When Ashik Chowdhury, the executive chairman of the Bangladesh Investment Development Authority, was asked recently about Prime Minister Tarique Rahman’s upcoming trip to China, his response caught the room by surprise.
“Many issues will arise,” Chowdhury remarked“starting with the defense”.
For a diplomatic trip billed strictly around trade, investment and business, it was an early, open admission of how heavy the agenda will be.
Rahman is scheduled to land in China on June 23 for a four-day official visitpreceded by a two-day stop in Malaysia. While the newly elected government has promoted the tour under its “Bangladesh First” foreign policy doctrine, the reality awaiting Dhaka in Beijing will go far beyond balance sheets.
The journey begins with an economic veneer. of Rahman first stop will be in Dalian for the World Economic Forum’s Summer Davos – officially, the 17th Annual Meeting of Young Champions – which will take place from June 23-25.
He is expected to hold talks with the Interim President and CEO of the WEF Alois Zwingi before heading to Beijing to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Opening up at a multilateral economic forum, Dhaka can frame the visit through a trade lens before diving into the high-stakes strategic negotiations that await.
The economic stakes are truly massive. Bangladesh currently has high value financing propositions 9 billion dollars pending with the Chinese government, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the New Development Bank.
Dhaka is looking live 4.34 billion dollars from Beijing to support several critical, long overdue initiatives – among them the Teesta River Comprehensive Management and Restoration Project, the expansion and modernization of the Mongla Port and the Chinese Economic and Industrial Zone at Anwara, Chattogram.
The groundwork for Anwara is moving fast. On June 16, the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council disclosed a Project 41.89 billion ALL to develop the area’s supporting infrastructure: a four-lane road, a multi-purpose wharf capable of handling 20,000 deadweight vessels, a central effluent treatment plant and gas, power and water systems on the 800-hectare site. China Road and Bridge Corporation has been appointed to carry out the construction.
In general, officials wait about a dozen MoUs to be signed during the trip include the transfer of electric vehicle technology, renewable energy, banking cooperation and a possible currency exchange. Rahman will also serve as the chief guest at an investment conference in Beijing aimed at attracting Chinese capital directly.
But trade alone does not explain why the BIDA chairman put defense at the absolute top of the list.
Bangladesh are quietly finalizing a $2.2 billion deal to buy 20 Chinese-made J-10CE fighter jets. The package allocates roughly $60 million per aircraft — $1.2 billion for the fleet of 20 jets — with the remaining $820 million covering training, logistics, spare parts, transportation, insurance and infrastructure.
The purchase would make Bangladesh only the second country in South Asia, after Pakistan, to operate the J-10CE and would represent the most significant expansion of Chinese military equipment in the region in years.
The previous interim administration had already cleared the deal in principle after extensive military reviews, and the current government is now taking it to the finish line.
Air Chief Marshal Hasan Mahmood Khan heads one Interministerial committee of 11 members charged with finalizing government-to-government terms, payment schedules and delivery timelines.
Domestic momentum for the Chinese aircraft grew after Operation Sindoor, the four-day India-Pakistan border conflict in May 2025. While New Delhi disputed many of Islamabad’s claims, Pakistan’s accounts of the J-10CE’s radar performance against the Indian Rafale likely to be displaced calculations in Dhaka, convincing military planners that the aircraft offered the best available combination of combat capability and cost, especially after the stickers were slapped by French alternatives.
It is not an isolated defense procurement by China. In January this year, the Bangladesh Air Force signed a government-to-government agreement with CETC International – the export arm of China Electronics Technology Group Corporation – to create an unmanned aerial vehicle manufacturing and assembly facility in Dhaka, with full technology transfer. It stands as the most significant transfer of Chinese military technology to Bangladesh to date.
Washington is no doubt watching all this carefully. US Ambassador to Bangladesh Brent Christensen has pointed out explicitly the long-term dangers of too much strategic reliance on Beijing.
THE offer an alternativeWashington has put an aggressive military package on the table, including F/A-18 Super Hornets, Apache attack helicopters, NASAMS air defense systems and MQ-9 Reaper drones – a line calibrated to match what China offers in both capability and signal.
At the same time, long stalled talks on GSOMIA and ACSA Defense frameworks are suddenly accelerated. The catalyst was a February 18 congratulatory letter from President Donald Trump to Prime Minister Rahman — one that went beyond pleasantries.
“I hope you will take decisive action to end routine defense deals that would finally give your military access to high-end, American-made equipment. Trump wrotepressuring Dhaka to sign both pacts. Rahman’s government has insisted that no security deal will be concluded unless it protects core national interests, but the pressure is unmistakable.
The deeper problem for Bangladesh is that Washington has begun to link trade access directly to security compliance. A reciprocal trade agreement signed on February 9 by the outgoing interim government included important terms along with its tariff concessions.
The agreement restricts Bangladesh from buying nuclear reactors, fuel rods or enriched uranium from countries deemed to endanger US interests – a clause with direct implications for future energy deals with China or Russia. The agreement also commits Dhaka 3.5 billion dollars in US agricultural purchases, including wheat, soybeans and cotton.
of tariff relief accompanying the deal came in two stages: Washington cut its tax on Bangladeshi exports from 37% to 20% effective August 1, 2025, after initial negotiations ended, and then to 19% when the broader trade deal was formalized in February.
The agreement also includes a provision – Article 5.3 — that removes the reciprocal surcharge on clothing made using American cotton and man-made fibers, though economists have noted that the base tariff remains, making the benefit narrower in practice than in the headlines.
Dhaka knows exactly how this game is played. of 3.7 billion dollars The official order for 14 Boeing aircraft – eight 787-10 Dreamliners, two 787-9 Dreamliners and four 737-8 MAX aircraft – signed by Biman Bangladesh Airlines on April 30, 2026, was widely understood as the commercial fulfillment of a commitment made within the February trade agreement. It is widely regarded as a geopolitical statement dressed up as aviation procurement, with no serious argument to the contrary.
Beijing has not let the contrast go unnoticed. In a meeting with Bangladesh’s then foreign affairs adviser in Kuala Lumpur last July, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi pointed out that China extends 100% duty-free access to Bangladeshi products and called the weight of US tariffs on one of the world’s least developed countries. “Neither reasonable nor ethical.”
India has its own set of alerts. Speaking at an Observer Research Foundation event in New Delhi in July last year, Chief of the Defense Staff General Anil Chauhan said that a possible convergence of interests between China, Pakistan and Bangladesh could have serious implications for regional stability – placing the question of Bangladesh’s strategic alignment at the center of India’s security calculations.
Nothing in this calculus worries New Delhi more than the Teesta project. Bangladesh has officially requested one $550 million in Chinese loans for Phase 1 of the Teesta River Comprehensive Management and Restoration Project – a plan that would dredge 140 million cubic meters of sediment, reclaim 171 square kilometers land and rebuild hundreds of kilometers of embankments across the northern districts.
The issue is not the water but the geography as a whole. The project’s footprint runs adjacent to the Siliguri Corridor — the narrow, 22-kilometer-wide strip of land that connects mainland India with its eight northeastern states, and the single most strategically sensitive stretch of land in South Asia.
Adding to New Delhi’s concern are the constant reports that Bangladesh plans to make to upgrade its Lalmonirhat air basea World War II-era facility located less than 20 kilometers from the Indian border with Chinese technical assistance.
India has moved swiftly in response. In May last year, the Airports Authority of India sent a team to survey the long-defunct Kailashahar Airport in Tripura’s Unakoti district – the first concrete step towards reviving a base that had been non-functional for more than three decades.
While Dhaka sees substantial internal modernization in the form of flood management and upgrading its long-neglected air force, New Delhi sees a Chinese military footprint heading towards its most vulnerable point.
The shadow that hangs over this entire visit is July 2024, when then Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina went to Beijing following a rumored $5 billion budget support package, only to return early and reportedly frustrated, with only $136 million in commitments, in the form of a 1 billion yuan grant.
Rahman will arrive in China in a completely different position. It carries a cleaner project pipeline, the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council already secured for the main industrial areas and the support of a powerful parliamentary majority.
He also faces difficult domestic challenges. Severe gas and electricity shortages continue to hamper factories that Chinese investors would seek to build or fill, and Bangladesh’s bureaucracy has a well-documented history of scuttling approved projects for years before construction begins.
Ultimately, Rahman’s trip will not be judged by the number of memos he brings back from Beijing. It remains to be seen whether Dhaka can execute a precise high-wire act – attracting billions in Chinese infrastructure funding and military equipment without triggering a devastating economic backlash from Washington or a security crisis with New Delhi.
Both risks are real and neither is easily resolved as Bangladesh moves decisively towards Beijing.
Jannatul Naym Pieal is a Dhaka-based journalist, writer and researcher with over a decade of experience in professional journalism. He is also the author of 10 published books and a scholar focusing on the Bangladeshi media industry and its intersections with wider social and academic fields.
