Bangladesh pursues ties with both India, China very strongly

Bangladesh does not regard its relationships with India and China as a zero-sum game or mutually exclusive and it pursues both relationships very strongly, said National Security Adviser, and High Representative to the Chief Adviser Khalilur Rahman.

Addressing a seminar as the chief guest on Reassessing Sino-Bangla relations: Chief Adviser's landmark visit', he said, "These are vital relationships for us. Even the Chinese president said that for the stability and peace of South Asia and Asia itself, the dragon and the elephant must dance together, and that's a very good thing."

"We should rejoice at each other's successes and we should help each other in our troubles. So as I said, these are not mutually exclusive relationship," he told the seminar organised by the China-South Asia Centre for Socio Cultural Studies (CSCSS) of the South Asian Institute of Policy and Governance (SIPG), North South University in the city.

Chinese envoy in Dhaka Yao Wen was the special guest at the seminar moderated by Tawfiq M Haque, director of the SIPG.

Terming the CA visit to Beijing a 'breakthrough' he said, "Chinese President Xi Jinping expressed his solidity with us. And this political investment is extremely important for us. Our relationship with China is one of the most important relationships we have. We have to manage it with great care."

The NSA hoped that the next elected government will grow the seeds sown during the visit 'into big trees'. And our young people are able to harness them, he added.

"This visit was the first visit by the chief adviser to a foreign country on a bilateral basis, and this visit took place during the 50 years of the diplomatic relationship between the two countries. For these two reasons, it's both historical and significant. I can assure you that all the inspirations that we had in this visit are all homegrown. We didn't take any instruction from anybody else," he mentioned.

Narrating the background of the visit, he said, "We spend countless hours on internal consultations. And one major hero of the success of this visit is Ambassador Yao Wen. We spent a lot of time in Dhaka and in Beijing on the outcome. And he knows we not only looked at the exigencies of the present, but also the imperatives of the future.

"So there are aspects of visit that are said, that are written, but there are also aspects that are unsaid. This tells you how well it went, or maybe it didn't go well. So in this case, he sent a plane for us. Then you saw that President Xi himself came out of the Great Hall of the People to receive our chief adviser, which he usually doesn't do. Then he took a group photo of all of us. Then he asks his vice-president to host a banquet for our chief adviser, which is also very rare.

"And during the meeting, the most powerful man of the world very humbly told our chief adviser that when he was the governor of Fujian, he was a student of micro finance, and applied the principles of professor Yunus to eradicate poverty. So you see the warmth, the closeness, the bond that words can't adequately express."

Highlighting the prospect of relocation of Chinese factories to Bangladesh, he said, "We want hundreds of Chinese factories to come, enterprises to come.

So when on the sidelines, we met with the businessman, I moderated a panel where the CEOs of some of the most important Chinese companies came. So they showed interest, and I'm so happy to tell you that in a month's time, the commerce minister of China will come with 200 enterprises."

Responding to a question, he said Bangladesh does not want to take advantage of the current tariff situation.

"We cannot take advantage of a situation which changes every day. We have to see where all of these stand. Today it's 37 per cent, tomorrow it's 10 and the next day-we don't know. And you see the market all over the world is responding in a very erratic way. So we have to wait for things to settle down, and then we have to see how we can make our moves."

mirmostafiz@yahoo.com