China-Bangladesh ties deepen with 13 new agreements and strategic investments.
India fears Chinese projects near the Siliguri Corridor and Mongla Port.
New Delhi strengthens border security while reviving diplomatic engagement with Dhaka.
Bangladesh's Prime Minister Tarique Rahman returned home this week after a four day state visit to China, the longest leg of his first overseas tour since taking office. The visit ended with a meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on 26 June, where he sat down with President Xi Jinping after two days of talks, a state banquet and more than a dozen agreements signed with Chinese companies and ministries.
For New Delhi, watching from across the border, the trip has reopened a question that has been simmering since 2024, how close is Dhaka willing to get to Beijing, and what does that mean for India's own backyard.
New Delhi-Dhaka Relation Cools
This did not happen overnight. Relations between Dhaka and New Delhi soured sharply after Sheikh Hasina's Awami League government was ousted in August 2024, when mobs attacked the Indira Gandhi Cultural Centre and Indian visa application centres across Bangladesh, forcing India to scale back consular operations for nearly two years, as confirmed by India's new high commissioner Dinesh Trivedi.
The interim government under Muhammad Yunus that followed tilted visibly towards Beijing and Islamabad, and China was waiting with open arms. One telling example surfaced just this week. Bangladesh had originally allotted 110 acres next to Mongla Port to an Indian developer, Hiranandani Group's subsidiary Evita Constructions, under a 2015 agreement. The project never broke ground, and the interim government delisted it in October 2025 after the developer failed to commence land development work within the two years stipulated in the agreement, according to Business Standard. China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation signed for the same plot in Beijing on June 25.
What Bangladesh Brought Home
The Tarique-Xi meeting was the headline event of a visit that began in Malaysia and ran through the World Economic Forum's Summer Davos in Dalian before three packed days in the capital.
Bangladesh and China signed two agreements and 13 memoranda of understanding, according to a post from Tarique's own Bangladesh Nationalist Party, spanning the China-Bangladesh Mongla Port Economic Zone, the Chinese Economic and Industrial Zone at Anwara in Chattogram, river management cooperation on the Teesta, electric vehicles, renewable energy and a $220 million garment factory investment.
Dhaka had gone in seeking close to $6 billion in Chinese financing, and reports suggest the visit may also pave the way for the acquisition of 24 Chinese J-10CE fighter jets along with drone technology.
China's water resources minister also discussed expanding cooperation on the Teesta Master Plan covering flood control, dredging and irrigation, per a briefing from the Bangladesh prime minister's office.
Why Is It a Worry for India
The unease is not really about trade figures. It is about geography. The proposed Teesta works run along the northern districts that sit right against the Siliguri Corridor, the same chicken's neck that links India's north east to the rest of the country, and any Chinese footprint near that stretch sets off alarm bells regardless of how the project is framed. Add to that the long running concern over the Lalmonirhat airbase, a World War Two era facility barely 135 kilometres from the corridor that Chinese officials have reportedly inspected for possible upgrades, and the worry stops being theoretical.
Security analysts have also long placed Mongla and Chittagong within China's broader pattern of port investments across the Indian Ocean rim, alongside Gwadar in Pakistan and Hambantota in Sri Lanka, a pattern critics call the String of Pearls, as laid out by Fair Observer.
India’s Role
New Delhi is doing both, on two separate tracks. On the hard security side, the response has been concrete. India has built new installations including the Lachit Borphukan Military Station near Dhubri, along with forward bases at Chopra in West Bengal and Kishanganj in Bihar, while deploying Rafale jets, BrahMos missiles and T-90 tanks to the region, according to reporting by Swarajya.
On the diplomatic side, India has quietly tried to keep the door open in Dhaka. This week alone, new high commissioner Dinesh Trivedi announced that India will resume normal tourist visa applications for Bangladeshi nationals from June 28 after a near two year pause, alongside earlier moves to reopen security and intelligence contacts and continue diesel supplies through the Bangladesh India Friendship Pipeline. India no longer expects Dhaka to choose sides cleanly, so it is hedging on every front it can reach.
