Foreign minister Hasan Mahmud on Wednesday said that Chinese assistance for Bangladesh’s development would be focused during prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s state visit to China scheduled for July 8–11.
‘The prime minister’s upcoming visit to China would be a significant one,’ he told reporters after a launching ceremony of the Foreign Service Academy’s journal and ‘smart library’ on the academy premises in the city.
‘China is a big development partner of Bangladesh and we have constructed some iconic structures like Bangabandhu Bridge and Bangabandhu Tunnel with the support of China,’ he said.
Responding to a question, he said that the prime minister’s China visit would mainly be focused on issues related to the country’s development with the cooperation of China.
He said the visit would significantly advance bilateral cooperation between the two countries.
Sheikh Hasina is going to China just two weeks after her two-day bilateral visit to India in June 21-22 amid a tug of war between New Delhi and Beijing over a mega development project on the trans-boundary river Teesta inside Bangladesh.
Bangladesh has good relations with both the countries, the foreign minister said, mentioning the foreign relation dictum ‘friendship to all and malice to none.’
He said that Indian prime minister Narendra Modi was informed of prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s upcoming visit to China in their bilateral meeting in New Delhi.
‘As China’s role in the repatriation of Rohingyas came up during the bilateral talks with Modi, our prime minister told him that she would visit China next month,’ Hasan said, referring to the bilateral meeting held in New Delhi on June 22.
Foreign ministry officials, however, said that Bangladesh would seek budget support in addition to loans for a number of infrastructure development projects to ease pressure on its foreign currency reserve.
They said that they said that they were still working to finalise the proposals.
Minister of the international department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee Liu Jianchao, who recently visited Dhaka and held a meeting with the prime minister, said that a number of agreements in various areas of bilateral cooperation were expected to be signed during the Bangladesh prime minister’s forthcoming visit to China.
Beijing and New Delhi are already on a collision course after India’s latest proposal to finance the Teesta River restoration and management project when China has already offered both financial and technical support for the same project.
Tension grew between the two countries as the matter was discussed during Sheikh Hasina’s bilateral talks with her Indian counterpart Narendra Modi during her June 21–22 visit to New Delhi, her second trip to the country in 15 days.
Before Hasina’s Delhi visit, India expressed its willingness to support the implementation of the proposed Teesta River Comprehensive Management and Restoration Plan in Bangladesh’s north, a strategically important location for India where China has already completed a survey for a $1 billion project.