After her India visit, Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina to travel to China next week

Beijing: China on Thursday announced that Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will visit Beijing early next week and meet China’s top leadership, including President Xi Jinping, which will facilitate political mutual trust, and push bilateral relations to a new level.

Hasina’s visit from July 8 to 10, days after her India visit, is being seen as an apparent attempt to balance ties between India and China, one of Dhaka’s biggest investors.

“This is her (Hasina’s) first visit to China since she started her new term. It is also her second visit to China in five years,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told a media briefing here.

During her visit, she will meet President Xi, Premier Li Qiang and attend the signing ceremony of cooperation documents together, Mao said.

The leaders of the two countries will have an “in-depth exchange of views” on deepening traditional friendship, expanding mutually beneficial cooperation and international and regional issues of common concern, the spokesperson said, adding that Hasina will also attend the China-Bangladesh Business Trade and Investment Conference.

“The visit will facilitate political mutual trust, strengthen the development strategies, promote high-quality joint construction of the ‘Belt and Road,’ accelerate the implementation of the three major global initiatives, and push China-Bangladesh relations to a new level,” Mao said.

Hasina’s China visit was expected to focus on more Chinese investments in Bangladesh under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a multi-project, multi-country infrastructure project of China. Next to Pakistan, Bangladesh is the biggest recipient of Chinese investments estimated to be over USD 25 billion.

Hasina’s Beijing visit follows her travel to New Delhi last month besides her attendance at the swearing ceremony of Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the third term signifying close ties between India and Bangladesh.

After her talks with Modi on June 22, both sides decided to work on a mega project to conserve and manage the cross-border Teesta River, apart from moving ahead to start negotiations on a comprehensive trade pact and boosting defence ties.

Incidentally, China has also evinced interest to build a mega project on the Teesta River.

After returning from her India visit, Hasina said Bangladesh would gauge proposals from both India and China for that mega project and accept the better one for her country.