{"id":20136,"date":"2025-03-28T11:32:40","date_gmt":"2025-03-28T05:47:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/?p=20136"},"modified":"2025-03-28T11:32:40","modified_gmt":"2025-03-28T05:47:40","slug":"chinas-xi-vows-deeper-cooperation-in-meeting-with-bangladesh-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/chinas-xi-vows-deeper-cooperation-in-meeting-with-bangladesh-leader\/","title":{"rendered":"China’s Xi vows deeper cooperation in meeting with Bangladesh leader"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday pledged deeper cooperation with Bangladeshi counterpart Muhammad Yunus in a meeting that came as Dhaka seeks new friends to offset frosty ties with India.<\/p>\n

Yunus took charge of Bangladesh last August after the toppling of autocratic ex-premier Sheikh Hasina, who fled to New Delhi after a student-led uprising.<\/p>\n

India was the biggest benefactor of Hasina’s government, and her ouster sent cross-border relations into a tailspin, culminating in Yunus choosing to make his first state visit to China — India’s biggest Asian rival.<\/p>\n

Xi told Yunus on Friday that Beijing was “willing to work with Bangladesh to push bilateral cooperation to a new level,” Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported.<\/p>\n

“China… insists on remaining a good neighbour, good friend and good partner to Bangladesh, based on mutual trust,” Xi said, according to CCTV.<\/p>\n

The Chinese leader reportedly said Beijing and Dhaka should “firmly support each other” on core interests and backed Bangladesh on issues including safeguarding national sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity.<\/p>\n

He added that the two countries would explore cooperation in infrastructure construction, water conservancy and the digital, marine and environmental sectors.<\/p>\n

Dhaka said this week that Yunus’s China visit showed that Bangladesh was “sending a message”.<\/p>\n

The 84-year-old Nobel laureate is expected to return home on Saturday after holding several other high-level meetings in the Chinese capital.<\/p>\n

Several agreements are expected to be signed on economic and technical assistance, cultural and sports cooperation, and media collaboration between the two countries, according to the Bangladeshi administration.<\/p>\n

Talks are also expected to touch on Bangladesh’s immense population of Rohingya refugees, most of whom fled a violent military crackdown in neighbouring Myanmar in 2017.<\/p>\n

China has acted as a mediator between Bangladesh and Myanmar in the past to broker the repatriation of the persecuted minority, although efforts stalled because of Myanmar’s unwillingness to have them returned.<\/p>\n

– India tensions –<\/p>\n

Senior figures in the Indian and Bangladeshi governments have traded barbs ahead of Yunus’s sojourn to Beijing.<\/p>\n

Those tensions have almost fully halted travel by Bangladeshis to India for medical tourism, thousands of whom crossed the border each year to seek care in their larger neighbour.<\/p>\n

Dhaka’s top foreign ministry bureaucrat said this week that talks in Beijing would touch on the establishment of a Chinese “Friendship Hospital” in Bangladesh.<\/p>\n

Yunus’s caretaker administration has the unenviable task of instilling democratic reforms ahead of new elections expected by mid-2026.<\/p>\n

It has requested — so far unsuccessfully — that India allow Hasina’s extradition to face charges of crimes against humanity for the killing of hundreds of protesters during the unrest that toppled her government.<\/p>\n

Yunus has also sought a meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a bid to reset relations, with both expected to be at the same regional summit in Bangkok next month.<\/p>\n

His government has yet to receive a response, with Indian foreign minister S. Jaishankar saying the request was “under review”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday pledged deeper cooperation with Bangladeshi counterpart Muhammad Yunus in a meeting that came as Dhaka seeks new friends to offset frosty ties with India. Yunus took charge of Bangladesh last August after the toppling of autocratic ex-premier Sheikh Hasina, who fled to New Delhi after a student-led uprising. India […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20137,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20136"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20136"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20136\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20138,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20136\/revisions\/20138"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}