations are part of Washington’s broader Indo-Pacific strategy. In June 2019, the Ministry of Defence published its first report on the strategy, in which it identified Bangladesh as an “emerging ner”, alongside Sri Lanka, Nepal and the Maldives in South Asia.
“Our vision of the Indo-Pacific is based on the fact that the United States, like Bangladesh, is an Indo-Pacific country,” Stone told Nikkei. “Maritime and regional security in South Asia is about ensuring a free, open and non-violent environment and the rich Indo-Pacific region to gain advantages from all its nations, so we prioritize security-publicized efforts. “
China’s growing influence in the region and Bangladesh’s participation in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road initiative have made it imperative that the United States vigorously pursu its Indo-Pacific agenda, said Riaz, also a senior researcher at the Atlantic Council, a Washington tank. .
The United States and Bangladesh have already collaborated on security in a variety of areas, from counter-terrorism to peacekeeping, as a component of a foreign army financing program introduced in 2005. Since 2018, they have distributed another $60 million to pay for Bangladesh’s shipping costs. address other critical concerns.
According to Amena Mohsin, a professor of foreign affairs at Dhaka University, the U. S. leadership is “aggressively driving” the Indo-Pacific’s commitment to counter China’s BIS, of which Bangladesh has been a component since 2016. “America needs a component in the war on terror [and] a component of arms sales,” he told Nikkei. “Bangladesh is of strategic importance. “
Mr. Humayun Kabir, a former ambassador to the United States who is now interim president of the Bangladesh Business Institute, a Group of Experts in Dhaka, said this puts Bangladesh in a delicate position. “It will be complicated for Bangladesh because it is friends with either the United States or China,” Kabir said.
According to United Nations data, the United States, with which Bangladesh has an industrial surplus of between $4 billion and $5 billion a year, is the country’s top export destination, while South Asia’s economy of $170 million has a chronic industrial deficit, totaling about $17 billion. in 2018, together with China, its main source of imports.
Riaz, of Illinois State University, predicted a replacement in U. S. policy toward South Asia, with more commitment, if Joe Biden is elected president in November, but believes he “will be more accommodating in the face of China’s developing influence. “
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