Bangladesh foreign policy: balancing India, China, and US
The numbers settled the argument before the new government wrote a single line of doctrine. In FY24, Bangladesh's bilateral trade with China reached Tk 2.246 trillion; trade with India stood at Tk 1.463 trillion.
Bangladesh Foreign Policy: the New 'Bangladesh First' Era
The 'Bangladesh First' Doctrine: Redefining Strategic Autonomy
"Bangladesh First" is, at its core, a rebranding of strategic hedging — the familiar posture of smaller states caught between competing great powers. The novelty is not the concept but the calendar. Dhaka is attempting the pivot immediately after the August 2024 ouster of Sheikh Hasina, with the economy growing at a World Bank-projected 3.9 percent in FY26 and a leadership in Delhi still smarting from the change of regime. The window for clean repositioning is narrow.
The doctrine's working assumption is straightforward: Bangladesh will not be folded into any single bloc. It will trade with Washington, borrow from Beijing, and argue with New Delhi when necessary, while refusing to convert any of those relationships into a formal alliance commitment. That is the public framing. Whether the bureaucracy, military procurement pipeline, and trade ministry can actually operate on three clocks without one of them breaking is the empirical question.
What the doctrine does not say is equally important. It does not promise a break with India, nor does it concede the relationship with China. It refuses the binary that smaller foreign services often fall into — pick a side or be picked for. For a country of 170 million people sitting on the Bay of Bengal, that refusal is not idealism. It is the minimum condition for policy independence.
The doctrine reads like neutrality, but it functions as a pricing strategy: Dhaka is selling access to its market, labor, and geography, and refusing to let any single buyer set the terms.
Navigating the China-India Trade Imbalance and Defense Ties
The trade ledger dictates the diplomatic itinerary more honestly than any white paper. China's dominance — Tk 2.246 trillion against India's Tk 1.463 trillion in FY24 — explains why Rahman's first major bilateral engagement was Beijing, not New Delhi. From June 22 to 26, 2026, the Prime Minister met President Xi Jinping and upgraded bilateral relations to a "China-Bangladesh community with a shared future in the new era." The language is borrowed directly from Beijing's diplomatic template with other regional partners, and that borrowing is itself the message.
Defense ties are where the tactical picture gets sharper. In February 2026, Reuters reported that China signed an agreement to construct a drone factory near the Indian border. That is not a commercial transaction. It is a positioning move inside India's security perimeter, and New Delhi read it accordingly. The Rahman's government cannot pretend this is routine infrastructure cooperation. It will be priced into every subsequent India-Bangladesh interaction.
The unresolved file on the desk is the proposed procurement of JF-17 fighter jets from Pakistan, details of which remain undisclosed. If that deal proceeds, the India file becomes substantially harder, because Delhi will interpret Pakistani platforms in Bangladeshi service as a deliberate signal rather than a budgetary choice. The trade numbers say China is the economic partner of record; the defense pipeline says something more complicated is being assembled. "Bangladesh First" has to reconcile the two, or the doctrine will not survive contact with its own procurement decisions.
The U.S. Pivot: Economic Diplomacy and the Boeing Aircraft Deal
If China is the gravitational center, Washington is the counterweight — and the counterweight is being purchased in commercial terms. In February 2026, Bangladesh secured a trade arrangement that reduced U.S. tariffs to 19 percent on exports, with zero tariffs on certain garments produced using American materials. Alongside that came a $3.7 billion Boeing aircraft deal. The package is being read in Dhaka as validation of the hedging strategy: proof that Washington will offer terms to a government refusing single-bloc alignment.
The transaction is genuinely useful. A 19 percent tariff line is the difference between competitive and uncompetitive in the U.S. garment market, where Banglades exporters live or die on margin. The Boeing order modernizes a fleet that has been an operational drag for years. But the diplomatic dividend is the real product. The deal gives Dhaka leverage in Beijing and New Delhi by demonstrating that walking away from either is survivable — that there is a third commercial pole. Whether that leverage gets spent on actual policy independence or gets consumed by the next balance-of-payments crunch is the open question.
The Boeing order is not an aircraft purchase. It is an insurance premium paid to Washington in exchange for the right to disappoint both Beijing and New Delhi without losing access to the U.S. market.
There is a structural risk that gets underplayed in the official narrative. Economic statecraft of this kind only works if the underlying economy is growing fast enough to absorb the cost of the diplomatic flexibility it buys. The 3.9 percent FY26 projection is below the trajectory Bangladesh ran during the 2010s. If growth slips further, the "Bangladesh First" premium becomes unaffordable, and Dhaka will be forced back toward whichever partner offers the cheaper dollar. The doctrine is, in effect, buying time against that eventuality.
Diplomatic Friction: The Extradition Challenge and Rebuilding Trust with New Delhi
No file on the Rahman's desk is heavier than the relationship with India. The ouster of Hasina in August 2024 and her continued presence on Indian soil have made the bilateral relationship structurally adversarial in a way it has not been in decades. Dhaka has formally requested her extradition; the timeline and outcome remain undisclosed. As long as that request is outstanding and unanswered, every other India engagement carries a residue of unresolved grievance.
New Delhi's response has been tactical rather than emotional. The appointment of Dinesh Trivedi as high commissioner in 2026 was a deliberate choice — a familiar face with parliamentary experience, designed to signal that India is willing to rebuild the relationship but on terms that are not yet on the table. Trivedi's task is to keep the channel open while Delhi waits out the worst of the post-Hasina turbulence. That is a longer game than Dhaka is currently equipped to match, because Bangladesh needs India on water-sharing, border management, transit, and a dozen other files simultaneously. The asymmetry of urgency is real.
The drone factory near the Indian border does not help. Nor does the JF-17 procurement file. Each move that Dhaka makes on the China or Pakistan axis is read in South Block as a signal about the India file, whether or not that is the intent. "Bangladesh First" requires Dhaka to be precise about which provocations are strategic and which are collateral — a distinction that requires a diplomatic service currently in transition.
Strategic Hedging: Why Malaysia and Regional Partnerships Matter
The choice of Malaysia as Rahman's first official foreign visit on June 22, 2026 looked modest at the time. It was not. By going to Kuala Lumpur before either Beijing or New Delhi, the Prime Minister denied both giants the symbolic claim of being "first." It was a small procedural move with large diplomatic consequences: neither capital could frame the visit as a snub, and both had to wait their turn.
The deeper play is regional. Smaller middle powers across Asia — Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, the Gulf states — are increasingly coordinating hedging strategies that reduce the leverage of any single great power. Bangladesh's commercial and diaspora links with Malaysia are substantial, and the visit converted those links into diplomatic capital. The same logic applies to potential partnerships with Japan, South Korea, and the ASEAN bloc, where Bangladesh is underweight relative to its economic size. The hedging doctrine only functions if there is a thick middle layer of partners to operate through; otherwise, the binary returns.
This is where the operational infrastructure matters. Trade arrangements, tariff schedules, and bilateral deals are the visible layer of foreign policy, but the layer underneath — payment rails, banking access, regulatory compatibility — determines whether the deals translate into real commercial flows. For any emerging market trying to diversify its external relationships, the practical question of comparing foreign business banking options and similar cross-border financial plumbing is unglamorous but decisive. A 19 percent tariff from Washington means little if a Chittagong exporter cannot receive payment on terms competitive with a Vietnamese rival. Diplomacy sells the headline; finance delivers the order.
Verdict: Doctrine Without Delivery Is Just Positioning
"Bangladesh First" is the correct instinct. A country of Bangladesh's size, location, and economic structure cannot afford single-bloc alignment, and the new government deserves credit for naming that reality rather than pretending it does not exist. The execution, however, is unresolved. The China trade gap is widening, not narrowing. The defense pipeline is drifting toward choices that will complicate the India file for years. The U.S. economic package is real but expensive to maintain in a slowing economy. And the institutional capacity to manage all three relationships at once — without dropping one or being forced into another — has not been built.
The tactical assessment is straightforward. Rahman has bought time and optionality. He has not yet built the diplomatic muscle to use them. The next twelve months will be defined by whether the doctrine gets translated into bureaucratic reality or remains a slogan for press conferences. If the JF-17 file moves, the India relationship deteriorates. If growth slips below 3.9 percent, the U.S. premium becomes unaffordable. If the China relationship deepens without an offsetting India track, the regional balance tips.
The government is playing the right formation. It has not yet shown it can win the match.